Please tell us your questions on mental health & debt

rockie4

My OH is bipolar. Due to gaps in his NI records from walking out of jobs/getting sacked etc (always in manic phases!) he gets no benefits or financial help.

We have managed to clear most of his debt (except for one which won't even freeze the interest) but it's a real struggle managing solely on my wage.
He is fairly stable now (with medication) and wants to be retrained and try to find some part time work but we can't find where or who to go to for help on this. Mental Health teams just pass us from pillar to post and back again.

learning_to_drive

There is a definite link between debt and mental health, for me it was the debt i previously had (my car and what not) that I simply couldnt afford to pay when i was ill, I signed up for manythings confident I'd be ok, then I got depressed and couldnt work, had to take some time out of work as I couldnt get in.

Then what? There has to be more awareness of this issue, how do you make payments when you cant work? I think there is a definiite link and I hate to think of the amount of people out there struggling with an absolutely horrific illness (depression, SAD, anxiety etc) and then having to worry about paying bills.

ash4becks

i posted earlyer in this thread, bi- polar has been suggested about me by 2 docs but when it got to the shrink i had just lost my nana few weeks before think he took this as the reason behind my depression i was last assessed 3 years ago latest doc i got refered for councilling and was refused to be transfered i was having a good day and medicated so didnt help really , has said this to me again and i went really hyper infornt of two frinds of diffenernt occations arms floppy talking really fast both late at night i told him about my spending etc even my lovely sue CAB has said the same to me before but did say she had got a debt wrote of before was 20K under mental health grounds ie bi-polar so question is to others with i was wondering what other bi-polar suffers thought about this theres something in my gut that says thiers more to this x

puggers

Some help for the Forces and ex Forces, who are suffering from stress, mental health and PTSS. I suffer from PTSS and apart from My Wife and Doctor, I have recieved no help as to how I am to deal with it. The inability to deal with paperwork or problems, leads to hiding away any and all envelopes, thus building up late payment fines, and so the problem grows. So please, any ideas would help.

sparky1982

My ex has borderline personality disorder and when we were together she would take money from my account to spend on junk. When I challenged her about this she changed her bank account, from a joint to a single account, and stopped stealing the money from me but started stealing it from places of work. I did question where she was getting various things from as she never had any money, as she lied regularly I never got a true idea.
She demanded that we got a new car which is where the bulk of our debts came from but she also took out credit with clothing companies, never paid her mobile bill, didn't pay utilities etc and didn't tell me about it. I only found out when I found debt letters hidden away, whilst I was cleaning the house.
Sadly she is still £6k at least in debt and i'm debt free after a year of clearing mine!
Part of this illness was excessive spending as well as over eating, lying etc. She would always lie about everything even the grass being green and the sky being blue!
This is a little known illness but still a mental health illness nonetheless and it should be more well known. It has similarites with bipolar although BPD is a separate illness.
It would be good to have information on this illness so people are aware that debt is a high possibility with it.

nat_

Thankyou for raising this. It's a very important subject, and something that is very close to my heart. Many years ago, my mum had a breakdown (mainly due to debt), and has been on tablets ever since. Last year, I got ill too, and although I have recently come off the tablets, I'm still finding it a struggle.

It's refreshing to see that there ARE people out there that are having the same problems, and I do seem to find that debt is just made worse when you are suffering with depression. It's hard to cope usually, let alone with that to think about aswell.

What I want to know is, what help would be available for people on low incomes/benefits in regards to clearing a debt? Obviously there's the £1 a month option (and my debt's only at £1,500), but these companies aren't sympathetic or supportive, so I wonder if there's another way.

Glad this has been suggested however, it's a great idea

bandann

I've been trying to help my son, who had a breakdown last year, get some money back from AVIVA on his mortgage protection policy. (my husband and I have been paying his mortgage & bills since he took ill). Even though his doctor has signed the "offical" form confirming his illness AVIVA are now asking him for more confirmation. When he left work in the October he'd no idea why he couldn't function and was only diagnosed in the February, so I'm assuming this is why they're stalling on paying him. I feel that if he'd broken his leg and couldn't work it would have been a simplier process. Maybe AVIVA don't class mental illness as a reason to give up work. Any advice would be appreciated on what we can do if they refuse.

ikkleone

My question is what in the future will banks and companies have to do to help people with Mental Health issues?
I have Bipolar and has been stated in other posts have a overspending habit when I am low which drives my partner mad.
We have approached the bank about this as I also can not remember dates for the life of me with the amount of medication that I am on, but they just didn't care, they said they would investigate and hopefully reverse so of the charges but that didn't go anywhere. I know I should be better at managing my finances but its not always possible when you feel so rubbish you can't get up. Its so disheartening living life in debt all the time especially as a lot of it is due to the spending nature of a disorder I just wish that banks realised this and had a special type of account for people with these problems.
Also does anyone know where I can get some information to provide to my partner to show him that he isn't allow in trying to deal with a chronic over spender and also what Bipolar effects as I think he is really suffering stress on my behalf.

MSE_Jenny

ikkleone wrote: »

Also does anyone know where I can get some information to provide to my partner to show him that he isn't allow in trying to deal with a chronic over spender and also what Bipolar effects as I think he is really suffering stress on my behalf.

Hi ikkleone,

You might want to contact the Bipolar organisation, which offers support for people with Bipolar disorder, their friends and relatives.

You could also show your partner the Royal College of Psychiatrists factsheet on Bipolar disorder.

Thanks to everyone for the excellent suggestions so far.

foghorn

Good subject. I've been a sufferer too in the past: major depression brought on by a combination of career burn out and a life-threatening illness, although after counselling and a couple of years on medication I am now much better. The OH (also on the face of it a successful professional) has had Post Natal Depression after both children which appears to have sensitised her to depression, and now she has a more general reactive depression which is under treatment.

Mental Illness can strike anybody at any time - I was one of those smug people who thought it would never affect me because I was mentally "strong" and successful at work. When it does strike it changes your life for good and that can upset finely-balanced financial arrangements like repaying the debt that so many people in this country seems to have got themselves into up to the neck (me included).

On top of that, when you are at your worst it can make you an easy target for the unscrupulous to prey upon. For example I pride myself on being well-informed, intelligent, savvy and nobody's fool, yet when at my low point a few years ago I managed to allow a passing rogue tradesman to charge me a fortune for gardening work that was completely unnecessary and massively overpriced: a thirty-something suffering from the same sort of trick you hear of vulnerable OAPs falling to.

What should definitely be covered in the help is how mental health problems impact on employment, because loss of income will obviously have an impact on the repayment of debt.

The fact is that by far the majority of employers will want rid of you because of your mental health problems: you will be seen by your average manager and HR department as a person who is at risk of having multiple long-term periods of absence from work on a continuing basis, even if your condition is successfully managed or goes into complete remission. This is likely to make you in the eyes of those who do not understand such conditions a risky and therefore an undesirable employee. Occupational Health, if your employer is large enough to have them, won't help because their interests are ultimately aligned with those of your employer not you.

Your employer is compelled by law (Disability Rights Act) to not disadvantage you and to make "reasonable adjustments" at work. A minority of employers are ignorant of or occasionally mindfully disregard these laws, and so employees with mental health problems in this position will have recourse to a tribunal. However many employers will follow the letter rather than the spirit of the law and do as little as is necessary to avoid a constructive dismissal claim at a tribunal, while not being much help to the suffering employee.

I definitely fall into this latter camp: I am lucky in that I have managed to hold on to my job, however while on the face of it I think my employer has done enough to avoid a big claim at a tribunal, I constantly get the feeling that they would rather be shot of me because I have had mental health problems in the past, and are looking for a watertight reason to get rid, which makes me walk on eggshells at work.

So, to summarise my long-winded post it would be useful to cover the employment angle too.