Tony Blair says we need a national conversation about MH as its costing too much

[B0xes]

Tony Blair said recently on Jimmy's Jobs of the Future Podcast (clip available on youtube) that we need to have a national conversation about mental health. Why are we spending so much on it. Why are people self diagnosing. He believes people are being encouraged to view everyday challenges we all face as mental health issues.

Is he being unreasonable? In one sense, I'm inclined to agree to an extent, in the other, I believe he led the charge for so many of the social changes that have made us less resilient and many of these issues are due to individualism which led to atomisation and loneliness and being encouraged to see the market as the entity that fulfills our needs rather than strong families and robust social networks.

YABU - Blair can do one.

YANBU - He might have a point

You do.

Then you do that with other benefits

I expect he is working behind the scenes to profit from his statement and make more money...vile grubby man....didnt he set up a lot of private vaccination clinics...??

And then there's the people who claim autists are faking their autism for attention or benefits etc. The same people would be the first to notice there was something "off" with an autist and call them a weirdo, or the old "what a loser why doesn't he get a girlfriend or a job". Do you seriously think it's fun constantly getting turned down at job interviews and dates because you "seem weird"?
The loneliness etc

Are you sure? I'm pretty sure they were actually just locked up in 'lunatic' asylums which kept them away from the rest of society.
There is a book 'Empire of Pain', given it is about the US rather than here but it touches on this very point and before valium they just locked everyone up and gave up on them. Very interesting read.

I'm the stepmother. Her mother clearly isn't furious as she has her the majority of the time and lets her only ever does the things she likes, and it's always been that way since she was little. If we tried to make her do anything then SD would say, "I can't be bothered to go to my Dad's, he will make me do my homework/ go out somewhere that isn't a theme park/ clean up after myself!" and her Mum would say, "OK sweetheart, you stay here, I won't make you. Let's have a duvet day," and then send DH an email to say she doesn't want to come because we treat her like Cinderella because we asked her to pick up her dirty clothes and put them in the washing basket. So now, she comes in the school holidays and we don't make her do anything- if we did, she'd just stop coming. Actually, that's a lie, we do force her to shower and that's a big enough palaver. All her friends seem the same way, no-one makes them do anything. Some of them don't go to school. I'm baffled by it but ultimately it's not my circus, not my monkeys!

Yes great book. And this point was made

It details the use of asylums pre medication

Yes, heard an autistic lady on the radio earlier who just can't find a job. She can't pass interviews.
Less than a third of autistic people are in any sort of paid employment, and that is not for a lack of trying. A lot want to work, but they are simply not given the chance.

Seems mental illness has become the new fat kid on MN. Let's all point at it.

I usually come on threads like this and explain how ill my DD is, but few people reply because frothing about tax payers' money is much nicer, so basically you are being VV unreasonable OP, and you know it. But as I say, let's all point at the fat mentally ill kid, and feign concern (with a head tilt of course).

He has a point. I agree that Covid did impact on some people’s mental health, but that was 5 years ago now. People need to learn to cope and get over difficult periods in life and not let it derail their entire lives. I also think that the state of our food and the amount of ultra processed food being consumed is having a huge impact on general health, mental health included.

We need people back in work - surely having the routine of work and earning some money, interacting with work colleagues or customers will help people’s mental health in many cases.

To be fair, anyone who did try to speak up was met with endless accusations of not caring about grannies dying or the NHS collapsing.

Severe anxiety. The sort that people are under secondary MH services for.

No they were not. The people who would have been in asylums now get way less support than the recent past because resources have been spread so thinly.

It is the calling an ambulance or queuing at A&E for MH issues or addictions that really annoy me. MH issues need to be dealt with elsewhere at least.

So you are saying that lots of people don’t complain about their MH, because you don’t know any?
Okay!!

Not all of them will have. Not enough to fund their current pension requirements either, there is a black hole here and it is well known. What they have paid in comes nowhere near close to what is being taken out.
I had already fixed my mistake of staying brackets before you posted (you can check the time of my edit, not sure why it matters so much for you to be so pedantic)
You are biting back so maybe need to calm down?
Nobody cab access treatment for anxiety so not sure how that is meant to work?

People are told if they are in crises to call an ambulance or go to A and E

And you’re saying they are because you allegedly do?

Okay!!!

That is not the fault of the people there.
I have been told to go to A&E by 111 and crisis teams. I have been taken via ambulance and police to A&E for MH reasons. Again, not my fault.
Where else was I meant to go? What places are there?

Yes it's heartbreaking seeing someone I care about go on job interview after job interview and get rejected each time. We all know employers want chatty sociable people an autist who can't even make eye contact will be laughed out of the office.
Then they have to put up with people accusing them of being lazy, a waste of money etc is it any wonder autists have high suicide rates?

I'll repeat my point again, the money that is currently going to PIP in MY OPINION should be redirected, e.g. training therapists/private providers/other support so that people can be encouraged to participate in society. If you disagree fine. It's my opinion if I'm allowed to have one on here 🙄

I have struggled on/off with depression since my teens, so over 20 years now. I’ve been on anti depressants for the last 9 years, at varying doses.

It has never occurred to me not to work, especially since becoming a single parent - if I don’t work then the mortgage doesn’t get paid. There have been times that I’ve had to take days off sick for mental health reasons. I have had some truly horrific days. And some days I haven’t been very productive. But mostly I’ve managed to show up and work. If I hadn’t, I know that I’d be in a much worse state.

I might be making a huge generalisation but in my opinion, if your physical health is OK, and you can get yourself out of bed most days and get dressed, you are capable of doing some kind of work. Working helps! My cousin and his girlfriend don’t work and haven’t ever properly worked. They are depressed partly BECAUSE they don’t work and have too much time on their hands to spend on social media reading conspiracy theories and lamenting about how unfair their lives are.

One thing that has helped me is just accepting that I am prone to depression and I will still have bad days, and that I’m not a failure for doing so.

But I think there needs to be a huge overhaul of services. Much, much more help needs to be given to people who are capable of doing some kind of work. I have been lucky to have never been out of work. I’ve never been made redundant, I’ve never been on JSA. If someone is severely depressed and unemployed, getting a job may be impossible without some kind of external help, especially if they have been unemployed long-term.

On another note I agree with the posters who said that some anxiety is normal. Last week my 9 year old started swimming lessons at a new pool. He refused to go initially, said no I’m not going. I realised that because he was nervous and anxious he had decided he wasn’t going to do it, so I told him that worrying about something doesn’t mean you don’t do it, and you do have to do some things sometimes that you are worried about. I think some adults maybe just haven’t learnt this. I see it on here too - “xxx is spiking my anxiety” - when actually they're just worrying about something which is totally normal!

So what were we supposed to do when my daughter had her massive overdoses and tried to hang herself? We were told to get her to A&E every time - by professionals. There is no “elsewhere”

He needs to sit down and shut up quite frankly.

I am sure there are very qualified people who could come and talk about realistically improving the nation's mental health but he's not one of them.

I guess take her to a Costa and give her a cup of tea.
It is silly. MH crisis is the E of emergency. A&E have crisis team and PCLS there for MH reasons.