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

Spot on
People are pathologising emotions that are an integral part of life and it's associated challenges.
This is separate to definitive mental health conditions

All your posts were deliberately unpleasant and sneering towards my family and others like us. You know that so quit with the faux bewilderment.

I realise that however some of your own replies haven’t been that nice either. The very fact that this person has had 10 years of on and off therapy shows their commitment in trying to improve their life. I’m afraid I don’t understand why them having this therapy for this period of time has upset you.

No my anger is towards her sneering and accusatory comments towards my children,family and others in a similar unfortunate position.

Maybe it hasn't been intentional but you have certainly come across that way when I have read your posts. The poster in question has a seriously ill child that you think can be cured by pulling her socks up and getting on with things. I would find that hugely insulting if it was said to me. I cannot blame her for becoming frustrated with your attitude towards her. She must be struggling to survive herself supporting someone so unwell. A little compassion can go a very long way.

I really don’t care. It has upset me because she is telling people who are struggling now to get on with it when they don’t have the luxury of 10 years therapy. People with serious MH conditions now are pretty much given nothing. Families are battling for crumbs.

I have no desire to be inspirational. I am, and this is exactly my point, nothing unusual and I know lots of people who have been through far worse and coped much better. This leads me to not understand for the life of me why people claim their mental health is suffering for the most ridiculous of reasons and to answer the OP, yes it does cost the country too much. I also react to the way I have been 'spoken to' and the poster whom it is claimed I have been 'nasty' to really needs to look again at what they wrote to me. Does that clarify for everyone?

But it was ok for the country to fund your struggles .

In my opinion if anything she has shown that it is possible to find a way to deal with difficulties , live with them and still lead a full life.

For what I believe is the third time now, I didn't have 10 years of therapy, I've had 3 bouts of therapy over a 10 year period. Do you understand that? And yes frankly, you should just get on with it because nothing is going to change anytime soon and toyr daughter will just end up wasting her life. If it bothers you that much, go private. I will if I ever need some more help with things.

Because like you, I was accessing everything to which I was entitled. But things were different then, Covid wasn't a thing and the huge amount of people who didn't cope with that weren't in the system.

And re the op Tony Blair has never had to struggle or battle for anything for his family. I remember him buying flats his kids at uni( and some kind of financial scandle), no slumming it in shit accommodation for them. If his kids needed therapy I bet they’d have the best money can buy.

He can jog on too.

Yes I agree with him. Too many people can't cope with a perfectly normal level of worry about new situations or ordinary knock backs in life and then cite anxiety as reason to step back and do very little. This has nothing to do with serious mental health issues and autism etc.

I cannot fathom being so closed minded as to not be able to accept that some people's struggles are far beyond those you experience though. It isn't necessarily about what people have been through either, many mental health issues aren't due to situational challenges. Arguable all of your challenges would of course be more easily treatable. You do understand that some mental health issues are biological (which in my mind amounts to physical) and cannot be ridden with a little resilience and some non existent counselling. Why can't you accept that your experience is NOT the same?

Maybe. But as none was ever shown to me when I went through some hideous times, I can assure you that's its not needed to get through difficult situations. And I'm actually a much stronger person for it now.

No because many many children who needed help didn’t get it, were left to get worse and then filtered into an adult MH system already on its knees so your snooty disparaging superiority is very misguided as you well know.

I think you are more angry that someone has managed to access therapy where you haven’t been able to for your daughter . This isn’t the persons fault they managed to get it and you haven’t, I know this must be a difficult pill to swallow but I think you should be more angry
at the system failure rather than someone who managed to access help.

Oh give it a rest. Compassion is very much needed. I’ve lost count of the training and support I’ve had from highly trained professionals where compassion is encouraged when supporting both me and my dc. It helps massively.

Thank you
I have had some extremely traumatic childhood experiences and life challenges ( details spared) and have experienced reactional depression. I've had counselling and medication which have helped. I have always worked FT and more to support myself and my child. I believe some ( not all) people are in pursuit of a diagnosis for their gain. If this sounds harsh, I am aware of people who do this.
This is separate to those people with a definitive diagnosis

10 years of therapy??

Fuck, I would be happy if my husband could be offered 6 weeks of therapy, let alone 10 years!

I am not going to scroll back as long threads don't load that well, but this has to be private therapy, as I have never known anyone to get that much therapy on the NHS.

PS- not many people want to employ people with Schizophrenia when they know they will need time off, their cognitive abilities are impaired, they have moments of paranoia and their skills aren't current due to spending so much time trying to just stay alive.

I am happy for people who manage to work with poor mental health. I admire people who can do that. I also admire people who are so unwell that they can't work, but manage to wake up every day and fight for their lives. That is inspirational too.

This thread is giving "the beatings will continue until morale improves".

There are millions of people who have done this though. That doesn't mean everyone can do this? Why are you lumping everyone's mental health issues into a bucket with this poster's issues. Some issues can be overcome. The frustration comes because the suggestion is that people are just not trying hard enough. Perhaps some people aren't but there are so many that are battling every day to get better and have a fulfilling life. Such a horrible attitude to have that these people aren't putting enough effort in to recovering.
Again, if the other poster has recovered well from a physical health condition that some people die from, would you come on here saying 'well those people just didn't try hard enough to get better did they?' (Let's use Cancer again because weirdly I never hear people saying someone didn't try hard enough to beat cancer, why?)

She didn’t have 10 years of therapy, I believe she said she had three sets of therapy over a 10 year period

We'll have to agree to differ then. I can't fathom being so weak and relying on others to bail me out but as you say, everyone is different. My ADHD is genetic and I didn't even realise I had it (save for untidiness 😂) until I was 50. All these people claiming benefits for it and saying they can't work are seriously trying it on, there will be something they can do, it's just easier not to. As we've seen, they go on holiday and go to the pub instead.

Poster has said several times she did not have 10 years of therapy