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

[smileitlightsupyourface]

I have an "friend" who is on benefits. She receives universal credit, PIP ( for MS) and has a car on the motability scheme. I know she has MS and has bad days but she lives a very active life...goes to the gym regularly, goes on active days out with the children each week and has a very active social life. This friend has literally never ever worked a job. She had kids young and has always been on benefits. Her dc have expensive hobbies such as horse riding and golf and are also season ticket holders at a premiership football club. She has none of the dc fathers on the scene and her family don't have much to do with them. She is constantly posting pictures on social media of her dc doing their hobbies and expensive days out. They are currently on a very expensive long haul holiday for half term. Its really starting to grate on me that she doesn't work and never has but lives this type of lifestyle while i work full time and as well as being constantly knackered i would struggle to afford her lifestyle. I know im being unreasonable but she seems very tone deaf when posting all this stuff on social media when so many are struggling to pay bills. I really don't want to be bitter but its winding me up!

Not necessarily MS but I know people on PIP who strangely have capacity for everything but work.

PIP is nothing to do with work. Many people on PIP do work.. in fact, a lot would not be able to work if they were not on PIP.

Hope this is a wind up @smileitlightsupyourface

I cannot imagine being jealous of a friend with MS, not for a second, let alone starting a thread about her.

Of course you do.

Maybe she has access to special discounts for some of her kids' activities. As the children of a chronically ill mother they should attract discounts and help from charities etc.
The football club might give them free membership.
Maybe her parents and siblings chip in for holidays.

All people post their best lives on social media.

Whilst you can claim PIP and still work, with a disabling health condition it can be near impossible to maintain a proper career or even a part time job. Unlike the gym, you can’t just turn up to work on days you feel like it.

She must be in a mountain of debt because it's not enough to pay for all that.

A) Pip is not an unemployment benefit, most who receive it ARE in work

B) https://www.benefitsandwork.co.uk/news/zero-percent-fraud-rate-for-pip,-dwp-figures-show

Gym, travel, heavy lifting in the garden every single day, redecorating,entertaining, DIY, the list goes on. She's no worse off health wise than I, and a lot more spry.

Her husband is also ex military onnthe dole due to "arthritis" in his ankles and sorry but there are professional footballers less fit. Yet neither of these two have worked in 15 years. It's tiresome.

I was refused too, it's a hard process. Was very interesting to be deemed totally cured by a phone call!!

Getting PIP is incredibly difficult. You likely don't know as much as you think you do.

And what, I can sometimes lift stuff in the garden, it's hard but I can do it. It's not really safe and my family give me shit for it. I still crawl up the stairs and can't swallow properly.

Just because other people are discussing it, that doesn't make it ok - it just means there are several more dickheads around.
MS is one of the cruelest things I've ever witnessed. I'd suggest reading up on it rather than bitching online about someone you are meant to be friends with.
Putting "friend" in inverted commas is ironic when with your attitude, you're lucky to have any at all.

I don’t work in a typical job role for the moment as I have investments which earn money and some family wealth. Your ‘friend’ also has serious health issues!! Would you like her to not go to the gym and lie in bed all day? You sound ignorant. Kindly peoples’ lives are nothing to do with you - run your own race. You do know right that many people aren’t working 9-5 and have different lifestyles to you.. the beauty in our society is that you have freedom to choose your path. If you don’t like the one you’re on, find a new way. There’s no point hating your friend when the problem is your own choices clearly.

That's nice, dear. 🙄

You sound jealous and not much of a friend!she has an illness, why shouldn't she and her children have a nice life just because she is on benefits?

I watched my poor MIL die of MS...SHE WAS 54!!! There is no way she could fund her life on benefits alone, trust me. Her husband took early retirement and my DH also contributed some cash to help make the house wheelchair friendly. Her youngest son doesn't even remember his mum ever being able to walk. By the end she was paraplegic. I cannot put it into words what a horrible horrible illness it is. And the NHS was a piece of crap to her, her care was so abysmal, it makes me cry to think of it.

Yes, there are lots of good days. But they are numbered and you may have many good years or very few. You don't know. There are MS sufferers who live until their 70s.

Am fucking sick of seeing this type of shit on here.
Mumsnet is fast becoming a platform for the most hateful people to spew their disgusting, uneducated, unenlightened bile.
And encouraged to do so, too.

You are clearly picking and Choosing the bits you want to see.
Do you know how difficult it is to get PIP?
she’s only been diagnosed for two years she would’ve had it longer. It often takes a time to get a diagnosis. I’m guessing you really wouldn’t want to swap places with her but would rather bitch about her with other people in the school playground and anybody else who might listen to the crap you are spouting.
It’s not a free car if you need wheelchair accessible vehicle and any extras that comes at a cost the uncertainty with PIP Is not for the faint hearted, Constant reviews, your uncertainty of whether you’re gonna be able to keep the benefit whether you’re gonna have to send the mobility car back.
Friend, you are clearly , not.
if she’s got such a cushy life Why don’t you try it? then you’ll be more qualified to understand. Given that you know so much about her, I’m surprised you don’t know what maintenance payment she gets.

You just need to end the friendship. She revolts you which is bad for you, and you despise her, which is bad for her.

The boasting on social media is something I would struggle with, but then as friends are usually like-minded people with common interests which leads to the mutual friendship, my friends don't do that and nor do I. So that works for us.

Similarly, I have plenty of acquaintances who live their lives through social media, and whose friends do so too. This is why they all rub along quite cheerfully. Horses for courses and all that.

The whole claiming PIP and everything else, I simply could not get worked up about. There are rules and regulations around it all, and people who are paid to carry out the assessments. It is not my place to say that anyone does not deserve what they have been authorised. The only time it ever got me down was when I found myself ferrying around a family member or else lending her money for taxis, because despite being in poor health and a non-driver, instead of taking the £70-odd a week mobility payment, she'd opted for a motability car which her son uses...and by that I mean for himself, day in, day out, never taking his mother anywhere, while she pays for taxis and cadges lifts & cash from mugs like me.

User@BettyBardMacDonald has a poorly thought out plan to claim PIP due to the injuries caused by setting her pants on fire

What a bunch of bitches

Op, you do realise that many people/families in the uk, very likely including yourself from the little you've described do not contribute more to the public purse than they take out.

That includes many people who work full time their entire lives and never need to take out of work or disabled benefits. I assume you don't mind people getting free schooling and healthcare, child benefits and pensions etc? Even if they aren't net contributors?

So people in glass house shouldn't throw stones.

Keep your eye on your own game. Life is too short to be competitive and jealous.

Count your blessings, be grateful for what you have and get off social media. It makes you feel bad.

Those bitchy school mums sound vile.

Do you ever stop to think that maybe she is documenting her fun days out with the kids so that they have some memories to look back on of better times, because when she is in a wheelchair full time and cannot do anything for herself, that is all they will have.

It's a cruel disease, you and the other mums bitching about her are truly awful people.