To be shocked that over half a million people under the age of 35 are out of work due to long-term sickness

The issue is no one is taught resilience at all. No one is taught or given the tools to navigate their way through a dark time or challenging part of life so that it does not manifest itself into a mental illness.
I speak as someone in their early 30’s who has gone through Anorexia and an 8 hour scoliosis operation as a teenager. The person who taught me resilience was of the eldest generation - I’m forever grateful to them. I hope I can pass what I’ve learned to my son; that whatever he struggles with as an adult won’t end in him being labelled with something or succumbing to a mental health disorder.

I'm with you about the piss takers @jollywhite

A 26 yr old relative is on DLA and PIP for their "Autism". They have a blue badge too.

Having regularly looked after the relative for periods of time from birth, I would not support the ASC diagnosis.

The things they told the GP that put them on the spectrum are things that they found on the internet and exaggerated when asked by any professionals. School never supported them going forward for a diagnosis, as they didn't see it at all. They were only diagnosed aged 19.

Relative had a part time job for a few months. The company didn't make reasonable adjustments for their disability (aka refused to pay a full days wage for 10.30am-2pm days), so they decided work wasn't for them.

Back on the internet they went, and discovered how to be successful getting their PIP/DLA/Blue Badge claim through. They talked to a friend who worked for DWP about how to answer correctly to get the maximum amount. They've been on full benefits for four years now. They're married to someone on a £50k wage who has inherited a house.

I was disgusted to pop in for a Christmas drink last week and to hear them boasting about their brand new car, which I saw had a personalised number plate on my way out.

It made me so cross for all the money wasted on them opting out of a working life and being paid for it, for all the people who need DLA and get refused as they're too poorly to complete the forms and do as much prep for the interview as my relative did. I was also so very very cross that my tax was paying for it.

I decided I need to back away from them now. Their lifestyle choice has made me too cross.

I wonder whether there's inconsistency in the PIP assessments.

I have known so many people (2 dozen?) who seem so clearly unable to work through serious disability, but who have struggled to have this recognised, even at the appeal stage.

I know one person (well, knew until a couple of years ago) who was on PIP and I think should have been working part time. She turned up to get voluntary week with only a slightly above average number of sick days and ran a small business from home. Each time a psychiatrist suggested that paid work might benefit her mental health she refused to see them again. Honestly, I think she's more the victim in this because I agree with those psychiatrists. I knew her very well but could obviously nevertheless be completely wrong.

I have a similar condition to her. I haven't applied for PIP. my psychiatrist says she's fairly confident I'd be awarded it on appeal. I'm a SAHM. The extra money would be really useful, but I think I honestly could manage a job (part time at least). It would give me a far less happy lifestyle but I believe all households should look after themselves as far as possible, not least so they have some to share with people in need.

It seems narrow minded to dismiss all those describing skivers as thick right-wingers who are misinformed. And it seems equally narrow minded plus lacking in compassion to assume that those who are saying how incredibly hard it can be to get PIP are naïve. Maybe we all know different people... And so many people live in social bubbles.

How many of those are genuine cases? Impossible to know for certain however I strongly suspect the number is a lot lower than many may think.

We are creating an inadequate generation who often have unrealistic expectations. When they aren’t immediately met they look for a quick way out. There is no resilience or drive to better themselves.

Add into the mix a cultural shift whereby everything that is now wrong is invariably seen as the fault of just about anyone aside from the individual themselves and you inevitably end up with huge swathes of non contributing citizens.

I also strongly suspect that mental health issues are linked to both parents being out at work all day.

However, I have noticed a very small but significant reversal in this, with more women staying at home with their children - probably because they have to work till they're 67 anyway so 5ish years out of the workplace won't make much difference to career prospects. Hopefully this will help to improve the mental health of our future generations.

I’d absolutely agree lots of genuine people, lots of pisstakers. Problem is drawing the line.!I was supervising a young man on community payback and he didn’t work. Told me he was only £40 a week better off in a full time job so claimed UC, smoked weed, did petty crime. Lots of mental health / drug issues nearby too. What’s the answer more carrot, better paid training opportunities, more stick?

I get UC myself so not in a position to judge but I work full time and am on decent money so I feel like I’m trying at least.

This looks like the biggest jump

I’m surprised you’re actually posting this because if anyone dares to it’s all “you don’t know what you’re talking about/kids could be ND etc”.

Now, I know 2 DD’s of family friends both London based. Both have type 1 diabetes, one is working for a start up tech company but fully WFH, the other is a student in her late teens and has suffered from severe depression during and after covid. I’ve got friends who’ve got epilepsy and have worked in an office, my DB with severe asthma has worked in film and TV and doing building and painting and decorating work, a friend who has ME and has been a SAHM/W for years and another latter person who WFH and been a SAHM/W to 2 DD’s one of whom has ADHD, ASD and is starting at Disney soon after training as a graphic designer and doing that and working in a deli. I know another 22 year old ASD young man who’s worked in his local M&S and commuted pre covid to his other supermarket job by train.

I don’t disagree that many young people have been affected by covid, mental health conditions or other debilitating conditions but if it’s easy (I don’t know if it is) to claim benefits and not work and claim illness rather than long term try to study/work then it means they become part of society where it gets easy to opt out.

A school friend of mine who had a learning disability and I’m unsure what else was possibly ND, left school, got married, apparently had outside interests but gradually became ill, I was never quite sure as to what was wrong but she ended up divorced with her 11 year old son, remarried again and when that DH sadly died young, she ended up moving back in with her mother, claiming disability benefits and barely going out but doing cross stitch and talking about her ailments on Facebook, she was diagnosed with cancer during covid and sadly died at age 53, which is far too young in my opinion.

Yes the people who think the govt are giving PIP out left right and centre have clearly never applied for it.

I sent in around 100 pieces of evidence including photos of me having pissed myself in sainsbos during a seizure. And I STILL had to go to tribunal! Madness. And incredibly degrading.

the huge up swing on the graph since 2020 for "Hearing, seeing, allergies, epilepsy, autism" is very telling, i am wondering about the change in attitude to autism diagnoses.

Mental health issues are hitting children of all ages right now. The question that should be asked is why? What are we doing as a society that is making our younger people so stressed and hopeless?

I'm guessing it's the need for both parents to work full time meaning long hours in wraparound care when young, vaccinations and general food health, cost of living meaning there is no incentive to work hard as you wont get a home and progress anyway. Along with illnesses such as covid giving long term physical issues and the lack of a responsive health system.

Our youngsters need to be able to be adults. My 23yo is desperate to move out and have her own home but the housing costs even on a full time NHS wage are too much for her to manage alone and she doesn't want to go into a shared house as she says its no different to being at home except with strangers. At her age I had a home and two children and was able to manage in private rental.

I receive PIP.

I'm educated with a professional job. The PIP application forms are purposely designed to be confusing. It took me a month of research to fully understand how to fill them in.

The assessment was over an hour of humiliating and degrading questions aimed at making the applicant say the wrong thing so they can be denied.

I had to supply a diagnosis letter from a specialist (GP wasn't good enough). I paid privately as it was going to take 2+ years on the NHS to even get in front of one. I also had to show evidence of medication (at the highest dose, to show you're really unwell) and ongoing treatments (which the NHS isn't currently providing).

The idea that it's easy or that you can 'self-diagnose' is so preposterous that I'm cringing at the ignorance of some posters.

Substantial

The risk of long covid is roughly 10% per infection (not per person). So if you're catching it 2-3 times a year, I'm really not surprised the numbers are beginning to mount.

Unfortunately that does not fit the "it's only a cold" narrative.

There are two other covid impacts

• effects on the cardiovascular system (increase in strokes and other cardiac events, and earlier onset), brain ("fog" aka, plus earlier onset dementia), increase in diabetes and earlier onset
• reduction in immune function, so people catch other infections that bit more readily and get them that bit worse/longer, and that leads to more sick leave (and whatever complications those diseases might bring) and increase in things like shingles which can be debilitating for quite some time.

The government however seems to prefer a policy to crack down on malingering, rather than looking at the causes of increased illness

And look at making hospitals safe - nosocomial infections have risen, and that just reduces capacity (as well as adding to misery)

Yes, the social model of disability is hugely controversial and just because certain people keep repeating it loudly doesn’t mean it’s accepted by the majority of disabled people.
My chronic pain and not being able to do what I want in life is nothing to do with society, it’s because of my disability. And yes, I’m a wheelchair user.

My experience with the NHS and back pain is that you get told to try ibruprofen! And when you've had it for ages, it's regarded as 'normal for you'. I only got an MRI when I got cauda equina-like symptoms.

@MumblesParty very insightful post

Really? When did this change? Surely any ongoing pain with no obvious cause should be investigated. I’ve had an mri in the last 12 months for back pain( diagnosed herniated disc)

The decline of mental health coincided with the introduction of the smart phone around 2007, and it gets worse as time goes on .
Who knew that such a tiny innocuous looking device could cause so much harm, and how can we reverse it?
I'm not sure we can tbh.
My own children luckily dodged it but I fear for my grandchildren future

There will also be many people who many years ago would have sadly not have survived infancy or the condition that they have whether born with it or acquired. So modern medicine is amazing but not many generations ago many people would not have survived with chronic conditions.

There is a genetic disposition to diabetes within my family and I am sure that some of my ancestors would have died from diabetes complications before the 1920’s when insulin was discovered.

Same with influenza, it killed my DH great great grandfather in the Spanish flu epidemic. He would have had a much better chance of survival these days. there was no aspirin. But virus do leave people unwell with conditions like long covid. Post viral issues are nothing new but in the past the original disease would have been more likely to kill that person.

What work from home jobs? I’ve not been able to find any!

I'd never report anyone for anything.. What good would it do? These people are not breaking the law going to the pub. In the grand scheme of things ..

who cares? the country is going down the toilet regardless..

Some of these people are my mates and are decent to me. My mate picked me up from Manchester airport in his mothers brand new Motability Volvo.

Jim is very generous to me down the pub when he gets paid, he gets in loads of beers.

Let's be honest, there's plenty of genuine people included in this.

Then there's the piss takers. And taking it only took about a page into a thread about 'Autism- AMA' until the OP in that was told to claim DLA.

I don't know what the solution is. I know some genuinely sick people who cannot work and what £ they get isn't enough. Sadly I know a lot more piss takers who know how the system works and are able to skew it to their own economic advantage. Being on DLA or PIP opens a whole host of other benefits if you know what you're doing. I have a friend whose child is on DLA (honestly, nothing much wrong with him other than he's badly behaved, she did a hell of a lot of research as to what to write to make sure she got it) - she gets £700 a month for him, so openly told me she was going to apply for one of the other children saying they had 'anxiety' - guess what she got that too. That's £1400 coming in just for 2 kids. Add on she's now claiming to be a 'carer' for these two children, not sure how much she gets for that...Getting a blue badge saves her £40 a month on a bridge that we live by as she now gets free crossings. She doesn't work. She doesn't need to work. On top of all this she gets some sort of UC top up because children are on DLA and she's a carer. She's already trying to work out how they're going to transfer onto PIP when old enough ..

I have two chronic health conditions and cannot muster the energy to go through obtaining PIP but lots of people are skilled at it. I went self employed because i was in danger of getting fired due to being so poorly. Some months I barely make anything. I'm entitled to nothing. BUT if i went on PIP I would get UC top ups too. Friend keeps going on at me and telling me she will do the form for me to 'ensure' i get it. For me though, it doesn't seem right.

You don't have to like what I say, but i only speak from experience. It is what it is. Do feel genuinely sorry for those who are ill and unable to work.

What's your point?

Same here. And on the rare occasion you find one that isn't, there's always (literally) hundreds and hundreds of applicants, so you can't even get an admin assistant job.

Ooh I’m a statistic! Well I’m back at work now, but in October 2022 I started having seizures out of the blue (previously very fit and healthy) and went from a higher tax bracket job to sick pay. What an eye opener that was.

My seizures are currently still uncontrolled, however I’m able to work from home quite safely so don’t need benefits anymore. But that was a very dark time, and it’s incredible how quickly you think you have it all, to it all coming crashing down.

I have PIP now (higher mobility and lower daily living) and that’s about £550 every 4 weeks which is used mostly for taxis when I have seizures out and about to get home with as obviously can’t drive anymore.