I probably am being unreasonable but i need to vent.....

In all fairness being jealous of a single mother with MS is mind boggling and you need to give your head a wobble.

My daughter was diagnosed with a degenerative condition at the age of 14. It is already rapidly progressing. She knows that eventually she will require a wheelchair. She is currently at uni doing a degree, working in a fulfilling role and has an active social life, loves going to gigs and wants to travel. She wants to live her life as fully as she can for as long as she can because she knows it won't always be like this.

She also has days where she is in constant intense pain, cannot use her hands, cannot walk 25 metres, falls multiple times a day, is fatigued, is on medication for life with other bonus meds to counteract the side effects of her medication, we have had to make adaptions to our home and she is in the disability flat at halls and needs support for simple daily activities at times. Not to mention fitting Dr's, specialists, bloods, physio and OT around both of our jobs and her studies.

Her Insta reflects the life that makes her happy not dwell on the negative. People could look at her Insta and question why she gets PIP and a blue badge but they don't see the other side of the story.

My DH has MS , diagnosed in his late 20s, unable to work since early 30s. We did our best to give dc ( who were babies /toddler when he was diagnosed) as normal a childhood as we could including holidays abroad, days out etc. Some days DH couldn't get out of bed. No one sees those times, they just see the Disney pics.
At that time DH sometimes used a wheelchair to allow us to do things as a family. Now aged 48 he can’t walk at all, has a daily carer & little quality of life. Please don't begrudge your friend a life while her health allows it.

@MurdoMunro I agree, it’s such a stigmatised illness. I hate having to tell anyone I have ME because I hear their eyes rolling in their heads.

I just wanted to vent and understand why i felt this resentful

I get what you are saying OP. When you're working hard and struggling financially, it's easy to feel resentful of someone who seemingly has it all handed to them on a plate. Especially if she has never had a job, even prior to being unwell. It seems that some families never work, and this passes down from generation to generation.

Im sure that it feels like rubbing your face in it when you see her posts on social media, but like others have said, you are only seeing her good days. You know that you wouldn't really want to swap lives with her.

I think you need to block her on social media, focus on yourself and your family, and try to stop comparing yourself to others.

I'm a single working parent, and I'm always skint, but I try to treat myself to something (very!) cheap after payday, so I dont feel quite so much that I have worked all month for nothing.

It is shit, but I think the real problem is that so many people are working hard with bugger all left for anything else after bills and food. That's stressful and depressing, but it's not your mate with MS on benefits fault.

Keep on keeping on - life's hard for everyone, just a different flavour of hard x

My daughter has Elhers Danlos syndrome and fibromyalgia and lives in chronic pain every day. As a family we help her out to give her and her son a good life. She's only 27 and may have to use a wheelchair in future. To look at her you'd never guess there was anything wrong with her. Life's hard enough for people suffering hidden disabilities, you need to be kinder not jealous of her.

Some of you need to do a bit of research before making your sweeping statements on the lives of people with MS. The MS Trust and MS Society websites are a good start. (And this is not a defence of the OP, trust me).

You sound very bitter. I’m a single parent to one child. I have MS, thankfully in remission for quite some time. But living with the fear of a relapse that can happen at any time without warning is very scary. I could wake up in the morning and have no power in my legs.

Any spare money I have is spent on things me and my son can enjoy.

I would happily swap my MS for your tax paying job please.

I have suspicion the OP meant to say ME @ChronicallyMEAgain so you are right to come in and say your piece. ME is low hanging fruit for these sorts of threads.

I live in fear of people like the op knowing I’m in receipt of PIP (enhanced rates on both elements and an ongoing / indefinite award to give you some idea of how severely disabled I am). This is why in real life I don’t tell anyone I get PIP. At all. People are just so ignorant about it all and it’s actually very upsetting to think people are so quick to judge.

I have a nice mortgage free home that comes from a time when I was a very high earner, before I became seriously unwell with lupus and other issues. And I have a motability car and a husband that works full time. We have nice holidays, why shouldn’t we? Or maybe I should just sit and rot in my chair till I die - probably earlier than most people.

I don’t tell anyone about my struggles. You don’t really have a coffee with someone and launch into sharing that you’ve had to change your clothes twice already because you’ve peed yourself due to bladder issues, and the pads don't work. You don’t tend to share that yes you’ve popped out to Tesco but half an hour earlier you were pacing around howling in pain waiting for the Tramadol to kick in so you can do the simple act of buying some food.

The one week I go on holiday I double my steroids and take extra painkillers with me, but I cannot do this all year round because of the side effects and long term impact of doing this. That one week of the year is something that I enjoy but it can’t be a regular occurrence.

You know nothing about your friends condition. Nothing.

Such a carefully crafted bingo card of circumstances, every possible box ticked. I call absolute bullshit.

More worrying is the attempted cultivation of a mindset suggesting that even the "genuinely" disabled or vulnerable should be othered, marginalised and considered an unworthy drain on society, because that's exactly what happened roughly a century ago in a particular European country. The steady drip of propaganda......

We see you and your "need to vent".

Absolutely vile.

Seriously OP!!

MS takes years to diagnose and that’s only after symptoms are presenting which means damage has been done. For all you know, this has been disabling to her for decades.

You try to justify your reasoning - you argue that she hasn’t contributed to the system so she shouldn’t take out from it. What is the alternative? She lives on the street? Begs? Or should she curb her life accordingly so as not to offend people? Because at points what you are intimating is the latter and seriously, you need to move on from her. And you know what, she’s pretty bloody young to be diagnosed with a life ending disease. You need to have a long think about your values and what it means to be kind and also why you are so frustrated in your own life to be obsessing about this woman. Just be thankful you don’t have her diagnosis.

@TitusMoan I’m an ME sufferer (I’m not coming for you, honest!) but I just wanted to put out there that ME is an awful debilitating disease in itself. It’s highly unlikely that someone with ME would be doing all that the OP states this person is doing.

Some studies have shown that the fatigue associated with ME, can be more debilitating than the fatigue associated with other serious diseases such as cancer and MS.

I know you meant no harm with your post, I just wanted to mention this as ME is often stigmatised as being a little bit tired.

Imagine her with a crown on and pretend she brings in the tourists?

No, CM has no impact on means tested benefits.

The child maintenance is not means tested,but wouldn't the amount she gets impact on any means tested benefits that she does get? That was how it worked when I was receiving child maintenance back in the early to late 90s. My DD's dad gave my £120 a month,but that was deducted from my Income Support. Don't know if it still works that way.

Exactly THIS! 👆 The sheer ignorance around welfare benefits and the judgmental remarks people make on the back of that ignorance is very tiresome.

Agree. We aren’t the bitchy mums.

wrong audience op for you to try to carry on the bitchfest.

So a whole group of women are being spiteful about a disabled woman then? Lovely. This isn't a case of "safety in numbers" OP.

benefits since leaving school at 16 ( she is now 39). She has never worked through choice not because of her disability

Chances are you don't know all the reasons why she was benefits since 16, you did after all, say she was a friend in quotation marks...

MS also takes years to diagnose but in the meantime, sufferers will be living with debilitating symptoms.

YABVVU you are not her friend. Friends don't post about them on MN and offer them up for benefit bashing.
She also wont be affording her lifestyle on benefits.... she probably gets maintenance for her children.
She can also post what she wants on her social media. You are free to unfollow it all. Social media is a great way of storing memories. One day, her days out etc will be just that... memories.

What is your motive here?

I bet she'd be really happy to know everyone is having a bitch about her behind her back! And as her "friend" just because everyone else is saying it about her, makes it ok for you to join in too?
I'd say let her get on with it and let her find some actual friends, who have a bit of sympathy not misplaced jealousy!

She probably doesn't have a pension and MS can be a life-limiting disease. Long haul holidays may have been saved for and she may only have had one in the last five years.

But you don't know her life and her struggle. Maybe she's a prolific author or copywriter. Maybe she makes beautiful art or music. Maybe she is a money-grubbing benefit scrounger. They do exist. But they are very few and far between and we pay more in research subsidies and tax breaks to commercial companies than we do to those who take advantage of the benefits system.

It's the price we pay to support our community as a whole because otherwise there would be no support for anyone.

I remember the Labour Party's original statement, From each according to their ability. To each according to their needs.

In all honesty, I doubt she can afford all that on benefits and PIP. She might have a cash in hand job somewhere or spending on her credit card.

Yeah I’m sure her nice holidays make up for her having MS 🙄

That you are envious of this woman says nothing good about you.

Folk have tried that. But these types of posts keep on coming in waves of vomit. Probs could claim PIP for that eh, live the high life.