Will housing association help me move due to severe mental health issues?

Are there any voluntary or mental heath organisations in your area who could support you in taking the kids to the local park?

I don't know enough about housing to advise, but I do know about anxiety, depression & OCD.

You might already have thought of these, but some things I'm wondering are:

• Could you manage the process of moving? I presume you'd want to see the property before agreeing to move & then there's the packing, unpacking and organising change of address, new GP etc
• Could you manage an increased travel distance to your mum's and to daycare after moving? It sounds pretty tough already!
• How would you feel about having to leave the home you otherwise love because of your MH?

Are you getting therapy? The most effective thing for agoraphobia and OCD by a long way is CBT with exposure and response prevention?

Is there somewhere fairly nearby that you could work towards taking your kids. It sounds like a perfect goal for therapy.

You need to go back to the GP and ask for more help.

Agree with all of this, particularly the concerns around getting to nursery etc if you ended up getting moved further away from it.

You have rightly identified that this is negatively affecting your children, and I think you need to use that motivation to try and get additional help so that you can leave the house.

Having a garden you can use would be nice, but it isn't going to change the fact that they're basically stuck at home with you constantly when you aren't able to leave the house.

I think more needs to be invested in improving your mental health, rather than finding a property with a garden
( which obviously would be nice) but then you run the risk of ending up in a less desirable area.

What do you think OP?

Poor husband he's now to go to work a 2nd job. How will he have any time for himself or with his family? 🤢
Gardens need work and maintenance too. Who's going to keep it ticking over?

OP you haven't said has yourum.or other friend or relative got a garden. Failing that other green spaces, parks etc.

Could you not ask to move into the empty flat downstairs to you if it has a garden?

I spent 8 years having CBT plus private therapy to overcome agoraphobia and panic disorder, and now on an SSRI I live a pretty normal life.

What therapy are you having and what medication do you take? It sounds like what you’re currently doing isn’t sufficient. Honestly it’ll probably take you less time to recover from your illnesses than it will take for the council to move you. People wait a decade for a house move.

Are you doing any personal work on your issues? There are hundreds of excellent work books online and self help books on kindle. Yoga massively helped me too, I started doing online yoga and meditation for a long time before I started going in person.

Ultimately, it’s a lot of hard work to get better, and most of it can only be done by you and you alone.

I spent my 20s mostly alone in bed drinking, barely leaving the house. Now I work, have a busy social life, and lots of friends and hobbies. You can get better.

Will Op be able to leave the house to get to the park/ green space though?

Honestly this isn’t a healthy situation for your children. You need to actively work on recovering.

It isn’t a case of taking meds and going to therapy and expecting them to fix it, you have to do the work.

Feeling defeated and helpless and not actually putting the work and effort in to change that of course isn’t going to get you anywhere.

I don't think moving will help with any of your issues. It goes deeper and you are focusing on the wrong thing. It's a bit like someone with a broken leg, i need a motorised wheelchair and i will be better
. You need to fix the broken leg.

Mutual exchange would be a good idea, as some people can’t be bothered with a garden.

Do you have a social worker at all? I'm wondering if, in the short term at least, you would be able to have someone come round once or twice a week who could take the kids out for you?

Getting better is going to take time, keep going with it, the benefits will be so great when you finally get there.

And trust me, your kids are definitely not better off without you.

I understand what it’s like because I’ve been there. Didn’t leave the house for well over a decade.

You can recover. The power is in your hands. But the harsh reality is that you have to push yourself, you have to do the work, put the effort in, put yourself in uncomfortable situations.

A defeatist woe-is-me, everyone would be better off without me attitude will do nothing but keep you ill. Nobody can fix this but you.

Are you fully titrated on your ADHD meds? DD3 has ASD, OCD and ADHD. Her OCD was treated and it helped her to participate in daily life at home, but it was only once her ADHD medication was fully titrated that she could start to leave the house without a full panic attack. It still took a lot of work and support, but it gradually improved.

Is there HomeStart in your area? Have you been referred to Social Services for support?

I know it's likely to be frustrating that we are all saying that moving isn't the answer and is unlikely to happen, but it's true.

How will you cope if you move to a flat with a garden but then you have neighbours to deal with. Great if they're lovely neighbours, not so much if you have problem neighbours. The grass is not greener and you love where you are at the moment. Much better to work on being able to get out of the house more.

You sound like you are in the worst of it now @suffering7 but you have recently had a baby so the PND is really pummelling you but it won’t always be this way.

The treatment, as you are experiencing takes time, but it is treatment and in time you will move forward on this.

Can I recommend you follow a guy called Garron Noone on Instagram, he was agoraphobic in his teens and did not leave his home for years and of course he still has his issues, but he is honestly such a tonic - he is just so lovely and so funny but like you he clearly feels the world very deeply which makes his nervous system go Lu la at times.

He played on stage with Luke Combs a few weeks back in front of 80,000 people, not bad for a guy recovering from agoraphobia. I think if you are able to see some success stories it might help you to visualise a path forward for you.

The house thing is probably out of your control and might easily be a distraction and a non runner but getting better really is not.

I work in a Housing adjacent job in local government.
Put bluntly, in my experience the problem will move with you. I have seen time and time again people with severe mental health issues putting all their hopes in the fact that a change , be it a garden, an upstairs flat, a move away from a certain neighbour etc etc will solve their issues. It never does, they just refocus their anxiety elsewhere.
Our council would not move you on these grounds. We would expect you to explore mutual exchanges or private rental to facilitate it.
Unfortunately, given the chronic underfunding of local government, it’s just about all they can do to house people full stop, obliging people in situations like yours is just not possible.
Our waiting list for people in band C properties is circa 10 years.
We just don’t have the housing stock to juggle people around unless you are, for example, a newly disabled wheelchair user in a top floor flat, and even then it’s not instant.
Im sorry for your troubles but I agree with PPs who say please try and get as much support and therapy to help you deal with your conditions as that is probably the faster and healthier way out of your situation.

You need to get in touch with your local front door children’s service. If you had a difficult childhood, which might have involved social workers, I can understand your resistance to this, but they are honestly there to help. They can offer you support and maybe take your children out so you don’t feel so guilty.
I, as a mental health social worker, have very little clout with housing. If I wrote a letter of your needs, housing would say ‘well there’s loads of people with your conditions, they cant all have flats with gardens’. And that’s the truth.
Your best bet, as everyone has said, is to try really hard to get yourself out there. Baby steps. What is it that you worried about? Helping identify what is behind the anxiety will help you to understand and rationalise your fears.
It’s a response to trauma.
Once your body has learnt to protect itself by shutting down, or avoiding, it’s hard to start again but you can retrain your brain. I’ve seen it happen.

Otherwise, even if you get the garden, what’s the long term plan? You feel too anxious to go to sports days, end of year plays, holidays, that feeling of ‘I’m letting my kids down’ will continue with every milestone you miss.
You’re giving yourself a hard time. You are not hopeless. You can develop the skills to get through this. The tenacity you show in trying to get a garden shows you want things to be better. It won’t be easy but work with your mental health team, find out if you can have a care act assessment to identify support to help you or work with a social prescriber to really give it everything.
The power is really in your hands, you have the ability to change your story. Take back control.

You are so clearly suffering. The meds aren’t working for you. Time for a review of those. Maybe ask if the GP has any other suggestions. You’ll need to sort this before your eldest starts school.

So for 5 days a week your 11 month old doesn't get any fresh air?

OP knows this is an issue and she's trying to fix it.
Comments like this are not helpful

It is the truth

Sorry, I don't see how the stress of moving then potentially dealing with bad neighbours will help, the OP has all her hopes pinned on a garden but can't even get out of the car!

Why not visit a local park?

Surely to god going for a walk with a 11 month old is easier than sitting in a flat