stefan2004 wrote:with DLA you get asessed every 3 years, obviously depending on how bad you are the higher you go.
oddly enough, just having aspergers makes you eligable for DLA, regardless of your condition. I will admit that when I was very young i was on highest form of DLA, because I was very bad before my adolesence - I had many major health problems, particularly trachaelstenosis, severe athsma..etc and my aspergers (according to most) was getting pretty bad.
Obviosly now Im nowhere near as bad as I was and my condition according to most is so good you can hardly notice it. (especially when you compare me to someone with moderate to severe aspergers)
I do know someone who grew up fairly poor in N.Ireland. He said his folks would fill him up with cheap colourful sweeties and orange squash before showing him to the expert for his routine checks, to worsen his ADD symptoms, so they'd get more money.
As I said - being on benefits for a mental-health issue casts an immediate shadow over being the sort of person who ought to have a gun. I realise it's a hard thing to turn down "free money", but it may be the price of making your way as a fairly-neurotypical adult and potential FAC-holder. Who knows? Maybe your recent improvement will get you taken of the DLA list anyway?
A few final things before I log off for the night. Do give it a few years of making your way as a DLA-free adult before you put the paperwork in. (I'm assuming you had your last assessment at 17 or 18, possibly while still at home and still in education, when the money might have been much more important). Don't mention past problems to the shooting-club committee unless you really have to. It *is* their job to give a sight-picture of your *current* suitability, but there's been a lot more pressure on them to fail anyone with a cedilla of doubt in the probationary process since Dunblane.
(Politics Alert: However, the old system worked fairly well. From the public domain evidence I've seen, the Hungerford killer had failed his probational assessment, and Hamilton had had his committee repeatedly requested the revocation of his FAC)