“I’m sharing my story because it’s one of many that highlight the failures in our system and the devastating impact it has on families like mine. I was financially abused by my children’s father, and despite reporting him for years to the Child Maintenance Service, nothing was done to ensure my children received the support they were entitled to. Instead, I was told I was entitled to just £2.50 a fortnight for two children — an amount so small it’s insulting. Meanwhile, he lived a luxury lifestyle abroad, yet the system ignored this entirely.
In 2021, I lost one of my children to suicide. The grief was unbearable, and my mental and physical health have deteriorated since then. I have several long-term health conditions and am on a two-year NHS waiting list for treatment. Despite this, I am forced to survive on a benefit system that leaves disabled people and their families in poverty. My Personal Independence Payment (PIP), which is supposed to help me manage my health conditions, is instead spent on basic necessities like food for my children.
I am unable to take medication to manage my mental health because I have autism and am extremely sensitive to the side effects of antidepressants. However, if I were to attend a PIP meeting and tell them I planned to use the benefit to buy food instead of managing my health, I would almost certainly be refused, as that is not what it’s meant for. Yet once accepted, the government leaves you with no financial support for the rising cost of living, forcing people like me to use PIP for survival instead of the purpose it was intended for.
I skip meals so my children can eat, and we regularly go without essentials like clothes, shoes, and hygiene products. The rate of benefits has not kept up with the cost of living, and the government’s failure to act leaves children in poverty, families in despair, and people like me struggling to survive.
There is a clear link between debt and mental health, and worrying about money every week has only worsened my mental health struggles.
To those in power: listen to people with lived experience of poverty. Families are suffering, and children are going without. It’s unacceptable, and it’s time for real action. No parent should ever have to experience this, and no child should grow up in a system that fails them so profoundly.”