The Hidden Debilitating Effects of Having Major Depressive Disorder

Sue Spence
Mar 26
10 min read

Updated: Apr 22

My Financial Downscale

As a strong, healthy, intelligent person, I didn't really think I'd ever be in a situation where I'd not be able to work until retirement age. WHO DOES? But being recently divorced and on advice from my financial broker, I took out an income protection policy. I'd also just relaunched my career into project management so the sky was my horizon; life was great in 2014 and with my future looking bright I added some more retirement policies along the way to secure my future.

I progressed into top management for a new company - with a great salary to match - no longer doing contract work. The company had a great pension plan as a byproduct of taking over employees from another company, so my future was looking even brighter than before.

This, however, is where the illusion ends and reality leaps into focus. It may sound wonderful to be able to stay home and not have to work, but the reality is far from utopia when being booked off work for disability. It’s a nightmare! Not only have I had to adjust to living with a debilitating condition, but it is financially debilitating as well, as I will explain below.

Consequently, I hope some of you out there will have a chance to close some gaps prior to formal diagnosis, or claim for benefits you weren't aware you could get, and cut back expenses in an effective way.

UIF Sick Benefits

Your HR Department will help you with your UI19 form, but as soon as you can, get to your nearest Department of Labour office and ask them what forms and documents you need, as there does not seem to be any consistency between offices. Don't try to fight the bureaucracy as you won't win, but you can play the sympathy card. After my first two times of doing the long queues from 6 am (with my son as body guard), I would go straight to the front desk and tell them I can't stand in a queue, so they would push me into the queue at the beginning of the seats. Also, I found going at around 2:30 pm was after the hordes of unemployed people had been processed, so was quieter as well.

You will only receive benefits for a maximum of 6 months (depending on how long you have contributed to the fund) and your first payment will be after a month or so. Payments are definitely a help so it's worth the effort to claim for what is rightfully yours. Unfortunately you have to go into the Department for each signing so be prepared to go there at least 8 times in total – 1 to find out what you need, 1 to register and be told you need something else as well, and 6 for signing for the benefits. Each time your doctor has to sign you have not worked, and you take that back to the Department on the date they tell you, not before and not after!

Pension Fund Disability Benefits

I had to go through medical exams to get the risk benefits linked to my salary, and I had the exclusion of anything relating to migraines as I have suffered these since childhood; for anything related to migraines, I would be covered at the minimum benefit which was about a quarter of my salary. This was predetermined prior to my breakdown and diagnosis. The fund covered me for two years under temporary benefits, with regular assessments and reports from my psychiatrist and the occupational therapist and with the requirement of completing a workplace programme. Even though I am not yet ready to go back to work, there are no more temporary benefits available and I do not qualify for permanent disability. So I'm now out on my own, financially stranded until I can bring in an income. This "grey area" seems to be a common problem as the criteria the insurers use to determine permanent mental illness are so high you would have to be in a complete vegetative state to qualify. Additionally, in my case, there is a clause that the insurer can determine when I'm fit enough to return to work according to their work fitness test, and so I am now (in Jan 2024) still fighting to get the last two months benefits of the two year temporary period (September and October 2023).

Normally it would be your HR department who would handle all the paperwork and follow-ups for your disability claim, and they would only involve you as and when necessary. In my case I was HR (and finance, internal Ops and Special Projects etc. etc.) so I had to do all my own paperwork for the claim. Thankfully I have a very good working relationship with the Pension Fund Manager as the company used a broker, and we had worked together before when I was at a previous company. She has been a fantastic help throughout this process, an asset in my corner.

Income Protection Policy

Of course there were T's and C's involved, and only one medical exclusion being "any psychiatric conditions" but at 47 why would I have worried about that? I was fit and healthy, right? Right? So having contributed for all those years this claim was declined. I cancelled the policy to cut back on costs as I felt the chances of me being back at work any time soon were slim so why pay for it.

I'm not sure if it's common for income protection policies to exclude mental illnesses, so my advice here is check what policies you have, know what is excluded, and maybe shop around for something more comprehensive if you can afford it now, as it can make the difference later.

Retirement and other policies

Unfortunately the retirement annuity policies I had in place have all had to be cashed out, firstly to reduce my monthly expenses, and secondly to give me cash injections to help pay off medical expenses incurred. Not ideal, I know, as I now don't have a secure future, but I'm living in the present, and reducing my current stress levels and will cross those bridges when I get there. I have one last policy which I have kept running, but have reduced those monthly premiums to the minimum, which in turn reduces the benefits, but it is still something. It's my Platinum Life cancer cover. If I cancel now, I lose everything I've put in, but by keeping it going, I have the cancer cover as well as some accidental death cover, and at retirement age I get back half my contributions if I have not claimed, so I have some form of savings. Not much but it's something.

Bank accounts

As life moved on, my career and salary grew and I was offered the platinum package from the bank, with my own person banker! My credit card limit was raised, as was my overdraft, and to help my child, I took out a personal loan, all with their own insurance policies in place.

The overdraft and credit card came in handy while trying to reign in my expenses to fit my new highly reduced income. These of course very quickly maxed out to their limits and of course repayments increased proportionally.

I contacted my bank to see if I could get some financial assistance and was surprised to find out that I had insurance policies in place that I could claim against. Once again, a huge amount of paperwork to complete (don't count on help from anyone here) and make sure your medical professionals know what your intentions are when you get them to fill in their sections of the forms.

My biggest "downfall" throughout this whole process has been my migraines and the fact that I have had them since childhood. I now have the perfect excuse for insurers to decline claims based on a "pre-existing condition". This comes into play in the fine print so it’s important not just to know what your policies cover you for, but also what they don't cover, and if there are time limitations in place as well.

In my case I did receive payments for my insurance claim for my overdraft and credit card, but was declined for the Personal Loan as my claim was within the 12 month period from inception and I had a "pre-existing condition".

It was a long and stressful process, so my advice here is make sure you fully understand your policy cover before submitting a claim, and possibly delay claiming if need be. Once you have started the claim process, you can't change anything. In my case, I claimed for the disability benefit while I was still employed, but when I did not return to work, I could not claim again under the termination section as it was seen as the same claim, even though there is nothing mentioned about this in their policy.

I was able to challenge the outcome through the Ombudsman, which I did, but the original decision was still upheld, despite this and numerous other issues I raised.

In the meantime, my credit card and overdraft have maxed out again, and I still have a loan to pay off with no further assistance from the bank. I am now in communication with the bank's lawyers as to how I'm going to be able to repay this debt.

Accommodation

Before I fell ill, my husband and I had been looking at buying a home. We had an offer on a property but, in hindsight, thankfully this was delayed by the seller. Our rented property accommodated us and our two young adult sons, who we were helping get back on their feet post Covid, but in downscaling our expenses, we could no longer afford the cost of the increasing rent so our boys found their own place to share and we moved back to my husband's previous affordable cottage-rental on a farm which had just again become available. A far better healing environment for me as well as it is so peaceful and relaxing even though it's on the edge of Sheffield Beach/Salt Rock area and only 6km from our previous rental!

My advice here is never default on rent or bond. Make sure you have a roof over your head. I can't comment about a bond except I would imagine it would be pretty much the same as the car payments. For rentals, speak to your landlord and let them know your situation. Remember this is a business transaction so don't expect much sympathy! We didn't get much, but it at least explains why you have to move if it is sooner than your lease end date, and hopefully you will get a good reference for your next rental.

Car payments

It’s important to maintain payments and not default otherwise no financial aid can be given. My first step was to down-scale my Hyundai Veloster to a VW Polo, which reduced my monthly payments, insurance and fuel expenses. When I had to downscale further, I was able to refinance my Polo and reduce the payments by almost half for a six month period. These refinancing options do come at a cost of extending the repayment plan with addition interest and are also based on your individual credit rating and which finance house you are using. You are also limited to the number of times you can get financial aid so don't rush into this and use your options wisely.

Medical Aid and Gap Cover

If you have medical aid, don't stop it unless you really have to; you will need it! This is obviously very personal and depends what scheme and plan you are on as to what you pay and what benefits you get. In my case I was on Discovery Coastal Saver, which is a middle range plan that gave me the benefit of covering my psychiatrist consultations under prescribed minimum benefits, but not the medications . I did run out of savings very quickly as my medication costs around R1500 monthly. My hospitalisations have been covered under my plan, but specialists are usually out of medical aid rates, which is where Gap Cover can help. Unfortunately, the last increase in contributions put medical aid out of our current budget.

Gap cover was a tricky one for me. I had a policy which was costing me quite a bit and since I hadn't needed to claim much when I had been hospitalised, I took the chance and cancelled it. I then had an emergency hospitalisation with cystitis in my bladder, and the urologist and anaesthetist accounts were in excess of medical aid rates. I am now paying these accounts off as best I can.

My advice is to try and remember to request doctors and specialists who are contracted in medical aid rates, which I know can be the last thing on your mind when you’re in agony, as I was. Remind family members to potentially make these requests on your behalf, if possible, and try to go to the hospitals designated by your medical plan as, generally, the care providers at those hospitals are more likely to be covered by your medical aid.

Other expenses

The rest of my expenses, like Netflix, have been stopped and we cut back wherever we can as best we can, and I have written to all my creditors proposing payment plans. New income sourceThrough the work readiness programme, I know I'm not able to go back to the kind of work I was doing before, and would not cope in the corporate environment, so I've had to look at alternatives. I've been working at getting a business up and running; however this takes time, energy and money to get right. I had hoped to be able to open in December 2023 but didn't make it for various reasons, and am still hoping to open in some time in the future. I'll let you know how it goes.

SASSA

This is only for permanent disability and under a specific income, combined with your partner/spouse.

Be Proactive

As you can see from my personal experiences, having been booked off work with a disability such as depression is not only mentally and physically debilitating, but is also financially debilitating and has been one of my biggest ongoing stresses. But just as with the actual condition of depression, doing the small day to day "activities" of saving, and the bigger "treatments" required you can help reduce your expenses, and increase your income albeit for a limited period. To sum up my advice, start your financial downscale as soon as possible, be proactive and contact creditors to inform them of your situation as soon as possible, preferably in writing if you can. Don’t ignore it, it will just get worse, and the stress more.

I hope that my experiences can help someone else reduce their stress even a small amount. Take care of yourselves, and remember you not in this alone.

Please remember, I am not a financial advisor and any advice given in this article is solely based on my own experiences and knowledge.

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