to think he should not be on incapacity benefit

[doodles31]

My ex has been off work for about 8 months now with depression and anxiety. I am dubious to the severity of his problem as he seems capable to do most things. If someone were severely depressed then would they be capable of going to Florida for 2 weeks (paid for by his parents) or aibu to even question it? To me, incapacitated means just that, how can you be capable of leaving your home/routine, getting on a plane, walking round disneyland going on rides for 2 weeks but not of working. I believe that he has given up on the idea of work because he knows that it wouldnt be worth it. If he worked he would have to pay csa money for his 4 children, quite frankly, I think hes trying to get away with not paying it, or have i entirely got the wrong idea of incapacity benefit and who/what its for?

Gramercy Am sorry for your loss. But are you saying that just because you didn't get visited by the Black Cloud after a loss then no-one does?

I just think that having witnessed someone suffering from severe depression, it makes a mockery of the illness when, as the OP observes, a person signed off from work can go on a Disney holiday. We had a teacher who was permanently signed off with ME. However, it was a funny sort of ME which only struck during school hours as she went on holiday, shopping, out in the evenings...

Re bereavement - in the normal order of life events, everyone will lose their parents. Some people confuse "sadness" with "depression".

Depression is a complex problem. I know my depression really does stop me from functioning totally. I could go to work, I could go on holiday, but I wouldn't be aware of it and would make mistakes, or spend my time crying.

And yes I did go on holiday, paid for by my parents because they thought it'd help, it did and didn't all at the same time. I barely got out of bed, but I did relax a little.

Work for me was so destructive, I needed time to myself to deal with the exhaustion and numbness that depression brings.

But I can't obviously speak for your ex. I do know incapacity isn't easy to get though, I've never had it for my depression, or even for chronic back pain. [shrugs]

I went on holiday when I was signed off on Depression. It was recommended by my psych.

You have no idea what is actually going on in someone's head.

You obviously have no understanding of ME either. I have been ill for two years. I can manage nights out at times, whereas other days I cannot get myself out of bed. I managed a normal delivery and yet at times I can't manage to change my sons nappy without assistance, or it taking a long time.

I have really bad depression and hardly anyone knows. I deal with it in my own little way and can appear to function quite normally. Sometimes I just appear lazy, or tell little white lies to protect myself (saying I am too busy for something when really I am going through a bad patch) so even people who seee me alot just don't know. If I could afford it, I would love to go on holiday - it would be a real help if I was up to it at the time. I even have quite a sense of humour and laugh and joke around, but that very night could be too terrified to go to sleep and have horrific nightmares, or be so well... depressed that I cannot take my son to nursery. You just do not know what someone's life is really like.

Bereavement is a common trigger for depression. I don't get the argument that just because some people don't end up with depression after a parent dies, nobody does.

Actually, just to make a point, in terms of not acting depressed, I once sat at a party laughing and joking, I was mentally working out how many medications were in the place and if it was enough to OD and where I could sneak off to do it. Nobody knew.

I had to quit my job a few years ago for medical reasons (before DC came along).

I got better, but couldn't get a job for a fair while. I sat around, watched daytime trash TV and surfed the net all day. It was the most depressing thing I have ever done. Never felt so low in my life. Everything just seemed so pointless.

I think unless work is the cause of depression, it is psychologically beneficial for most people to be in work if they can.

That said, all circumstances are individual. I certainly wouldn't take going on holiday as evidence of a scam.

crap like what belle, im not forwarding my mumsnet chat to him you know, i havent said anything to him, i havent interfered with anything, im pontificating on mumsnet thats all.

i cant help but feel sceptical, he has been avoiding paying for his children for years. When he was working he didnt pay csa payments for years, he is in arrears to the tune of about 2,000 at least, i lost count, and then he isnt working and i still receive nothing. its a bitter pill to swallow when you yourself and your husband work full time to bring up his beautiful children (i am also a full time mother because i childmind) and he does jack diddly and then every now and then he swans in, shows off his new car (one we could never afford) his new phone and the new massive house hes moving into courtesy of benfits payments. Yes, I am lucky and very grateful that I don't have a debilitating illness and i have great sympathy for those that truly do but knowing him as I do I find it ahrd to believe, no I dont follow him everywhere and so dont have definitive proof but I do have a clue of what he was like. I can understand why people are very defensive if they have had depression. Im not completely devoid of knowledge, after I had my 2nd baby I was a total madster, thought we were being bombed one night when church bells were ringing, had crippling ibs and was very depressed and anxious, but do you know what, it was always at my core that I knew I had a resposibility to my children and so I battled on and got through it.
I truly believe that if you stay at home doing nothing it makes you worse, even now if im not busy just for a day i have very bad feelings. If there were no benefits for people to fall back on whqat would happen, some i daresay with true crippling depression would become homeless, but you can bet your bottom dollar a lot more would have to get their arse into gear and get a job, bet theyd feel a lot better too..

My ex is in a similar situation (although now finally looking for full-time work, something he felt incapable of most of the time we were together), his girlfriend doesn't work either. He likes to 'play up' his mental illness when it comes to claiming benefits but then gets cross if I comment that how he is affects the way he looks after our son, for example.

There is definitely an element of knowing the people involved that makes the situation stick in the throat a little.

And yes, I have been depressed and off work myself. I'm sure that most of the people signed off would benefit from work of some kind but my ex had to fight off stiff competition to get the kind of job that enabled him to re-enter the workplace at a pace that worked for him.

A lot of people do become homeless due to depression.

Also a lot end up in mental health units.

Then there's the the ones that kill themselves.

But they all lacked your fighting spirit, I suppose.

Sorry Doodles caught myself at a bad moment and shouldn't have posted that you in particular were petty and small minded, it was rude and unfair.

The truth unfortunatly is that with the benefit test designed the way it is it seems easier for well people to get it than for ill people (it's really just a nightmare, not worth the hassle and from personal experience I'd much rathe have the dignity and self-respect that comes with working).

His own GP will have nothing to do with wether he gets it, neither would a psychiatrist or a psychologist - it all comes down to an 'independant' GP, nurse or even a physiotherapist (bear in mind none with any mental helath qualifications whatsoever) and a computer programme. At appeal stage someone else's POV may count - but it's not guarenteed.

As for working while depressed as opposed to being sectioned I really think it's an awful lot greyer in the middle than working or not working. Depends on the person, the type of work ect. Being sectioned is really severe - and medical professionals do not like to do it.

For the record I've never claimed benefit for mental health problems.

Now you're just being outright offensive. "Madster"?? "..but do you know what, it was always at my core that I knew I had a resposibility to my children and so I battled on and got through it." Wow. Way to offend those of us that can't. I was feeling a little sympathetic towards you until that. Now you can go swivel.

Next time I have a psychotic episode I'll make sure to post to give you something to laugh at.

He should still be paying the token £5 weekly which csa will automatically take from his incapacity or whichever benefit he claims...... Call them, he can't hide from them this way

Yes yours seems like well-reasoned and balanced medical opinion.

Gramercy if you lived as I do with a teenager with M.E then you would witness the devastation that it causes.

I find you very ignorant

'expat you come across as a strong personality and you can see than an outside life would be more beneficial to your recovery however I do know people who literally couldnt go to work they are that depressed and to be fair its very isolating for them. '

I was just as ill as the worst of them.

I have been several times where I couldn't see an outside life, all I wanted, quite truly, was to die.

And not by OD, but by jumping off a bridge or drowning myself.

Strong personality has little to do with it.

Many strong personalities wind up dead by their own hand. They're the ones you never knew they were ill and everyone is shocked by their suicide.

It's a delicate balance.

But I know some severely bipolar people who work.

It depends on a lot of things.

I do thing mateykatie has a point in her post, though, a very salient one.

Expat I hadnt intended to offend you.

There are, sadly, people who do use depression and bad backs and other conditions that aren't generally visible to teh naked eye to scam the system or get out of paying support for children.

It does happen, unfortunately.

There are many who deliberately don't get a job for the same reason.

I've even met some in our building. They openly admit it, too.

My Dad has depression. But because he could talk with passion about one thing (cooking) and dreamed one day of opening a cafe (it was never going to happen, it was just escapism), everyone decided that he was swinging the lead.

My Mum has had depression since 1996. She tried to return to work, but eventually her work asked her to go to the GP. She has been signed off indefinitely. She can babysit my children (she was always excellent with children), but can't make decisions without support. An example: I said today "look in the boxes in the kitchen." Mum couldn't find the biscuits in the boxes. But there were carrier bags right next to the boxes, and she hadn't looked in them because I had said 'boxes'.

So, Mum was unfit for work, Dad became unfit for work. Dad's Incapacity benefit was stopped, so no income. At all, except £30 DLA my mum gets.

So DOODLES31, your logical conclusion would be that they brush themselves off, switch off the depression and find a job.

No. They have been supported by DH & I, will lose the home I was raised in that they adore (saved from reposession only by a loan from my uncle, which will be repaid when house is sold), uprooted and moving to Scotland so they can buy a small house outright & settle their debts.

I thank God that my Dad has survived long enough without committing suicide (his one attempt didn't even get passed on to his CPN ) that he turns 60 soon, so will get an income. And that DH & I are in a position to move with them to Scotland. My poor sister is not able to do that, so will lose all of us being nearby.

But, of course, there will be people who think Mum & Dad are lazy scroungers. Actually they are just devastated and depressed to the extent that they can't get themselves out of the hole they are in

Lou can I give you a hug? Your parents are very lucky to have such wonderful caring family around them.

ErikaMaye, thank you. I would walk a hundred miles to see my parents, good people, who always did their best for us, restored. My Dad worked abroad when I was little because there was no money here. He would spend 3 months working 12 hours a day, 7 days a week in places like Egypt, Dubai, Iran, then come home for 3 weeks. My Mum parented us single handed, with only letter contact from Dad.

She had never flown, but flew alone with a 6 year old and a 2 year old to Brunei, when my Dad got given a Married status contract for 2 years (absolute gold dust, then) and had to go immediately; she tied up loose ends and followed on.

Amazing people, destroyed by the system.

Im clearly not trying to be offensive to people who have genuine depression, but I am entitled to question the genuineness of this situation because as I say I know him and have a good sense of what is going on.
ErikaMaye, you are being downright touchy, I said madster in a self deprecating way, its how I cope with something Im quite embaressed about, it was meant to be funny because sometimes you have to laugh at certain situations. Im not commenting on your situation, I dont know you, I was talking about me...
I dont think I have made any logical conclusions about people in general with a sweeping hand, I am going off experience and what I have seen. My own Father feigned depression for 30 years and I watched my Mum struggle to raise us because he was too much of a lazy twat to do so, lo and behold when he hit the age whereby he legitimatly didnt have to work and could claim his pension he was miraculously cured. Funny that. THIS IS NOT A STATEMENT OF ALL PEOPLE WITH DEPRESSION THOUGH OK. Im just saying, it happens, and just because you do have depression, it doesnt mean to say that people dont put it on, because they do.