Sick Pay & Benefits

[jessieannskiv]

I'm 21 years old and had to walk away from college last May during my 2nd year at dance college due to my eating disorder and depression holding me back and consuming my life. I'd stopped turning up to college because I felt that I was too fat to wear a leotard and I had really bad paranoia that everyone judged me in a negative way. I left knowing that I security of a job (in a gym which is pretty silly for someone with an eating disorder I know!) and It's recently got really bad again. I've become self-conscious of all my scars on my arms etc and in the last few weeks it's been really rocky and I have ended up in hospital twice in a matter of a week from 2 overdoses and another this week which I didn't attend hospital for. I have also been receiving CBT for my eating disorder at the Maudsley but they wont offer me any therapies for my depression or personality disorder at the same time as they wont intervene 2 mental health issues at one time. I have 10 weeks of weekly sessions left at the ED unit until they will even consider me. I phoned the crisis team after being in A&E as I still felt as low as I did before the overdose... They were rubbish and dismissed me - they told me I wasn't in a current state of crisis (even though I did it twice in a week) and so it left me feeling pretty much alone in my efforts to help myself and I became very unwilling when it came to contacting them again.
I've now been signed off work for a month from today. I was also off sick the whole of last week too. I understand that I get statutory sick pay for this period but my pay is awful as it is and I won't be able to pay rent etc and was wondering if anyone knew if I would be entitled to some kind of benefit or financial support. I don't want to end up n major debt and it's not like I haven't tried to work. My head space is just not in the right place at the moment and my sleep is so screwed up that I cant work efficiently.

Would really appreciate any advice on what to do.
Thanks, Jessie x

[katj]

Im sure you should be entitled to housing benefit  - look on your local councils website. Also maybe try the citizens advice bureau?

[terrified heart]

A trip to citizens advice would be a good idea. I would imagine you would be entitled to ESA (employment support allowance). I get that, but I work part time too which tops it up. I also get DSA, but I'm not sure if you can still claim that as I think people are being moved over to PIP. I'm not so sure how PIP works, but you could well be entitled to that too. CAB should be able to tell you what you're entitled to, and can also help you with the application.

Xx