Evelyn D

I am feeling as though my reality is so fragile, I am stood still and unable to do anything to change it. I firefight day to day, it is exhausting and ultimately unsustainable. I know my health has been so hugely impacted by poverty, that my son's health too has suffered - so much so that he is now referred for further tests and treatment because his platelets are low and concerning. There is an idea that this might be due to a lack of appropriate diet, and I feel so responsible for that.

When you can't afford to eat well, you lower your expectations, you reach out for help and you are told so many different things but, in the end, it is left up to you as a parent with zero expertise in nutrition to deal with what is going on. You disconnect as trauma layers trauma and food falls down the list of importance because you just don't know how to afford the best diet on a dreadful budget. Everything fresh is so so expensive.

You try hard to keep thinking of ways to feed yourself and in my case, my child, but in our situation, my son has huge sensory challenges with food, and that makes ensuring he is fed properly and drinking properly, an impossibility at times. The emotional and mental toll is catastrophic and yet again, another layer of failure to provide.

I want to be able to help him, but I can't eat properly myself anymore. I have gone from being a pretty healthy eater (him too) to thinking: Just get him to eat something. I can't help feeling that this is how some eating disorders develop, and I really don't have the energy to address this in a meaningful way.

Who will help us with our children's diets if they can't stand certain things? Who will help us to find the energy to cope and to make sure we ourselves eat right, so we can support our kids?

I recently lost half a stone in weight in one week during a deeply difficult time with my son. I wish it had been intentional and that I felt better, but I don't. I feel desperate, afraid, and I wake daily with the knowledge that what I am able to manage now, is significantly less than what I could manage in the past. I feel that mine and my son's lives have been shortened by poverty, and I can't even raise the energy to be angry anymore.

We need help, we need focussed support to stop this decline in health due to our low-budget lifestyle. I never asked for or wanted this, my beautiful son never asked for or wanted this. When will it end..?