To be really cross about the proposed cuts?

I feel like people have gone to great pains to make out mental health is no different to physical health, when it simply isn’t true.

Let’s say I go to the GP complaining of anxiety symptoms. I’d probably be diagnosed with anxiety. However why am I anxious? Is it the adverse experiences I had as a child? Is it my stressful job? Maybe I’m not anxious at all - maybe it’s OCD? The human brain is so complex, it’s not like a computer where you can source the bug and fix it. I’m not even sure symptoms do fit into diagnostic boxes at all. It seems like a lot of guess work.

As for the treatment… well there are hundreds of parents on this website alone with anxious/autistic/adhd teens who won’t leave the house and se unlikely to work in the near future. Often the parent is saying ‘this wouldn’t be happening if they’d had the right support’ but what does that mean? Often it means hundreds of thousands of pounds worth of therapy which frankly may or may not have worked. It’s not surprising the NHS can’t keep up when all of a sudden we have hundreds of thousands, if not millions, of people wanting diagnosis/therapy/meds for something which until 7 or 8 years ago was reasonably rare. MH treatment isn’t the silver bullet it’s made out to be on here, it’s very expensive and often ineffective beyond letting the person vent and feel a bit better for a few hours.

I don’t work in benefits but I meet benefit claimants every day and listen to them describing their circumstances. I would say benefits have been a huge mistake for 80% of them - the benefits have frankly enabled them to make whatever the qualifying problem was much worse. Anxious people who have been paid to stay at home for 5 years are now positively terrified of the outside world. Men who are a bit feckless and found it hard to hold down a job, have used their UC to spend years smoking weed and addling their brains to the point they’re actually unemployable now. These people exist in the hundreds in my town alone. If they had had to work out of necessity back when their issues were smaller, rather than being allowed to drop out of society at the expense of the taxpayer, I reckon they’d be in a much better place.

It barely makes a dent in the ballooning cost of it all. More cuts will be required before long. Hopefully they’ll have supporting services in a better state by then.

When you start by saying "those with genuine... " it's an admission that many aren't, and far too many take advantage of the system. I'm pleased it's being tightened.