To think there will be many more disabled adults in 20 years?

[Walkyrie]

I’m disabled myself, just to put that out there.

It just seems like the number of people with a disability, usually a psychiatric one, is going through the roof.

40% of disability benefit claimants are claiming for mental health related reasons. The number of anxious children and teens on here, and that I know in my own life and family, is really really high. So many schools refusers and kids in need of extra support, special school placements and so on. It seems there are a lot of unemployed young adults living at home who simply don’t have the mental acuity to get a job, live independently, have a life of their own.

3 children in my family are currently school refusing, one we only found out about today but it was not a surprise as she’s always been very anxious and has selective mutism.

My AIBU is, should we be doing something to prepare for what may be a very high number of adults not working in years to come? How will we sustain them all?

Exactly i voted yanbu and there will be more disabled people in the future due to people have children later in life. Advances in science so many people who would of died previously are surviving and the failing nhs so people are becoming disabled on waiting lists.

It's about where does the money come from?

Any suggestions on how to fund an ever increasing non working society?

It might be, but we’ve always had those things. It’s nothing new. 🤷‍♀️

The likelihood in 20 years most people disabled or not will have been made redundant due to technology and ai. So i think we have bigger problems then just disabled people.

Im.not sure whst your point is?
Becsuse disabillty benerfits are based on hoe the condtion impacts a person its never been bern based on diagnosis.

How about proper preventative mental health care and timely, effective treatment? Re neueodiversity, under the right supportive conditions, some would be able to work.
But I dont think you really wanted answers.

I think the thing is that the definition of Autistic is very broad these days. I could perhaps get a diagnosis if so minded. There is a diagnosis in my wider family in gen z age group. I do have some sensory issues. But honestly at no point has my life been a struggle due to those issues. I avoid places like night clubs because they are overwhelming and my close friends tend to be the more quirky people who also need time alone.

I feel like when I was growing up there wasn't so much focus on differences and it was fine for someone to be shy and just accepted as a normal human thing or be really focused on a particular interest and that was considered positive. Something like not being able to touch a peach because of the feeling of the skin would have been an amusing quirk. People wouldn't have been looking for diagnoses unless autistic traits were extreme.

I think a big question is what has happened to school class rooms to make them so overwhelming for some children that it is a struggle to be in them on a daily basis? I don't really remember there being children like this when I was at school in the 90s/00s. Unless they were just kept out.

What serious bollocks and how offensive. Having children later in life is linked to higher levels of education and financial security, both markers for children to thrive. In fact, having very young parents is an indicator of potentially poor life outcomes.
Nobody even seems clear about what sort of disability they’re talking about but I keep seeing references to anxiety and talk about gaming and to suggest that children with MH issues is as a result of having older parents is rubbish.

Agree. Here's my situation as an example.

I'm ND and have severe OCD but 15 years ago I was in full time work! I struggled but could afford to live in the city near my work which made things manageable, I could afford a taxi on days that I couldn't manage the bus. When I needed time off I could still afford my bills on reduced wages. I had fortnightly CBT on the NHS to help me with coping strategies. Now none of these things are possible. I've had to move out of the city, taxi is unaffordable and I can't survive on the same wages. I haven't been able to access NHS treatment for my OCD for over 10 years! There isn't any support for adult autism. So I'm now one of millions on UC due to "mental health". I haven't changed but society has and unfortunately I don't have the mental dexterity to survive it. I'm sure others have the same struggle.

Its a discussion about disability in 20 years. Where not talking about 1 specific disability and all the things I have stated increase the risk of disability.

There is ample good scientific evidence that repeated covid infections increase rates of physical and mental disabilities and illnesses. With no end in sight due to few if any mitigations being taken, we will certainly have more people (not just adults) with disabilities in 20 years. Denialism does not equal protection.

open.substack.com/pub/pandemicindex/p/what-covid-19-does-to-the-body-10th?r=1iscym&utm_campaign=post-expanded-share&utm_medium=web

I have no idea. It’s very odd though older Fathers are a very real issue too not just Mothers. And I think it’s fine for people to have children in their 40s if they wish or couldn’t have children before that age due to circumstances but the risks have to be acknowledged and not hidden away to spare people’s feelings.

https://www.theguardian.com/science/2023/oct/22/the-perils-of-putting-off-fatherhood-why-it-poses-risks-to-childrens-physical-and-mental-health

40% of disability benefit claimants are claiming for mental health related reasons.

I really really hate how misleading this statistic is. The vast majority of claimants with a mental health condition also have at least one, but usually several physical disabilities too. It is textbook that when a person has a life changing injury or is diagnosed with a degenerative disease or a chronic health condition that limits or erases their ability to work and negatively impacts their quality of life that they will then suffer a mental health condition as a result of the physical disability, loss of identity, loss of independence, loss of quality of life, etc.

It’s not your fault OP for repeating this statistic that the government likes to bandy around without any context to imply that for 40% of claimants all they have is a mental health condition. They’ve succeeded in misleading the entire country.

100% this having a physical disability sucks it limits your life you are in pain a lot of the time, you're exhausted and you have to take multiple medications that make you feel worse. Im disabled. I claim pip I also work but I wrote physical and mental illness down on my pip form so I technically will be in that 40%

Condoms became widely available in the 1930s. My maternal grandmother was born in 1884 and had her last child when she was 34. I suspect a lot of women who had births registered in their 40s were actually registering a grandchild.

Anyway some of us disabled benefit scroungers have to go to work. Enjoy your day of everyone 👋

No bank holiday for you? I hope you get double pay 🥰

Yes 😁😁

It is completely unrealistic to think that we will be able to afford the level of economic inactivity due to mental health issues that we have now in future years. The only way we can function as a society is if everyone of working age makes their contribution. The choice ultimately is between paying income tax (i.e. having a job) whilst struggling with mental health or a very Darwinian survival of the fittest game in which those people don't "survive" (meaning they have very poor quality life due to poverty). Staying at home to nurse your poor mental health (itself often not a good strategy) whilst funded by the tax payer is not going to be on the list of options because there's just no money for it.

I think modern life it too demanding. Assistants have all been made redundant. It’s necessary to diagnose adhd (for instance) which might have been ignored in a time when people of a certain class worked with assistants; people of other classes had access to work which didn’t demand high levels of organisation. Now they just get a diagnosis and nothing else. It’s supposed to be a step forward. How is it a step forward if there is no help?

the benchmark for “functional” is too high. It’s at a level that was considered excellent in the 80s: 9 or 10 o levels, at least 6th form education, probably a degree and excellent attendance and high output every day with no off days; plus sophisticated social skills. (Degree usuriously self funded: dont start me on that). That person isnt an average member of society. that’s excellence.

So certain innate “failings” that mean people just can’t work at that level get given names. And not absorbed into work because they’re classed as defective

in the past, society used women to prop a lot of these people up, for free or for cheap. SAHMs, loving wives, organized and kind admin assistants all made it easier for boys and men to manage organisationally and emotionally. We can’t do that (if we ever wanted to) because we all have to earn now to keep our families afloat. I don’t want to be relegated to being a support human but I do wish society acknowledged the unpaid work that was done there and had a plan to replace it.

So why are there so many very young people with mental health issues these days? I don't know anyone of my age who struggles, so our parents can't have been that bad.

Imo a massive problem is that loads of working people are on benefits. They have jobs, they just can't afford to live on their low wages. So other tax payers have to basically subsidise companies like Amazon who are making obscene profits but not paying their workers properly.

No one who has a full time job should need to be on benefits. The whole system is broken. I'm not sure what the solution is though. Even if benefits were stopped tomorrow, that would be unlikely to make companies pay a living wage.

Yes - but the answer is to change the way we operate our economy because that’s what’s making people so sick. Nobody wants to have that conversation.

I know lots of middle aged people with MH problems, but the difference is they’re able to manage or compartmentalise them so they can fulfil their obligations at work and look after their children.

We also need to address the disincentives that people have to work.

When I was a single mum, and my partner a single higher rate earner, we were much better off. As soon as I moved in with him, I lost all child benefit, 15/30 hours free childcare and all the discounts that come with being on benefits. We are much worse off living as a family as we now have to shell out thousands in childcare. There are also many people who he manages unwilling to progress their careers as it means losing childcare as soon as you hit £100k.

Then you have people who are better off claiming benefits than working - when I was a single mum, I was better off claiming UC and working part time than I would have been working full time.

I know people don’t like to hear this and deny it happens (or say it happens rarely), but I also know lots of people who commit benefit fraud or generally take the piss. I know many ‘single’ mums who are actually living with partners, but the partners are registered to another address. I know someone on PIP who claims to have mental health issues, gets the prescription of antidepressants and flushes them down the toilet. That same person, when they were put into a work group, created inappropriate email address names ([email protected], that sort of thing), and put such poor grammar and spelling and ridiculousness in their emails and CV that they’d never get a job. All they had to do was show the work coach they’d applied to so many jobs a week to keep their benefits.