“I kept telling myself things would get better, but depression had well and truly set in.”

When people talk about mental health, there seems to be one group of people who are often overlooked in the debate, even though almost everyone I know who falls into the category has a mental health problem- and that’s single parents.

I can only speak of my experience- as a single mum- but I hope it helps people to understand the kind of struggles we face on a daily basis. The media love to demonise us and brand us as scroungers, but for most of us, we are victims of circumstance and we are just trying to make the best of what is often a bad situation. I’m writing this because I want people to understand why so many of us find life so difficult when we are on our own and often have financial pressures, problems with our exes and face loneliness every day.

I became a single parent ten years ago when my son was just two years old. I had been married to his dad, happily, or so I thought. One weekend he waited until our son was asleep and told me he was leaving. He didn’t have a reason for it beyond he ‘wasn’t happy’ and even though I’m ashamed to admit I begged him to stay, he insisted the relationship was over.

Now I’m older and a bit wiser I know that these things rarely come out of nowhere. There is often another woman waiting in the wings and this was the case with my ex. When he told me he was leaving he had already found somewhere new to live and within weeks was in a  relationship with this new woman. I was devastated, but this didn’t seem to matter to him. He had a new life now, and so did I. Except mine was a lot worse than his.

Despite the early promises that he would keep things civil for the sake of our child, things quickly went south. He wouldn’t commit to a routine or schedule when seeing our child and would frequently call or text demanding to see him there and then. If I said it wasn’t convenient, he would become verbally abusive and accuse me of restricting access. More often than not I gave in and rearranged my plans to accommodate him to keep the peace.

My ex refused to help with childcare and even quit his job to work cash in hand so I couldn’t claim any child maintenance from him. This crippled me financially. I worked full time but my income was so low that it had to be topped up with tax credits.

I quickly ended up in debt and lived hand to mouth. I could only afford the basics and things like new clothes had to be saved up for. I could only afford the cheapest rent, so we lived in a flat with a mould problem and when it rained, water leaked through the roof. My ex had a habit of popping over unannounced and would mock me for being unable to furnish the flat- I had no money for a fridge, so kept milk cold in the sink. I kept telling myself things would get better, but depression had well and truly set in.

Since my ex wouldn’t agree to help out with looking after our son so I could work, I had to rely on my family. My elderly parents helped out but it wasn’t easy. I worked a minimum wage retail job, which meant long unsociable hours and sometimes during busy trade periods I wouldn’t be home until after midnight. I had to sell my car and rely on public transport as I couldn’t afford to maintain it or pay for petrol. Giving up my car meant giving up my freedom and as public transport wasn’t great where we lived, I became very isolated.

When I was with my ex I had a fairly good social life. This completely disappeared when we broke up. Most of our mutual friends took his side, and the ones I kept soon lost interest when I was never able to go out without my son. My parents were already doing the bulk of the childcare so I could work, and understandably weren’t willing to do more so I could go out. Babysitters were out of the question as I couldn’t afford it.

I also had to give up going to the gym, something I loved before. This meant that I spent my evenings alone whilst my son was in bed, watching TV and eating or drinking wine. This led to me putting on a lot of weight without the gym to keep me active, and I would drink a bottle of wine to myself most nights which didn’t help either. I was so sad and lonely and didn’t know how to get out of the dark hole I found myself in. I stopped caring about how I looked and lived in tracksuits and leggings to hide my weight gain. Because my food budget was so tight, more often than not I had to buy unhealthy or carby foods in bulk, things like noodles and packet pasta, all things that piled on the weight.

Being a single mum also affected me at work. Luckily I’d carried on working full time after I had my son- I think if I’d been a stay at home mum, I would have struggled to get a job as a single parent after being out of the workplace for so long. Retail is sometimes thought of as being really flexible, but it actually isn’t. Late nights and early mornings meant childcare had to be planned with absolute precision, and when I couldn’t stay longer after a shift or pick up cover for absent staff, this was noted and I was thought of as ‘not a team player.’ I stopped being asked on staff nights out and I felt like I was invisible.

I missed out on two promotions and I’m fairly sure this was down to my childcare making me less flexible. When my son started nursery, he was sick a lot and this meant me having to take time off to stay home with him, or leave work early to collect him- there was nobody else to do it. I had several warnings for this. This created tension with colleagues and management. I was terrified I would lose my job and in the end turned my phone off when I was working so that the nursery couldn’t call me. At my lowest point I even thought about doing sex work to earn more money and pay debts. I worried about money 24/7 and thought of suicide all the time. The only thing that stopped me was remembering that if I did kill myself, my son would go and live with his dad and then he would have ‘won’.

I visited my doctor not long after the suicidal thoughts began and was prescribed sertraline to improve my mood after being diagnosed with depression and anxiety. I have been prescribed many medications and dosages over the years which have varied in how effective they are. I feel I would benefit from counselling, but the waiting lists were so long that it seemed pointless. They never make the depression go away but it dulls the intensity of the feelings.

My ex and his girlfriend are very financially stable and have a lovely home and go on nice holidays, things that I could only dream of. As my son got older, they would play on this and buy him nice presents and things that he wanted that I couldn’t afford. Obviously he then wanted to spend more and more time with them, which hurt, and he would come home from a visit talking about all the nice things they had. There were many tantrums where he would get upset that we didn’t have nice things like they did, which made me feel guilty and ashamed. He missed out on birthday parties as I had to turn down invitations as I couldn’t afford to buy birthday presents and I also refused playdates, as I didn’t want to have to return the favour and for people to see the state of our flat. All of this made me even less popular with my son.

Dating was also impossible. I tried it when my son was eight, having been single for six years. I signed up to an app and got some interest, but even though I mentioned my son in my profile, many men ghosted me when I mentioned him. The same when I tried to set up dates and they realised I wasn’t instantly available and had to negotiate childcare arrangements. I had some nasty messages about me being a single parent and how I should be grateful for interest after I politely rejected one man.

I found the online dating scene hard, competing with younger and much more attractive single women and deleted the app after a few months. That was four years ago and I’ve been single ever since. I just don’t ever meet anyone in real life because I don’t go out, but I’ve made my peace with it now. I would love to have a partner and I feel lonely a lot, but it is how it is. I’ve been alone so long it’s become normal.

Now my son is older and more independent, I am gradually starting to rebuild my life. I’m doing a college course to hopefully find a better job that’s 9-5 and that will be better paid. I want to make friends, although I feel like I’ve lost all of my confidence. I hope it can happen though. And I really want to move out of the flat. It’s not so bad now, over the years I have managed to furnish it with secondhand bits and pieces. Owning my own home will likely never happen, but I’d like somewhere where I don’t have to bleach the walls in winter to get rid of the mould. I’m still depressed and feel anxious a lot of the time, but I am starting to see light at the end of the tunnel for the first time in a long time.

Life as a single parent is really tough. You feel like you’re set up to fail from day one and when you have little in the way of support, it’s completely overwhelming. I hope that people read this and realise that we’re trying our best and we’re not all expecting handouts. It’s taken a huge toll on my mental health and affected my life in every way possible.