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

Blair can do one. Young people are much worse off than their parents were at their age. Can't buy property, can't save money etc. The future is very bleak for young people. There are so many expectations and young people want to do well and 'succeed' but the systems is rigged and they feel like a failure. Until we address the growing wealth inequality, things won't get better and MH of young people and not so young people will continue to deteriorate.

So what will happen if you are officially diagnosed as having autism. Will you then be able to stop work?

How do you propose people get a diagnosis if the NHS is on its knees. I have s DC with severe MH issues, most likely due to undiagnosed ASD and needs not met (school etc) but the waiting list for an assessment is locally about 6 years?

I think you are broadly correct. My other thought is that with physical health, you seek treatment as much as possible. The same does not appear to be the case with mental health.

As for Mr Blair, the changes he made that led to 'where there's blame there's a claim' I think helped create a climate whereby it is always someone else's fault, not personal responsibility.

The reason for that is because people are living longer and the clue to the difference is in the name. It’s a disease caused by physical changes in the brain. If you think it’s “being forgetful” you’ve clearly been fortunate enough never to be in close proximity to it.

I completely agree, but you have to WANT to, and it doesn’t seem as though people do

This. There is no point in telling my ASD/ADHD teen to buckle up and that her reasonable adjustment in school and uni are costing to much.

Ensuring that she has the opportunity and means to learn how to live with being ND so that she will be able to have a job, earn enough, to be a "valuable member of society" - that is useful
And that currently is not available on the NHS but 100% funded by us.

I honestly don't know why I post on these threads. So many people haven't got a clue about genuine mental health problems and clearly think we're all lazy piss-takers 🙄

@biscuitsandbooks I think you might be mistaking the angle he is coming from here…Some people have long lasting and very valid mental health problems. It sounds as though you probably fall into this category. Some other other people (I would guess a larger proportion) claim to have mental health issues however he is suggesting these are not equally valid and are more like normal uncomfortable feelings rather than MH disorder. The first group of people (like you) are undermined my the second group of people, at the detriment of wider society.

We do need a massive conversation about mental health. About why the funding is so appalling. About why people need to self diagnose. If people think waiting lists in acute care are bad, they are nothing compared to mental health, especially CAMHS.

We have a much greater understanding of mental health now, which is amazing, but we need to find a way to get people the help they need.

It is costing too much.
If people can't work due to their poor mental health then they have to rely on benefits from the state which come from working people's taxes.
If fewer people are working because they have poor mental health, there is very little tax revenue.
So, don't work if you really feel you can't, but there won't be much money available as benefits to you.

Wfh jobs are a great idea for people suffering from MH issues. However, everyone wants a wfh job these days, which makes it very difficult to get one, and people who suffer from anxiety and depression are not going to be great at interviews, because of their issues. So it's a closed circle of the reason you would benefit from working from home is exactly what makes it harder for you to get a wfh job.

@Quercus30 👏 👏 agreed.

The idea that we might be sending too much on mental health is laughable - round here people wait months/years for treatment and then there is only one on offer - CBT or nothing!

Resilience is the latest buzz word - I am always wary of these.

I do however agree that people online and elsewhere re very quick to label people with mental health diagnoses - especially people they do not like! The world is apparently now full of narcissists!

But people will start looking for their own diagnoses when they are ill if services to make proper professional diagnoses are absent.

Says Blair - one of the most dangerous mad cunts the planet has seen in his lifetime.

Pronouncing on other people's mental health? You couldn't make this shit up.

Once you have an official diagnosis, avenues for help and support that were previously closed to you open up. It's not about not working, it's about having the help to continue working.

This is really interesting, as well as incredibly sad. Ironically, it happened to us the other way around. Nobody was prepared to consider a ND diagnosis, but we were afforded six weeks of one to one sessions to treat the symptoms of anxiety (emotional dysregulation, sensory processing differences). Two years later, we are very marginally closer to a diagnosis but the majority of what we've done has been self researched and self help. Luckily, 8yo dd has begun identifying the things she finds the hardest, and the reasons that, as well as the things she/ we can do to help her. She's an exceptional masker, so we've fought tooth and nail for an ehcp to be put in place. It has been one long, hard fight since she was 4. Currently she's doing brilliantly, but we live in fear of the wheels coming off at secondary school.

This

@Pickle2828 but I was one of those "undiagnosed" people - for years. MH support in the NHS is almost non-existent.

So until someone steps up and allows people to get proper treatment, nothing is going to get better.

As for all the comments about people diagnosing themselves - when waiting lists are years long in many cases, what other choice do they have?

PIP is not an out of work benefit.

Why? Plenty of people with autism can and do work.

I feel a lot of people know their ‘rights’ and this overwhelms the system. It shouldn't but it does.

There are too many people and over decades, services have been cut for short term costing gain. This is still going on today...it just creates a bigger issue in the future.

Where is the money coming from for this level of service? Genuine question.

I'd like to know where these "thousands and thousands" of people are? My understanding is that PIP is very hard to get. I have chronic depression, my son has severe issues which result in an almost annual meltdown and suicide attempt but nobody has ever suggested either could leave work and get PIP.

And where all the money goes that we pour into MH problems I don't know. My son gets a month of crisis care each time and then that's it..Nothing until next time he breaks down.

100% agree with you and i talk as one who has been seriously depressed in the past and a former agoraphobic. Even when i was really ill there were those who bandied about the statement 'oh I'm so depressed' when they were actually just sad/disappointed. used to irk me then, the situation has gone way worse since.

I think that so many inform themselves on SM and self-diagnose and catastrophise for the SM dopamine hit, and then refuse to work/engage/take responsibility for what are fairly ordinary life expectations.

Life IS hard at times, break ups happen, divorce happens, stress happens, for all of these and more you WILL feel sad/overwhelmed in fact, but it doesn't automatically mean you are depressed, in need of medication or able to just stop showing up.

i do feel that while there is also a lot more pressure on the youth than when we were kids, there is no resilience anymore. Talking to kids about how to be resilient will help them so much. This SHOULD be something that is really laboured in PGSE etc