A-Z of mental health
Information and advice on a huge range of mental health topics
Vicious attack on people experiencing mental health problems
Posted Monday 19 October 2009
Last Thursday's vicious attack on people experiencing mental health problems in the Daily Express has shocked me. In a piece about the new assessment process for benefits claimants, Leo McKinstry disputes whether people receiving welfare benefits for a mental health problem are legitimate.
I don't believe it represents the views of the majority, and regret that any national newspaper should publish inaccuracies of this nature, which are based on prejudice and ignorance.
His figures are incorrect - the Government's statistics relate only to new claimants, rather than all people receiving incapacity benefit.
Even more worrying, is his cynical view of mental health. He says,
"It is telling that more than1.1million incapacity claimants are not suffering from any physical disability at all, but get their handouts by moaning about problems like 'stress' and 'depression'."
Mr McKinstry equates mental distress with malingering and sponging off the state. That's not my experience. My work brings me into frequent contact with people with serious mental health problems who want to work, and who are frustrated by the judgement handed down on them by people like him, that they just need to pull themselves together and stop living the life of Riley.
Of course there are always some people who will play any system for what they can get out of it. But for the vast majority of people with mental health problems, the welfare system is not about free handouts, but about negotiating the support and time they need to get ready for work, and providing a financial safety net where work is not a viable option.
I would be pleased to provide Mr McKinstry with an opportunity to meet people with depression or stress who have lost their jobs and are unable to work, so that he could be better informed about this issue. I only hope he will be willing to take up my offer.
I do agree with him on one thing. Those statistics are telling indeed. What do they tell me? We are not doing enough to prevent mental distress from spiralling out of control, leading to debt, family breakdown, disability and loss of employment. We can do more to inspire hope of recovery.
The tried and tested ways of supporting people with mental health problems to return to work are not being used. And we need to challenge the pervasive stigma that denies people with mental health problems the same employment opportunities as anyone else.
Anna Bird, Policy and Campaigns Manager (Social Inclusion and Rights)
16 Comments
-
Although I appreciate your efforts to counteract this kind of wilful ignorance and bigotry, I almost wish I hadn't read that article. I particularly love the suggestion that people with depression should be imprisoned--does nobody at the DE appreciate how much *more* that will cost than keeping such people on benefits?
Eh, being commanded to be resilient is a laugh. If I weren't resilient I'd be dead by now. Every time I see that 'what would you tell your younger self? meme' I want to say, "Kill yourself now--it doesn't get better." Yet I'm nearly fifty and I'm still here. THAT's resilience.
-
I belong to probably a majority of people with mental health problems who would like to work, feel capable of working at least a few hours a week, but could find nobody willing to employ me. I know many people with long term mental health problems who do valuable, unpaid work in mental health and community arts and who are probably contributing far more to society than Mr McKinstry.
-
I have made an official complaint to the Press Complaints Association about this article. Unfortunately, equalities for mental health sufferers is some decades behind that of other sections of society.
-
When I was first diagnosed knowing that I would not be able to work or study for a year was devastating. It was the longest year of my life. I am on medication and have gone back to work since but it took time. I did a lot of voluntary work and paid my own expenses in the meantime. I was eligible for DLA and other benefits but did not even want to apply due to this intense shame that I felt. I would not wish what I experienced on my worst enemy. Going to work is easier than being mentally ill and infinitley more pleasurable than being on a psychiatric ward with a diagnosis of schizophrenia.
-
This article resonates so painfully. My heartfelt sympathy to Debbie, Jean and Sam.... for many of us, it is the repressive environment, the stigma attached to ill-health that makes matter worse.. It contributes to the deterioration of health rather than foster conditions for healing. So much in our environment endanger the capacity of people to maintain their 'basic human needs' though poverty and marginalisation, disempowerment. The proposals in the welfare reform bill can only be described as aggressive, a transgression of human rights. Someone wrote on a forum for the New Social Democratic Left: "The BNP would have been proud of the Forced Treatment proposals in the welfare reform bill. This bill is almost passed and only now have they finally excepted forced treatment would not be acceptatable". It has to be said.. Baroness of Thomas of Winchester, Baroness Hollis of Heigham and Baroness Meacher, I believe, did fight hard New Labour Lord David Freud and the Tories. So the Baronesses might be worth being kept on your list for communications to put your points of view across, inform those who are ultimately the only people who seems to have the privilege to hold the fates of many in their hands.
-
I worked in my last job for 15years until my son was still-born at full term. I could no longer work and therefore lost my job . I have been treated for depression for the past 20 years and I also have other medical conditions that pervent me from working. In the past I have came acoss people like leo McKinstry who have no medical knowledge about depression yet feel they can write about people with mental health problems. Its not easy claiming incapacity benefit, I go for a medical every year. My first medical was 20 years ago, the medical lasted 17 mins with a doctor said "I didn't look depressed", my benefit was stopped. I had to appeal and was refered to a psychiatrist, he listened to me and the medical lasted 2 hours. He agreed that I was suffering from depression. I was given my benefit back. In that 10 months I received no money and had to depend on family. Pulling yourself together is easier said than done Mr Leo McKinstry.
-
Frustratingly, articles like this come out every now and again to reinforce the idea that people like me are workshy benefit scrounging scum. People with mental health problems are at a disadvantage already, because their condition is 'invisible'. The government's idea to get people off benefits like IB is to make the test harder, when they could be doing so much to help people with MH problems back to work. Like Jean and so many others, I feel I could do some work, but having been out of the employment loop for so long, it a) terrifies me and b) who would take on someone with bipolar who can't get a reference?
Being on Incapacity Benefit isn't easy. It's not that much money, it subjects you to humiliating and negative medical examinations (that fly in the face of everything CBT taught me) and after all that, and dealing with your mind too, you get idiots like Mr McKinstry spouting uneducated rubbish.
I shall be joining Paul and writing to the PCC.
-
I had a good job - civil servant - and was bubbly and outgoing. I always worked.
I had a series of personal problems which led to me having a breakdown last year. I was not able to go back to work as I have suffered with crippling anxiety and bouts of deep depression since and although I am now on medication I have social phobia and agoraphobia.
I don't have any family nor friends anymore due to how I am, and live on my own. I split up with my long term partner as he couldn't deal with how I am.
I receive Incap Benefit. I am waiting for CBT on the NHS and in my area there is roughly and 8 month wait to have a few sessions.
I do everything self help there is.
Why do people assume that people with mental health problems just want to sponge off the state. I want to work but due to how I am I can't even walk down the road without panic attacks! I wonder what employer would have me work for them in the state I find myself in!
I feel that because mental illness cannot be seen,that people don't realise just how much it can destroy a persons life.
If this politician would like to swap my life for his for even a day, I think he may change his mind on a few things! -
I read the two articles and sent a letter to the Editor expressing my concern about them. The letter, unsurprisingly, was not printed. That particular paper will not print letters that disagree with the views expressed in its articles. Mental health sufferers are "soft" targets. Discrimination and stigma affect us more than other members of society - and it's legal!!!
Many people I know, myself included, have been pushed to the brink of suicide by the stress of "proving" ill health to the authorities - one actually did commit suicide. Tragically being refused benefit for that person was the last straw. -
I did read the Daily Express article. Horrible. Like many of the respondents I have Mental Health difficulties which affect me on a daily basis and contribute to my feelings of isolation, alienation and loneliness.
I have episodes of recurrent depression which can be extremely severe and render me almost catatonic when at their peak. I also have type 2 diabetes and experience social and agoraphobia which restricts my ability to live a full and liberated existence.
Leo McKinstry is speaking from a position of ignorance and blinkered prejudice. His statements have all the humanity and finesse of an SS Einsatzcommando carrying out a murderous action in rural Russia.
I have plenty of moral fibre and more than enough courage. I don't need a job to define who I am and certainly not one which is below my capabilities and skills.
I recognise the value of occupation and activity but also the need which we all have for support and compassion when things go wrong in our lives and we find it difficult to continue. Under these circumstances we need a system which is not harsh or judgemental.
The world is a different place from what it was a hundred years ago Mr. McKinstry...more stressful, complex and confusing.
Heaven help us if everyone adopted your callous attitude. There is enough ugliness in this world already without the need for your worthless clarion call to the hard hearted. -
I'm not suprised by this article, pretty much every story in the daily express tries to get you to hate or fear somebody or something.
Ironically this type of journalism is probably causing a lot of stress and depression that Leo McKinstry thinks doesn't really exist!
-
Mental health conditions are their own prison. Trust me, whoever your name was who made this clumsy and ill informed judgement on mental illness, it's no picnic, no 'life' and takes great courage to endure. My own experience of bipolar illness leads me to describe it as 'a living hell'.
It is very, very difficult to live with the stigma, the frustration and the limitations. Your comments disgust me.
-
I have read the above comments and i totally agree. I have severe depression and spent 8weeks in a Mental Hospital because of my problem. I am currently off work and have been so for nearly 6months, i get £75.00 a week and i challenge Leo McKinstry to live off that. Its not easy not being at work, as when i was there i was constantly thinking people are looking at me, am i different from them, and starting to cry at the drop of hat.
I too also left my partner as it wasn't fair on her living with this illness which i have and it wasn't fair on my daughter seeing me cry and cower in a corner so to speak. I find it very hard to do daily things as it is and everyday i fight the emotions....
Leo McKinstry does not have a clue what people with a mental illness go through from one day to the next. If you can't see a broken limb on someone then you assume they are fine, but if they looked deeper they may see that same person with a tear rolling down there face....
-
This is a very difficult topic and one which is difficult to understand unless you have been subjected (for want of a better word!) to the hell that is the 'system.' Like many others I would love to be able to go back to work full time but due to the nature of my illness this is not possible at the moment. I do as much voluntary work as I can but as I haven't been in paid work for about five years and have no references, finding a job would be difficult. At the moment I live on benefits, my husband is my full time carer and we barely get by. I wouldn't wish illness on anyone but it would be interesting for the person who wrote this article to step into our shoes for even a week and see if they are still smiling.
-
I emailed this disgusting article and some of the comments to it to David Cameron, as it unfortunately looks increasingly likely that he will be our next PM. As I expected, I got no reply from him or any of his aides, which speaks volumes - they probably agree with most if not all of it! They have already said that they will be getting rid of Employment and Support Allowance and sticking the vast majority of people with mental health problems straight on to Jobseekers Allowance with not much hope of them ever being employed thanks to discrmination and the fact that employers will deem it too risky to take on anyone with mental health problems. Typical Tory behaviour, let them fend for themselves attitude! I don't know about anyone else, but my illness has worsened considerably due to worrying about the threat of all these draconian policies coming from the main parties, but more especially the Tories! I feel that I do not have much of a future, I will be poorer than I am now and stuck on JSA for the rest of my life - no wonder people feel suicidal! Why are we suddenly being persecuted and harassed by politicians - do they not know that by treating us like this they are only adding to our problems and making us feel worse? I don't think any of them could care less!
-
Well, what do you expect? Papers such as the 'Express' flourish (if you can call it that) by shifting copies with a mix of the terrifying and its antidote, reassurance. The terrifying is 'them', the reassurance comes from knowing there are still 'us'. We can tell the difference, because we buy the 'Express' with its comforting crusader and his sword and shield of trusty British journalism. If you can call it that. Rational debate has no place, comprehension has no place; empathy is for the PC Brigade and sympathy for the fuzzy thinking of the New Labour Islington elite.
And if you suffer from depression?
You can be one of us, and simply pull yourself together and get over it like we alll did during The Blitz. Or, you can be one of them... Choose to be one of them and you choose to be one of the terrifying mentally ill - the wielders of axes, the murderers of widows and children as they cower in their beds. You can become the lurking evil of the shadows, the childhood fear that called your mother to your bedroom. And, if allowed, the likes of McKinstry will like as not call YOU mad.
So take comfort in your periods of depressive torture: you're selling newspapers. Put that axe down.
Commenting is now closed.