To wish I hadn’t told food bank about my benefits

[AreweCf]

preparing to be slated so putting my hard hat on. DH had been running a business but devastatingly has had to stop due to mental health issues which he is getting counselling for. He has had to claim benefits (we are definitely claiming all we’re entitled to) but it’s still a huge drop in income. I’m a SAHM to my very high needs neurodivergent DC who are expensive in every way, before my DH became unemployed he had been footing the huge bill for their restricted diet, days out, groups, classes, toys, lessons, high heating costs, high everything costs, could go on, there are some things we have had to cut, but without these things there is a noticeable effect in my DC’s. Benefits won’t cover all of our rent either. We get our next benefit payment in 2 weeks, and our money won’t last us that long. Now, we thought we could use a food bank to help spread our money a bit further. All the food banks in the area are the same, and after honestly explaining my situation, they literally expect us to completely deplete our bank account balance down to pennies before they will help us. we’re not rolling in it, nor do we have have absolutely nothing in our accounts, but in our situation it’s not ok to be completely financially vulnerable. Are we CF’s for asking?

But if you're spending a lot of money on a very restricted diet and struggling to manage your child's eating disorder would it not make more sense to seek therapy privately if it isn't available on the NHS? Running around trying to source specific foods is clearly not sustainable. Did you read gogohmm's story?

Spasticty was/is a medical term. It became a playground term of abuse but there was nothing offensive about the word.

In the past the benefits office gave food vouchers to those who really needed them. Charity has taken its place.

I can’t even find gogohmm anywhere so maybe you could link their story?

There are only a couple of private UK clinics treating ARFID and they cost many thousands for even a few sessions.
Private or NHS, there are only a handful of specialists able to treat ARFID. Dr Rachel Bryant-Waugh for example, has created the PARDI assessment only in the last couple of years and this is now being used in England to assess people with ARFID.

@impz - please stop. Your ignorance about something you very obviously know nothing about is bordering on offensive.

I'm delighted gogohmm has found a solution that works for her child. If it was that simple to fix for all children, there wouldn't be hundreds of children who have to be tube fed or who are terribly underweight, despite being under the care of GOSH.

Think there may be an issue with semantics here. Like others have said, community kitchens and pantries won’t apply their eligibility criteria as strictly as “food banks”, yet they operate in a similar way by providing food packages.

The lack of mental health bed situation is abysmal I agree. But IF that were the case (that he was a danger to himself and others) then surely he shouldn’t even be in the same house with the children? I’m not saying that IS the case but it’s a case of you can’t have it both ways.. is somebody very seriously mentally Ill to the point of being unfit for work and childcare or not? if they’re not depressed ( as many people have correctly pointed out might not be the case here) and are instead say in a severe manic episode or a state of psychosis then are they even in control of themselves? If they are depressed maybe they’re struggling to get out of bed to the point of self neglect but they’re not actually in a delusional state…. So no danger to anyone else? I don’t know tbh there are so many variables.
I guess my main gripe is I genuinely feel it would be different if the roles were reversed and the mum was suffering with her mental health. Would she be in the same house doing nothing but concentrating on her own healing whilst he gave up his business and stayed at home to do all the domestic and childcare duties? I don’t think so.

I’ve no proof either way of course, just a hunch from the way things have been worded and the unsaid underlying assumptions contained within the op and society in general.

Plenty of offensive things said in this thread and others, including to me, so don't act as the thread police.

I have pretty strong views about this and I'm entitled to them as you are to yours. I think the attitude to food in the UK is a public health issue. It isn't just about Arfid. There may be specific cases that are very severe but I think there is a general problem with poor nutrition, lack of cooking skills, advertising etc. People often accept disordered eating in children and enable it rather than trying to address the underlying issues, including on societal level.

We tried therapy etc for ds. It made things worse because talking about food and pressure to “just give it a try” made things even worse.

often for arfid (depending on the trigger) a complete no pressure approach is best - but that is easier said than done

Yes, yes it does. And while the PP's kids spend years on a waiting list for treatment, the PP has to stop said kids from starving to death.

You’re obviously entitled to your own opinions but I’m just saying that for ARFID (which is not at all related to societal eating and cooking issues), you have offended parents who live with their children on a daily basis, some of us for many years, knowing what ARFID is and is not. In this thread, your comments are definitely NOT aligned to what ARFID is and how ARFID should be treated.

In all 18 years that my child has had selective eating disorder/ARFID, I have never been so angry and shocked at a comment/comments as yours today.

As an extra piece of information you probably/definitely didn’t know…..people who are in-patients in clinics/hospitals for anorexia treatment are given chocolate bars multiple times a day, at set times, in order to up their weight gain.

You have pretty strong opinions about something you have no personal experience of? Gosh. You might want to have a word with Chris Packham because he eats the same thing every day too.

FWIW I'm a brilliant cook. I cook from scratch as Americans say every single day. I never buy ready meals or sauce in jars. And yet one of my children eats a massively restricted diet.

Anyway - it's been really helpful to me hearing from @Sirzy and @HecticHedgehog and @Verbena17. I'd not considered the rotating list of safe food and it really helps with the frustration when a food which was on the list is suddenly rejected for mysterious reasons! I hadn't clocked it always coincided with the introduction of another food.

Incase OP is still here there is a charity called Talking Money who will actually phone you and fill out the form for you.
The forms are a pain because they ask questions like can you dress yourself but what they mean is can you dress yourself in 15 minutes. So you might say yes even though it takes you an hour because the form doesn't say 15 minutes.
This is why it's good to have an expert helping you. My DD gets DLA, middle band but I'm sure she wouldn't have got it if me or DH had filled the form in.
So I'm not saying OP has filled the form in wrong on purpose just that a charity like this might be able help ensure her children get the money they deserve.

Oh and for the interest of balance when Ds was a baby I was the pain in the arse making everything fresh type parent, he ate a massively varied diet - when he was 10 months old he was happily eating mousakka on holiday in Greece.

it didn’t stop his developing eating problems from the age of about 6 and hitting crisis point by the age of 8.

i have undoubtedly got many things wrong as a parent but what I have fed him isn’t one of them!

@Clymene glad this has helped you. It’s so difficult but with very small and slow changes, hopefully as they get older, our children will find coping with ARFID easier. As an aside, have you looked food chaining? It takes a long time and it’s often 3 steps forward and 5 back but once a child can kind of reason with the self, food chaining can be a useful tool in increasing the number of safe foods. It’s worked a little for us - for adding extra brands if cookies and noodles mostly.

@impz gogohmms child clearly doesn't have ARFID.

As an extra piece of information you probably/definitely didn’t know…..people who are in-patients in clinics/hospitals for anorexia treatment are given chocolate bars multiple times a day, at set times, in order to up their weight gain.

Yes, and that is not enabling their eating disorder which is about eating low calorie foods/ no food at all. See, we all express opinions about things that we don't necessarily fully understand.

You have pretty strong opinions about something you have no personal experience of?

**You only ever express opinions about things that you have personal experience of? Thought not.

My son was selective from weaning which got worse at 12 months but like you, I did baby led weaning, he ate vegetables and fruit and I breastfed him until he was 2. Not exactly a bad parenting style or crap cooking skills as @impz thinks.

Errr no….why wouldn’t they give them the same amount of calories and fats from foods like meat and pasta then?

Sometimes in life you have to realise that other people who do have a experience of a topic may be in a better place to understand it and instead of continued judgement listening and learning may be a better option

Well yes actually @impz. Weirdly, if I'm sitting in a virtual room with a load of parents saying what it's like to parent a child with for example Tourette's, I wouldn't say much, I'd listen because it's not something I know anything about.

Well I would have thought the answer is pretty obvious but I don't see the need to start a new discussion about anorexia with you.

If you think getting your son a McDonald's every day is sustainable for his physical or mental health or your finances then fine but it doesn't sound sustainable to me and I would look for other ways of resolving the problem.

I'm confused about the title "To wish I hadn’t told food bank about my benefits" it wasnt the benefits, it was your savings

You need to go and get a job - let DH look after your dc

Thanks @Verbena17 - I've looked into it in the past but never really done it formally. Right now I'm focused on getting him into school and sitting his GCSEs but summer would be a great time to try it. He's so embarrassed about it apart from anything else, it's really debilitating