I'm Not Sure If I Have An Eating Disorder Or Not...

[Dray]

I only eat 1 meal a day but we cant afford to buy more food than enough for 1 meal a day.

I'm never hungry and only really eat because I'm forced to by others.

I feel bad if I eat, but again, this could be for wasting money on food rather than because I'm eating.

What I do eat tends to be extremely limited - I tend to stick to one type of food only for days at a time.

I hate people watching me eat.

Does this sound like it could be an eating disorder or am I just not hungry so I dont eat?

[Barebones]

Hi dray, u never said anything about being hungry and starving, but u have been limited by finance to one meal a day. What i would like to know is why are u limited in that? what is happening, if u could give bit more in what is going on, as what u have said, is noone could say you have one or not.

sry i couldnt answer or help in this, if u could explain a little then maybe someone may help.

take care hun.

[Dray]

Hi Barebones,

My mum was nearly killed and can't work at the moment and the government are basically doing nothing about it or providing much financial help at all and are basically refusing to give us any more so we cant afford to eat much. I make sure she eats more than me because she's ill and I guess I feel bad for limiting her food as well.

Even before this happened though, I didnt eat 3 meals a day. I'd possibly eat 2 if I was hungry. If not, I'd maybe eat 1.

Is that any better for more information? I'm not really sure what else to say.

[Roses]

Dray, an eating disorder needs to be diagnosed by a professional. If you are worried that you have an unhealthy relationship with food see a professional hun. Depression can cause a loss of appetite and weight loss is a common sypmtom with depressive illnesses. If you nip it in the bud when you first notice it you can stop it becoming something that rules your life. The website b-eat.co.uk is the UK charity for eating disorders. It is sometimes aimed more at teenagers but is chocked full of info.

I don't know where you are in the world though. Why are you not getting enough money to eat? I understand your mum is ill but in UK there are benefits. Are you outside of UK? At the end of the day one balanced meal a day is better than nothing but please seek professional help if you can or access the eating disorders section on this website (our websites link on top left of main forum page) to get more info.

Love xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

[Barebones]

Hi dray thanks for talking more, i didnt want to make u feel that u had to spill all ur probs. Like roses said, the thing is if u have image and other probs in eating is, i prob could of said something else. You have said that u are limited at home in what u can eat due to finance, that could be the prob and your body can get to eating not much. The thoughts about and being under pressure that u mum eats yes would kill your appitie.

If you would like help in what your entitled to and help is please get intouch with someone who knows, or we could offer little help in what ur entitled to from what ur saying. Pm me if u need some help, i myself have a family and we have to budget our food, and now we have found that health reasons we cant have stuff. So please get intouch here or pm and if we can help we can giude u in right direction.

On the ED front, maybe its due to what is happening just now,the thing is like said before, proffesionals is only peeps to say u have one or offer help. I have EDNOS was diagnosed last year after being bulimic for many years. It then still depends if there is any other probs.

take care

xx

Hi Barebones,

My mum was nearly killed and can't work at the moment and the government are basically doing nothing about it or providing much financial help at all and are basically refusing to give us any more so we cant afford to eat much. I make sure she eats more than me because she's ill and I guess I feel bad for limiting her food as well.

Even before this happened though, I didnt eat 3 meals a day. I'd possibly eat 2 if I was hungry. If not, I'd maybe eat 1.

Is that any better for more information? I'm not really sure what else to say.

[Dray]

Thanks to you both for replying.

I know that only a professional can actually diagnose me but I wanted to talk about it somewhere first before I o to a medical professional and ask for help. I'm not sure if it's more to do with the situation or to do with an eating disorder so I came here to ask opinions more than anything. I know opinions arent diagnosis though.

Roses - I am depressed and have already been diagnosed with that so I suppose that probably does have something to do with it. I'll have a look at the website though, thanks.

I'm in the UK. The council are basically saying if they pay us any more to help us, it'll have to be taken away in some other form (such as tax credits). Mum's SSP money will stop next month and so will her working tax credits and the council dont seem to think they have to pay any more money. Mum's trying to get disability alowance because she cant do things she should be able to (such as lifting the kettle because she's so weak) but they dont seem to want to give her that either.

I'm at college, a full time carer for my mum and I have to bring in any extra money I can. Yesterday is probably quite a good example, I spent all day working, only to have to spend the £25 I got on electricity because we had none left. That'll last for a few weeks now but we still have very little food and even less money to get any with.

I'll have a look at that other link as well. Thanks, I do really appreciate the help.

Barebones - I do feel guilty about eating with such limited amounts of money so I do try to avoid it when I can but I think that may be more due to circumstances.

The one thing I will willingly have a lot of at the moment is milk. That generally means I'm ill (because I always drink lots of milk if I'm ill) but isn't milk meant to be a food substance or something? If it is, that's pretty much all I've been 'eating' recently. Although obviously I drank it rather than eating.. Because that would probably be a little odd if I started trying to cut it up with a knife and fork..

Well, yeah, there's a lot of other problems I suppose. I just tend to ignore them and shove them to the back of my mind and hope I forget them. Which never works but I still try.

I know professionals are the only ones who can help. I just absolutely hate them so its hard for me to go anywhere near them without wanting to strangle them or something.

[Roses]

Hello Dray, if you call the CAB (citizens advice bureau) they have a service where someone will come to your home (or if your Mum can get to them even better) and they will sit with her (and you) for as long as it takes to fill the forms in. When you are feeling ill it is very difficult to get the wording right and the DLA will always reject if you leave yourself open. The good people at the CAB did mine for me after I was rejected and it turns out I had not worded it right and when they did it for me it came back with high rate care and low mobility which does represent my illness accurately.

Also if you are her carer you are eligible for carers aloowance or around £48 a week if you are earning under a certain amount as as you are at college it sounds like you would be eligible. £48 a week would cover the basic food shop for 2 adults if you went to Netto or Aldi or Lidl.

If you call the benefits hotline number they should also be able to advise regarding council tac benefits or any other benefits applicable and if they can arrange a carer from homestart to help. There are carers groups and we get a free holiday once a year to a caravan in Blackpool through carers and through young carers they gave us some money to make our children happy (they chose a PS2). There is help available hun but they don't tell you cos they don't like paying out. You can register as her carer at your GP's surgery and you will then get an assessment person come round to check out your living situation and advise you of any benefits/grants they can give you. Hope this info helps xxx

[Dray]

I did consider the CAB before but that would mean mum possibly having to talk to someone about what happened and she's terrified of talking about it. I dont think they'd accept it if only I spoke about it, would they? I'm not really sure.

Do you know where we can get some DLA forms? Maybe if mum knew what she would have to answer, she might be more willing to do it.

Carers allowance would be good as well. We do our shopping in Lidl anyway (apart from the odd few bits we get from Tesco because mum doesnt like the Lidls stuff (eg coffee)) so that wouldnt be too much of a problem. Our shopping normally comes to a maximum of £15 for 2 adults though which isnt really enough to eat properly. So having the carers allowance would really help.

The benefits hotline thing sounds good as well! I'll have to look at that, I think.

Thanks for the advice!

[Roses]

You are welcome hun. DLA are not interested in hearing bout the ins and outs of why you got ill. They want to know how it affects your day-to-day living and will write to your psyche/GP for the low down to back it up. If you call the CAB they should be able to tell you where yo get the forms or the benefits hotline peeps will send them to you but I strongly urge you to let CAB help as if you word it wrong they will reject your claim. You need to write it from the point of view of your worst day ever and the maximum support you need. If you say some days I'm fine and others not they will take it as red that you are not needy enough and you may only get low rate which probably doesn't reflect you Mum's illness if she struggles to lift a kettle she prolly struggles to make a meal (lifting pans) and possibly with some hygiene stuf like drying her hair or whatever and it is these sort of things they look at.

[Dray]

Some days she is fine and I know she'd write that. She'd look at it as the best day ever and put down the positives. And she's basically refusing to get any sort of disibility allowance, even though the doctor said she could get it.

I dont think she'd necessarily get a lot of money from it but she does struggle so she would get something, I'm sure of it. I just dont know how to explain that to her.

[Roses]

The CAB people would know. Or call carers support. You don't need any input from your Mum to be registered as her carer. I mean she has to agree to it but after that the carers people will be able to offer you advice and support on how to word things to try and help her babe. How old are you babe? If you are at college you may even be a 'young carer' and they have clubs and trips out and stuff for you. xxx

[Dray]

I'm not sure if she'd even let me be registered as her carer but it's worth trying because she does need a lot of help doing things. Wording thins is probably the biggest problem. That and getting her to agree to it all, anyway. She hates thinking of herself as relient on others and refuses to ask for help most of the time.

I'm 16. I'm not sure if that counts as young carer or not?

[Roses]

Yeah, think you would be young carer hun. Personally, I would call the carers line gefore talking to your Mum cos it might be better to have the right information for her rather than giving her ifs and maybes. Also if you applied for the DLA forms she could read them herself rather than talking about unknown possibilities. xxxxx

[Dray]

Yeah, calling them before I talk to her might help. I might see if I can find a "sample" form online somewhere as well so that she can see something similar to it as well. I'll see if theres any information online anywhere as well. The more, the better I guess!

[Sammy]

Just a quick note - dla always turn down first application and are also more likely to accept if welfare rights or CAB are involved, also if they are involved and they turn down your application, all you do is give wr or cab a quick call and let them know and they'll do the appeal for you. DLA is not income based therefore regardless of income you can still get it.

As for working and going to college - if you were not working you might get more money from income support - however they do expect you to go on job seekers unless you have valid reason not to work. This could be because you need to be at home to take care of your mother, however, to be valid for income support you have to be in receipt of carers allowance - and you can only apply for this if your mother is on middle rate DLA or higher and you are at home for 30 hours a week during daytime hours - which would mean no college. It might be 35 hours, basically I think it's something like 5 hours a day and that has to be between certain times during day like 9-5 or something.

I know this because I'm on dla and my fiance is on carers allowance and we were informed of all this at the time.

Things might be better when your mum is no longer on working tax credit as you should then be able to apply for top ups with income support or tax credit yourself to cover the loss of earnings. There is a minimum set government guideline for how much a household needs to live on and they are responsible for ensuring all households receive this amount, whether by working and receiving tax credits to top up the amount they earn to the basic standard of living or by not working and receiving benefits.

Those with disabilities are entitled to more money to help with care and mobility in the form of disability living allowance.

Bare in mind also that if you are on any kind of benefit you are entitled to apply for a crisis or budgeting loan from income support/job center based on how many people live in your household that you are financially responsible for. The loan is interest free and although they expect it paid back at about £28 a week as their normal first offer, if you write into them and explain why you can't afford that amount you can have it lowered to as little as £8 a week.

Also, you may be able to apply for a community care grant up to the value of £1000 - which can be applied for as often as once every 6 months. Certain times of year like end of tax year are the best times to apply as this is when the left over money that needs to be spent is available, whilst rest of year they try to keep hold of their belt to ensure money available lasts the year and that the really needy get it. Again this is one welfare rights can deal with for you and again often is turned down on first application but accepted on appeal.

If you're mum owns her own home or rents privately you could also be entitled to free insulation and installation as well as upgraded energy efficiency boiler - see warm front or home front (can't remember which) for information on this as well as other grants and offers available in your area and in your circumstance. Even cutting down on fuel costs could help you have more money for food.

I can also feed a family of five on as little as £30 a week - 3 meals a day plus treats when in dire straights just by buying tesco value food which often is even cheaper than places like aldi or lidl or netto's. Check out the 5 for £4 microwave meals they do - they don't taste too bad although a couple of them are crap you can try them out till you have a selection you are happy with.

If worried about mum getting hungry throughout day, try splitting a meal in half and letting her have half at lunch and half at dinner, that way not going so long without food. Try to keep cheap things in like pasta and rice that fill you up and last. You can add a tin of cheap tuna and some oil to give it flavour, or some black pepper etc.. or a tin of cheap tomatoes with it.

If you can try going to butchers and getting a 3 pack of whole meat such as a pack with a pork roast, whole chicken and leg of lamb in it - these cost about £10 and if you cook them all in one go then carve them up, you can seperate the meat into portion sizes, put them in sandwich bags and put in freezer, then all you have to do is take out the portions you need and put in pan of gravy and boil. You can get quite a few meals out of 3 whole joints of meat!

Also buy a big sack of potatoes and use these for making chips, roasts and mash rather than the frozen varieties, lasts longer and much cheaper. If anyone is hungry you could make a quick jacket potato too with just a little bit of butter or marg in it or even add a cheap tin of beans.

So basically, lets say you have £20 for shopping for the week - pick up cheap pack of toilet rolls for 99p, sack of spuds for about £3, packet of pasta for about 27p, beans 9p x 4, tinned tomatoes 12p x 4, 3 pack of whole joints £10, 2 loaves value bread 37p each, cheap tub of spread 27p, cheap jar jam 27p, value cereal 68p, milk £1.50 ish? maybe pack of minced beef £2.00 that lasts for at least 2 meals = £20.56 and is enough food to feed you both for OVER a week - think at least 2 meals per joint of meat each (most likely more than that even) but even at that underestimate you get 6 days of meals out of 3 joints of meat, plus option of jacket potatoes as a meal (countless meals from a sack!), plus 2 days out of the pack of minced meat so now you have at least 8 days meals, more if you make jacket potatoes!

You also have the bread available for lunches and the cereal for breakfasts. Only thing I forgot was frozen veg which you can get for about 80p-£1.00 a packed and would only need 2 bags to get you through the week so add £2.00 to the total for that. So you're talking about £22.00 if you just budget, if you have a little more you can buy biscuits from 36p a packet or less if you just go for plain biscuits rather than cream ones or chocolate ones. A bottle of pop for as low as 11p or 36p for a reasonable tasting one.

Now if you think electric bill maybe £10 a week? maybe same for gas? so that's £20 a week on gas and electric and maximum £30 on food shopping, that's £50 a week for fuel and groceries.

If you're not earning bringing in as much as £50 a week for two people in one household, then I can assure you that you are entitled to some kind of benefits no matter what they've told you, because that is way below the amount government has said a person needs to live on.

[Dray]

Apparently the amount that a household needs to survive (including rent money) is £126. Our rent is £110 roughly and the government wont give us more than £126 per week. Thats where the problem starts, really.

Going by that 5 hours per day at home for carers allowance, I wouldnt get it because I'm at college for 8 hours a day for 2 days a week which basically rules that out then.

The only problem with microwave meals is that we dont have a microwave.. It blew up and we cant afford a new one at the moment.

We often buy the cheap noodle pack things that are abut 12p each and have those as a meal sometimes.

I think the majority of our money is actually spent on drink rather than food. Mum likes to have good quality coffee and good quality hot chocolate to drink so thats about £6 a week going on those sorts of things (she drinks a lot of coffee and hot chocolate). If we spent £2 (just rounding to the nearest pound) on the noodles and £6 on mum's drinks, thats not too bad I suppose. But then, I normally have 4 pints of milk a week at least so say £2 for that as well to make that £10. I like to have some fruit juice to drink too and I normally buy 2 cartons for £1 so thats £11. I normally buy one bottle of fizzy drink as well so roughly £1 again. So £12.

Then there's toilet roll (£1.17 I believe so say £1) and washing powder (£2 Tesco's one). Cat food and dog food is roughly £5 a week as well. So that makes £20.

We do get fruit and veg as well so about another £5 on top of that. (£25)

We spend £20 on electricity in a week, although I really have no idea why. We believe that we're being charged by 2 companies so we're trying to sort out why that is but neither company is very interested in talking to us about it.

Petrol for getting to mum's physio appointments and doctors appointments is about £10 a week as well.

[Sammy]

Ok the amount government says you need to live on does not take into account rent, you can apply for housing and council tax benefit seperately for those, the amount they will pay for rent is not a set amount either, it is based on whether they think the amount of rent you are being charged for the home you are in is an acceptable amount for that type of property and whether it is the right size for your needs, if it is too big, they may make you pay some of the rent but normally only a very small amount.

So....

1) Income Support in mothers name with you as a named dependant - Due to disability she may not be entitled to claim income support and instead might have to apply for ESA instead

2) Disability Living allowance in mothers name

3) Carers allowance - if mother is awarded middle rate dla or higher - in your name

4) Child Benefit

5) Child tax credit

6) Housing benefit and council tax benefit

You may also be able to get travel fees refunded for taking your mum to her appointments - speak to the receptionist where you take her about this, often it only allows you to get refunds if you travel by bus or train (public transport) but possible that if you have a valid reason why this is not possible, they will compensate you for personal costs of transport

Now maybe you got your figure off what they say they will pay you from just one of these claims, and they didn't notify you that you were entitled to other benefits too, therefore leaving you with not enough to live on.

Please please contact welfare rights or citizens advice bureau asap so that you can get your money as soon as possible, but also so that you can get it backdated to when you put in the claim. It took them 7 weeks to sort out our claim and in that time we had no money whatsoever to live on, so the sooner you get the forms in the better.

When government take into account how much a household needs to live on they NEVER include your rent in these costs because how much rent a person pays is variable. It would be silly to say you can only have £120 a week to live on if you're rent is £110 a week, and what if you're rent was more than that? Which for some people it is!

The amount they say a household needs to live on is only for food, clothes, household products and fuel costs.

You may not be ruled out for carers because by your calculations you are still home 35 hours a week - and I'm pretty sure they do it by weekly rather than daily, I was just averaging it out for you!

However being only 16 you will need advice on if you can get any kind of benefits.

As for electricity bill - if you don't have gas appliances, electricity usage may be higher, you may also have an outstanding debt that is being paid off on your meter which would bump up the charges - unlikely to be being charged by 2 companies though, but you're house may not be energy efficient and you can have someone come round free of charge to find out where you can improve on this and if any help is available, what things you can get for free etc... to improve energy efficiency.

Citizens advice can help you with ALL of this and make all the calls needed and fill in all the forms for you and send them all off totally free of charge!

[Sammy]

If you were entitled to Employment and Support Allowance (ESA) before you made your claim, you may be able to get it for an earlier period. This is called backdating. ESA can be backdated for up to three months before the date of your claim, and you do not have to give a reason for your late claim. You should explain when you make your claim that you want to claim backdated benefit and give the date you became entitled to ESA.

Also just read this.

[Sammy]

http://www.welfarerights.net/

http://www.welfarerights.net/contact.asp, drop down list request home visit and then let them know you're enquiry and they will come visit you and help you work out what you are both entitled to and fill in all the forms for you.

[Barebones]

Hi, i have to mention about carers allowance, if your a student you cant get the allowance, my husband looked into it when he was a student and it said no if being a student, also if you earn more than £90 a week i think, u may not get it. Its total bollocks that this is what they do. Sry for giving you some bad news, but that was in the carers allowance leaflet we got.

good luck with everything else, sammy has gave some great things to apply for, all the best hun and ur mum.

[Sammy]

Barebones, we get more than £90 a week, but martin still gets carers, however our income is benefits not job wages, and the money he gets from carers is deducted from income support he gets, however, it means he doesn't have to work or look for work or be on jobseekers, which is why he claims it. We don't benefit by any extra money for claiming but it does mean he can stay at home to look after me.

I was thinking with this situation, that if mum isn't working that they might expect him to go and get a job instead of college, and therefore was thinking that maybe if he got carers at least he wouldn't be expected to give up education to work, and therefore still continue at college and care for his mum.

I know you can't be in full time education but I'm thinking as he's only doing a part time course 2 days a week they might accept his application for carers. Dunno, but it's worth a try, and welfare rights will know or not anyway.

[Barebones]

yeah your right there sam, when i said £90 its work money that is taken in account, not benefits.

I didnt relise it was only 2 days, so yeah that may make the diffrence.

Hey sam you know your stuff

[Dray]

Sammy - Okay, thanks for all the information. I'll have a look at those links and see if I can work out what we're entitled to. I am a student though so would that make much difference to any of that..?

She gets income support at the moment because she still gets SSP from her work as they havent fired her (only because they cant legally fire her..) But that changes next month. Well... next week actually. 24th of September.

I'll see if there is any sort of compensation for the travelling. I'm not sure there will be, though. Should private health insurance cover some of that or not?

Yeah, our rent is pretty low. Especially for the area we live in. The average here is about £160 a week.

Is the being home for 35 hours a week thing including weekends? If it is, I'm home for more than 35 hours. If not, I think it's about 33 hours which kinda sucks.

Yeah, with the electricity thing, e.on are still charging us as we keep getting statements from them saying what we're paying, yet npower send us statements too. We should be with npower. So we may be charged by both, thats why we're unsure.

Mum seems to think the CAB are going to eat her or something if she goes anywhere near them so she might take some persuading but I'll definately try hard to get her to talk to them.

Barebones - As a student, can you not still get young carers allowance..? Or is it just completely out?

Thank you both for all your replies! It really is appreciated.

[Sammy]

yes includes weekends so you should be good, and as i said, i think the being a student thing depends on how many hours and as you aren't doing much you might just be ok. Have no idea about private insurance.

If you're mum too worried to see cab, then just phone job center and ask them to send u all the forms for benefits - income support money should go up when she earns less (ie not getting sick pay anymore)

Ask for income support change of details form - for when her circumstances change and not get sick pay anymore

Ask for housing benefit form

ask for council tax benefit form

ask for child tax credit form (may have to phone council for that)

ask for child benefit form

ask for disability living allowance form

ask for carers allowance form

Always when filling forms that ask about the health problems and disability - fill it out as though it is on a bad day when you're mum is most affected by her disability and all the extra care she needs, don't be afraid to say she sometimes needs help to get dressed or encouragement to bath/shower, help with cooking and encouragement to eat etc... These are the things they need to hear to award dla at middle rate or higher rate so that you can apply for the carers allowance.

[walker]

if u get all those forms at once you will prob feel like running out the door or burning them

they take a long time to fill in

i would strongly recomend you get cab, to help you - they do them often - they are there to help - not judge - calling them would be good - perhaps they could even visit and reassure your mum, i dont know

good luck