Anxiety about affordability of Xmas this evening. Adverts on tv and every shop full of decorations. Looking at high interest loans for bad credit. Calculating when UC payments due and how much will be spent on bills and food. The electric pre payment meter balance is going down fast.

I have just discovered there are no funds available for children living in a low income home to go on trips. My daughter was hand picked to go to NASA and I’ve phoned so many organisations and MLAs and even some MLAs have done research for me. Even they were shocked nothing is available for my daughter to have this wonderful opportunity. I really want to make it work but to do that I will have to get into debt and borrow money. If my daughter was picked for this amazing trip due to her academic ability surely something should exist to take the pressure of poorer parents.

Still battling with UC to agree that at least currently I do not have capacity to work. Citizens Advice have been helping me but it involves more pouring out of my trauma. Not sure how this can ever help. Every new person I meet in this work/job seeking/support capacity requires me to openly discuss my mental health and my trauma, sometimes in an open office. I think they are immune to it and appear to forget that this is personal and difficult stuff and that it is not helpful or kind to ask a person to share this information in such a matter of fact public way. Surely this is related to Daren McGarvey's Trauma industrial complex theory? This isn't sharing online but having to share with job centre staff etc. in order to survive and receive support. Each time you share it is like a miniature personal betrayal and as Darren McGarvey asks, maybe it ultimately prevents or holds back recovery.

Fed up. I hung my washing outside on a sunny morning a over a week ago. It's still there due to rain and fog every day since. More washing hanging up to dry indoors over clothes airers and over doors. I have no clean dry clothes to wear today unless I switch on the heating which is costing me a lot to feed a pre payment meter. Its not cold...just damp weather.

Yesterday was a really low point for me. I have a family of five people. I am disabled, my partner is my carer and our three children. The youngest two are Autistic. For the past week I have been trying to cobble together meals from what was left at the bottom of the freezer and at the back of the cupboard, but then there was nothing left and no money to buy anything with. I had to use a food bank. The reason for this change was because I was advised by my Dr to eat fresh meals rather than processed food.

I shop at Lidl. It is so much more expensive to buy fruit, veg, meat, oil, herbs and spices than it is to buy packets and jars. I just don't understand why it costs more to eat healthier.

These past two weeks have wiped me out. At the start of half term we spent some time with family who passed on a viral infection unknowingly.

Fast forward to almost two weeks of my son spiking temperatures of 40 on and off, emergency Drs visits for all three kids on separate occasions, cancelled plans, change in routine and me being rushed into A&E as it effected my asthma. My brain hurts.

My anxiety is through the roof, I forgot to pay important bills and I feel like I;m dropping all the plates. I've burned out completely and the extra cost is unreal. Dropping and breaking things because I've been distracted caring for everyone. Forgetting to put the washing on then having to wash the same thing several times as I forget to get it out. Having to buy convenience food as my executive functioning is failing atm.

Sometimes it all adds up. I know I'm fine. I know Monday I can start again and get back into the routine my brain craves but right now in the thick of feeling poorly I just feel sorry for myself. Winter is not good for my mental health.

To top all of that off we have countless meetings lined up for my 13 year old son who is currently on a part time timetable at school due to them trying to find him an alternative provision for two days a week. This provision is a further 25 miles away from my house. Meaning now twice a week I will have to drive 100 mile round trip for school. Honestly I don't know how parents do any of it? But we crack on for the sake of our kids don't we? He also has a private ADHD assessment on Thursday - his dad has now paid for after 11 years of telling me his neurodivergence is simply my poor parenting. Filling in the paperwork of 11 years of failings by the education system and deep routed trauma probably hasn't helped my brain.

I feel like if I stop and rest ill fail so I dont stop, I dont rest i just keep going hoping it'll all work out.

Tomorrow is a new day with a fresh start. Next week routine can commence and today we need to rest

November is here, cooler. Kids are set to go back to school after half term. Mine are under the weather maybe because of the changing weather. Hoping they get better as it is frustrating watching both kids coughing.

Younger daughter with autism being verbally aggressive towards me today.

She is resenting me for not being dressed and going out to work! No empathy for me feeling unwell with side effects of antidepressants. No consideration that I clean up behind her and cook her meals. Is this her sister - the business owner who employs her- saying these things about me? My stomach turns as it stirs up the disrespect of how my ex talked down to me. I tried to explain to my daughter that she is disrespectful to me and ask why she has resentment to me but she had to go to work.

I've spent hours writing out pages of information to put in with the UC50 form to ensure she gets her benefit entitlement. Went to print out her diagnoses (9 pages) to include with the form. The shop was closed due to staff holidays and so was the library as now its opening hours have been cut.

I sometimes feel why do I bother? My efforts are not appreciated and I don't have much disposable income to enjoy.

Hi. We are having a bad day today, hope tomorrow will be OK.

Been in touch with Edinburgh crisis team, who are helping access mental health support, and also Chai who helped me fill in my capability for work form. I’ve got so much stress atm with potentially moving home. I’m so worried if I don’t get into this newer build energy efficient home by winter I’ll end up further into my arrears

I just read in a menopause support group, a woman told another woman who was struggling with symptoms to "go to specialist not a GP". So many women in this group use private healthcare to support their mental health and other symptoms through their Perimenopause. You will often see someone say the first appointment was £300 but it is worth it. They will often be able to get a very specialised and individualised look at their symptoms, their history, their mental health and the best of the medications and products available to treat them. This includes medications or hormones that are "off licence" that the GP will not prescribe or higher doses of hormones and medication that the GP will not prescribe as it is also off licence. When their hormones begin to show signs of not working as well they are able to get support through private clinics to ensure maximum support and have their mental health and physical symptoms effectively dealt with. Often when a prescription is given through a private specialist clinic, a GP will not continue this through the NHS and so these wealthier women are able to also continue with a private prescription also. If not recommending private menopause clinics then advice often falls to expensive and out of reach supplements or diets. I guess this seems a bit of a random rant for this project but it really isn't. The reason why my daughter and I are living in poverty currently is directly related to my perimenopause transition. A previously hard working, productive, creative and pretty academic person, I was suddenly reduced to a person with no energy, anxiety about everything, massive cognitive decline, terrible executive function, loss of confidence, and a terrible and continuous low mood. The impact on my life and my family is enormous. This is not an unusual case, however, as many women in the perimenopause transition experience awful symptoms that disrupt their lives. Many will be supported by a partner with an income or by access to health care or lifestyle changes that are impossible on Universal Credit. Tragically, on contacting my GP to report that my symptoms are not improving, he suggested antidepressants. This becomes the norm for women in this transition who are not able to afford private support. There are studies that show that women in more deprived areas are less likely to have HRT, there is actual data to show the inequality of menopause health care for lower income women. If we want to think about mental health and poverty, for a section of women in a certain age bracket perimenopause will be key. It drives women into poverty or poverty means that they can't get help or both. Meanwhile, I'm down at Lidl hoping they have made up the £2 boxes of fruit and veg that is starting to go wrong but can still be sold to poor people or discovering that bananas are one of the cheapest fruits that you can buy as you get about 5 for 98p. In reality it's impossible to get a healthy balanced diet on Universal Credit for us, as all of our money just goes on paying the crazy high rent. We go weeks not knowing when I can buy more milk for example. In short, not only are women living in poverty unable to access the care they need in perimenopause but they probably also can't even afford a basic healthy diet. I now feel I am stuck in a loop. How will I get better and feel better, how will my mental health and physical symptoms improve with no resources? The further down this journey I go the more I get pressured and bullied by DWP systems to get me back to work when I am struggling with even basic domestic tasks from day to day.

I have poor mental health and am living in poverty currently. I live in a rural area which most people would think meant that I had better access to nice places for walking or leisure. In fact I live on a rural main road with no path or cycle path and it is so dangerous I couldn't walk to anywhere. I have to use a car to go everywhere. We have to use a car to get to public transport also, as even though buses go by our house the road has nowhere for a bus to stop.

Yesterday I went on a walk with a friend. We do this periodically maybe once per month. It began at the start of the year when we both realised that it was doing us both good, socially and physically and emotionally. Yesterday was really hard to enjoy however as I just felt really guilty. My friend always makes the furthest car journey to a place very close to me and also always buys us something for lunch so that we can walk for longer. I usually make some kind of herbal tea that has some nice beneifts. For the first time yesterday I felt like my friend was maybe resentful of all of her driving and the cost of buying lunch items. I had to apologise to her and say I felt really bad that I couldn't reciprocate as finances were so bad that the was actually 0 in the bank. I explained that we are rationing everything even car journeys. I usually only do something if it's after I have driven my daughter to the train station for college, other than that I don't go anywhere anymore. It felt so wrong and I felt so bad that I wondered about maybe not doing the walk next time. This is how poverty really stings you. First of all you can't afford to do and buy basic things but it also prevents you from participating in the most basic social activities. These walks are helpful and they do make me feel better but my UC income is so low it only just covers our rent. I don't understand how it makes sense for people to have so little that they can't even do basic things to help themselves recover. Yet the DWP is keen to get me better and get me back into work. I want to do that but it feels like my circumstances make me more ill and less likely to get back to work. The system removes any protective factors you may have and leaves you worse off in every way, not just financially.