Help

[Dublove35]

Hey everyone. I apologise already for this post. I’m new here & have been looking online for some help & support, I’ll keep this as short as possible. I’m a single mom of two girls (10 & 14), I suffer with depression, anxiety, ptsd, fibromyalgia & endometriosis. I receive UC & maintenance. We were made homeless sept ‘19 when I left an abusive/controlling relationship, we got put into temp housing  30 mins drive from my home town, I did have a car but the girls went to different schools in two different towns, I still managed to get them both there, on time for the four months we were in temp housing. We then got a 3rd floor council flat in my home town, we’d have been happy with a shed, as long as we wasn’t away from home and it’d have been an improvement to the temp housing we were put in. It was a holiday let originally but housed people in an emergency, you wouldn’t pay to have your dog stay there🤢it stank of damp & was freezing! Me & the girls slept in the same bed for comfort  and warmth lol! I spent out on extra blankets, heaters, hot water bottles & warmer clothes. Anyway, we moved into our flat (our safe place, finally!) It wasn’t in the best condition but we were just happy to have a place of our own. We had nothing, no furniture, appliances, carpet, not even towels. When I left the ex, we literally just left with the clothes we had & my car (which had, unbeknown to me, hadn’t been taxed for 2 years & was out of mot! Ex dealt with everything including car stuff & told me it was all kosher! Later finding out it was a death trap waiting to happen. I’d been driving round with my kids AND his kids (2 girls of the same age) in a car that was an accident waiting to happen!)

So we had nothing apart from our clothes, a few personal belongings & a flat of our own. My mom helped carpet mine & the girls bedroom, managed to get a free sofa, the council gave me a cooker (it was about 10 years old and rusty but it worked!) slowly but surely we started to accumulate things, not great things, not new things but things never the less. The kids settled in well and were so much happier, completely different girls! One afternoon whilst I was cooking, my youngest came running in and said the wall was leaking🙈 I went in and sure enough, she was right! I called the council’s emergency repair team, switched everything off, put towels & pans down but by this time my living room looked like the Amazon rainforest! It ended with my flat (3rd floor!) the 2nd & ground floor completely flooded, all of our belongings ruined and all of us homeless! We had nowhere to go! They offered a premier inn but I declined, I wasn’t putting the kids through that again! Luckily a friend offered us their sofa, my eldest went & stayed with her dad, my youngest stayed with me and went to her dads now and again. The flood was due to the hot water tank the council had left in (still full!) the loft when they moved to combi boilers, bursting and flooding the whole one side of the block of flats. This happened on 4th July, 3 months later and we were allowed to move back! Managed to get a few bits here and there but still a way to go. I’ve had no help or support and there’s been so many times when I’ve wondered if there was any point in being here. I suppose I’m asking if there’s any help out there? I feel so alone and a huge failure as a mom and as a human being. I’m broke, we had a food bank delivery yesterday which helped. My mom does help when she can but she’s bringing up my 10 year old niece as my sister suddenly died 5 years ago so I don’t talk to my mom as I feel she has more than enough going on then to worry about me. I just don’t have anyone at all and I feel lost. Any help or advice would be greatly appreciated😍and I’m sorry for the length of this post😳

[Anonymous]

Hello there!

Wow, sounds like you’ve really been up against it?! I can relate with the mental health issues, I’ve the same ones, so well done for coming through that barrage of negative events.

Have you applied for everything that you possibly can? Have you ever applied for PIP, with regards to your mental health etc?

[Dublove35]

I have applied for PIP a couple of months ago but not heard back as yet. Thanks for taking the time to reply, completely new to this😳x

[Biscuit2021]

I am so sorry you are going through this.

 

I don’t really have any advice but would a women’s help centre be able to offer any sort of service or even suggest? What about local free cycle groups and donation groups on Facebook?

 

Sending you a lot of love and hope things pick up for you very soon. X

[Shepherdess]

Have you tried  the gingerbread helpline, it looks like they will be able to advise with  some of the issues you are having.
Please do not blame yourself, this is just a series of horrid events and your survival rate so far is 100% !! You can do this and you are doing it l, so don’t be so hard on yourself.

Also I think it maybe worth chasing  your PIP application . Have you joined any waste saver groups on Facebook for your area they often give away unwanted furniture for free .

Take good care of yourself and please be kind to yourself

[GingerbreadCarmen]

Hi Dublove35, I’m really sorry to hear you’re going through this. Our single parent helpline may be able to help.  Please do call on  0808 802 0925 to speak to an adviser.  Calls are free from landlines and mobiles.  The Helpline is open Monday 10-6, Tuesday 10-4, Wednesday 10-1 and 5-7 and Thursday and Friday 10-4.

 

I hope that helps.  Carmen

[Dublove35]

Thank you all for your help and advice. I’m not in a good place mentally at the moment and cannot speak to anyone.

[Shepherdess]

What about texting for help, please reach out and don’t suffer on your own .

SHOUT 85258 is for specialist help , it’s free and you can just text away .

 

[Dublove35]

Thankyou,

[JBLA]

Hi Dublove… love the name.

Gosh… sending you all the love. So sorry you’ve experienced this too, we had a very similar experience few years back.. fled DV with not a lot, & not a lot of support, negotiated awful emergency housing & was placed in temp with the ceiling collapsed due to flooding! long story short, we ended up renting privately with support from UC/ housing benefit.

By far the hardest thing to overcome were the impacts this had on my mental health, so please don’t feel bad about feeling bad about this! In many ways.. how could we not be impacted by this? – it’s very stressful!

Recovery is entirely possible, in everyway & there is support out there! it’s just difficult to access or find at times 🙂

Really hope the helpline are able to signpost you to more, but if it helps;

– i found counselling was essential to recovery, it’s worth searching for free charities or organisations in your area, the NHS has a postcode search for services too; Counselling – NHS (www.nhs.uk)

– Gingerbread has a grants finder via turn to us, on their website which could help too…

– joining local support groups/ services can be really useful to help find pockets of extra support too.

personally i found Homestart were fantastic Charity, they operate in many areas and often have links if they don’t. a third of the families they support are contending with mental ill health & have lived through stressful situations like dv & homelessness.

Don’t forget to congratulate yourself everyday for how much you have survived with so many stressors on top too, as hard as it’s been; you have survived this, you are creating your safe space & have done it, despite all this, even if its not perfect yet!

If you can survive with all of this, as you have, now things are more settled, you can thrive after this.

much love xx

[JBLA]

to find your nearest homestart; Find your Home-Start | Home-Start UK

things will get better xx you are not alone in this xx

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