Be Excellent To Each Other

Shin, you mentioned above that you didn't open your mail for a period. Is it possible they wrote to you on the 5th advising you that they were getting a posession order, and you just didn't read it? If so, I think they would be deemed to have made every effort to give you the required notice.

Advice already given is sound. CAB and call the letting agent to discuss.

Hope you manage to sort things out.

They never bloody answer in my experience. On the other hand Trading Standards are excellent, and often in my call history

I am utterly sure this is true. Am I right? Well, I am not a lawyer, but I am a pedantic bastard who has had my own share of landlord hassles over the years.

FATALITY BITCH. Now go make me a Thai curry. Red, not green, I don't care for too much coconut.

I absolutely think this is the case. I suspect there is no possession order, as thinking on, I'm pretty sure the court would have contacted Shin independently had one been issued. This means the earliest they can apply for one is two weeks from today if they delivered a fresh notice-of-intention-to-evict by hand right now.

Not at all - getting into financial difficulty is all too common and something few people avoid at one time or another. It's usually a good learning experience - once bitten, twice shy and all that.

It's exactly what you should have done.

While I haven't commented due to not having much to say to help, I can say I *do* have experiance of people close to me with depression and things. I can imagine what you're coping with on top of all this. It won't make it any easier talking here, perhaps, but it'll do you good to share it with people.

Good luck!

Have you phoned the court?

I think that was referring to the time when Shin was with her abusive ex-partner.

If that's the case, then I bloody well hope it wasn't September 5th as that would mean she was seeing him while I was in Barbados

That is a reasonable plan of action. Take any documentation you can to the CAB, like deposit slips from the bank, original letting contract, the letter from the agency, and so on.

Whoa there! Everyone makes mistakes and has set backs Shin. You are still very young (don't want to appear patronising) so don't be so hard on yourself. Sorry I can't offer you any more help than what's already been said.

Everyone fucks something up sooner or later.

You're not the first and you won't be the last

Focus on getting yourself stable again and only then should you start to analyse and post-mortem where it went wrong and how to avoid it in future.

Don't try to split yourself worrying about it too much while you need your energy for sorting this out. I know that's easier said than done but you need to start from a stable foundation, else all you build on it could collapse later on.

Meh.

It's harder to have to tell your mum that she's a failure, so look on the bright side that you don't have to do that!

I think you have a point there.

Oh, I thought I sent that in a PM, hehe.

Anyway, but yes, I have had to do that.

I wish I'd thought of using a PM before posting my reply all publicly.

It's my fault - I fail at the internet - I get mixed up with the quotes button and the PM button, mostly. or sometimes I am trying to quote something and find that I am looking at someone's profile. OK, that happens every time.

See, I am rubbish with computers.

Give me my chalkboard back. No accidental button pushing on that.

I accidentally won at poker a few weeks ago by going all in on a hand I didn't mean to.

1: The CAB are busy, very busy. You should also be contacting Shelter and/or your local Council housing office (the housing advice centre therein or thereabouts) for such advice. You mention you live in Shropshire, a little more detail and I'll be glad to google for you.

2: You aren't a failure for having a shitty private landlord, but you will be if you don't contact every housing association in the area and get on their waiting lists. Once the current situ is sorted. Single female, depression, local family connection - all of these will gain you 'points' which dictate your place on the waiting list, plus they'll have access to support workers who can step in if you aren't coping in the future.

3: ONLY APPLIES IF YOU ARE UNEMPLOYED: If you end up 'sofa surfing' at your boyf's house, you are still just as homeless as the guy sleeping in a hedge in the park, once you have NFA, you are a priority and ahead of every homeless man in your council's jurisdiction, and will be on the council housing list. Get a letter from boyf saying you can stay at his until decent social housing is provided to you but you cannot stay there permanently. You will be offered nightshelters, hostels and so on in the meantime, but don't for fuck's sake go in those unless you have to, or you'll meet the likes of me.

4: If you are two days from a sudden and possibly illegal eviction, your company isn't going to look good if they disallow compassionate leave. They have a legal obligation to act in the best interests of your welfare. If you are about to lose your flat making you work and not make essential calls during that time is a breach. Contact your union rep if you have any problems.

5: I'm surpried you can be in work if you have clinical depression. I'm not surprised however if you are feeling unhappy right now. I recall going to my GP depressed and being told in no uncertain terms that my life as I described it was shit and the diagnosis was 'fucking miserable' rather than depressed. Said GP referred me to a cognitive behavioural therapist and I learned how to retain control and resist this sort of bullshit from landlords, bosses and the like.

Links of powah:

http://england.shelter.org.uk/get_advic ... s/eviction
http://england.shelter.org.uk/get_advic ... and_advice

Shelter are fucking aces.

This is what I was trying to say earlier only a bit more clumsily. If you say you're depressed and someone says "what have you got to be depressed about" and you reel off a list of things that would make anyone stressed or unhappy well then that's not really depression and the GP shouldn't be giving out anti-depressants.

GPs generally are at best misguided and at worst dangerous. Motivation is not missing targets, so the quickest means of getting the patient out of the surgery is usually taken these days.

Jacks of all trades, masters of none, or few, and if your problem isn't in their field but you need them for a referral to a specialist, good luck.

this does not go for the brilliant GPs out there, Dr Cocks in Splott, Cardiff, for example, has the patience of a saint and the insight of an even higher power than that, according to colleagues who support clients to attend his surgery.

That said, in my experience the shitbag/angel ratio is about 2:1

I digress, though. Popped back on to mention the prioriy list when theres a debty client... pay in this order...

1: Rent
2: Rent
3: Rent
4: Council Tax
5: Gas/Electricity
6: Water
7: Banks
8: Other, i.e. catalogues or that


The sally army will do you a food parcel, but they won't pay your council tax.

Also shin, you entitled to income support or tax credits? I'm not an expert on either yet, but perhaps some advice peeps you contact locally are?

Finally for now, these can come in handy, but you really mustn't expect that applying will get you one, and they usually have about three people handling 200+ applications a day in Cardiff, including having to do bullshit detection, so get in early. I mention these not so much for Shin right now, but for all readers in general.

After all, if you pay your way in life and are stuffed for a hundred or so quid for rent due to misfortune, why should the government not be the people you turn to for a hand?

Because all the smackheads, hate-clerics and illegals need the money more.

Just to note that if can't pay your rent you have to relay on charity but if you can't pay your council tax the government will happily put a roof over your head.

Are you paying Council Tax by the way? Are you getting Tax Credits? If so, are you getting Housing Benefit?

I've little of use to add, but when you head out tomorrow take some bread with you. Once you've begun sorting stuff out, take 20 minutes or so to feed the ducks in the park. The relaxation will be worth it.

As BETEO's resident lurking psychiatrist I may as well throw my hat into this ring too. It would be unprofessional for me to comment on what other doctors may have said (because they know you and I don't), but the advice below can be thought of as some of my generic advice on depression:



Probably the better choice - removing the stress of work can be useful if that's a major contribution to the depression, but if being off work will be even more stressful (and if money is a worry, this is almost certain to be the case) then staying in work (as long as you can function reasonably well) is likely to be the better move.



If he suggests the same tablets, I'd request something different. Feeling 'zombified' is rare, but it does happen and usually won't with another class of drug. Some GPs fail to realise that people don't often fail to take/stop drugs for no reason, and that it's almost always that it doesn't agree with you. We used to categorise this sort of depression as 'reactive', or as a reaction to more stress than a person can reasonably handle. Antidepressants may take the edge off some of the anxiety, but the real 'treatment' is trying to sort out the problems in life. Talking therapies might help in the longer term, but I'd focus your efforts on trying to deal with these very real problems. I could quite some monumentally tedious research linking the body's response to stress to the abnormalities in brain chemistry that give rise to depressive symptoms, but the short version is that with all this going on in your life, as long as the depression isn't completely incapacitating you (which is the point at which antidepressants tend to take over as the treatment of choice) then medication is, at best, only a small part of the solution.

The CAB can be very helpful - I'm not of the legal persuasion, but it seems like someone is taking liberties with your rights, and if that is the case then it should be stopped if at all possible.



Stress. Many people get that too. Especially doctors when patients come in with a list of things wrong with them...

Sorry. I couldn't resist that.



It's a secret conspiracy to shift the mountain of unsold My Chemical Romance albums. But don't mention that I told you.


Seriously, I hope things work out - it's alarming how easy it is to endup in a mess like this. I've seen people come through far worse though. Just concentrate on fixing one thing at a time as far as you're able, and don't be afraid to tell people (family especially) that you need some time away from dealing with others' problems - making yourself worse by taking on too much won't help anyone.

Good luck

First appointment at the solicitors is free, but then they charge you for the research, and solicitors is expensive for research you can do yourself. It might end up cheaper to jsut forgoe whatever deposit on that place and pay the rest off. Although, to my untrained eyhe, it does appear to be a straight breach of contract to me, although good stuff for making an offer.

1500 quid IS quite a lot, but do-able.

Did you get that tattoo in the end?

How many decent research papers have you gotten out of us so far?

There's a whole Welsh subsection there to be mined.

That's okay. I understand. Besides, I hardly wear the mask and cape to work these days, anyway. And the asthma's cleared up nicely, thank you very much.




With the SSRIs (the most common first-line treatment that a GP would prescribe) things can get a little worse anxiety-wise at first, and that can cause your mind to play a few tricks on you. The issue is whether it's worth living with that in the hope things will settle down, trying an alternative class of medication that shouldn't cause that, or deciding that it isn't worth the side effects and another approach would be better. It sounds like what you tried last time really didn't agree with you.



None...yet. I have had a few indecent papers though. I'm still collecting material - that's why I lurk in a dark corner, wearing my dark mask and cape, watching...biding my time...

Sorry. I'm a bad, bad man...

I''ve skimmed - I'm really sorry, but I've had an exhausting few weeks and should really be in bed. But:



This x 10.

And, crucially, you're going to be okay. Trust me, you'll find something, and in a few years you will be using stories like this as excellent anecdotes to explain how amazing you are and why everyone in the vicinity should consider sleeping with you immediately.

You can get an NHS voucher for the glasses, I think?

Good luck with CAB.

You're having a crap time, so I don't know if it is depression any more than absolutely understandable stress and anxiety - you feel miserable, but so would anything. As others have said, I don't think that anti-depressants are the right thing, because if you were depressed you'd be depressed no matter what was going on in your life, even if you were having a great run of luck, which isn't the case.

Get to the CAB as soon as you can - you shouldn't wait for them to open as there is always a queue as long as the street outside most of them, and it's better to get there early.

Go on, go now.

Yep, you can get a free examination and voucher for some glasses with the NHS.

Don't worry, there should be a few styles to choose from, Craig got quite a lovely pair when he had temporary eye troubles.

I'm quite happy to buy a pair of glasses from glassesdirect.co.uk as they're good quality, look pretty good and they're cheap too

Haha, I want these and I don't even wear glasses

It's ok, Gaz is desperate.

Seriously though, money troubles cause so much grief for millions of people every year. You can almost start to understand why people top themselves over it.

I've had my fair share over the years, but you'll come through it stronger and wiser like I have. I've finally learnt my lesson, and it took me six years of living away from home to do it.

You'll be ok.

Pretty much.

It was a toss up between that or 'You must be a really good shag'.

This is why I hate it when people say "money can't buy you happiness" - well, maybe it doesn't, but it sure as hell prevents a lot of unhappiness.

It can certainly rent it for a while.

If I had everything I wanted, I wouldn't need money.

Sorry, but had to look up Love Tap. I don't think however you meant any of these terms.

Oh dear.

Don't use that euphamism, Shin - being beaten by a partner is nothing to do with love.

Unless it's at backgammon.

hehe, quite