I just read on the news that the government (Burnham) is to site 159 new mental health centres across Britain. It was only last week that I read in the local newspaper that our own council were setting aside a few million quid to support mental health in our area.
How come mental health has become a big thing recently?
Has it always been there and given very little attention?
As a child I can only remember one or two blokes who were struggling to cope with life, they both committed suicide. One of them was a very good friend of mine and I was very surprised and disappointed. Disappointed because he was my friend and I had no idea how he felt, if only I could have known…Perhaps he would still be here.
So is there too much pressure on our young people to do well and achieve the things that we never could?
Is it because people are doing less physically and becoming mentally overloaded?
The modern world is full of wonderful things, smartphones, cars that have more computing power than the first space shuttle, labour saving devices in the home, entertainment equipment etc. Unless you have a very well paid job these things are out of reach without taking out credit. Does the burden of too much credit push people over the edge?
Turning to drugs and/or alcohol can make the hill of life too high to climb and when sober the realities of life hit home.
I rarely see people who take exercise sinking into depression, running, going to the gym, cycling, swimming, could this be the answer? Since more manual jobs are being replaced by sitting in a comfy chair in the office, or bean counting (compiling statistics) and taxing the brain rather than the muscles. Some can cope better than others.
Or is it the constant depressing news on the media? The world ends tomorrow unless we recycle all of our waste, drive electric powered cars, or don’t drive at all, only take electricity from a ‘green’ company supplying ‘sustainable’ energy, don’t use gas or coal at all, save water…etc etc etc
Without places to have a pint and a fag and banter with friends down at the pub (we have lost the only five pubs within a five mile radius) we can sit at home playing computer games, gambling, looking at porn, listening to music, reading posts on social media and forums, and be alone…The whole world can be found on the internet by yerself.
It’s about time too. Governments all over the place decided to reform mental health by closing institutions and putting patients in better conditions in smaller homes out in the community.
They did the former but forgot about the latter (ran out of money and the will) so previously institutionalised mental patients ended up on the streets.
This is an important issue to discuss.
It does seem that there has been a significant rise in mental health problems. The statistics show this - so many signed off from work due to depression or other issues. Personal experience seems to back this up - pretty much every family I know has one child (most often now an adult) who has suffered badly from mental health challenges. I’ve worked people who have been diagnosed as clinically depressive and they struggled with some aspects of work.
The problems I’ve been made aware of are:
Children can get support from the NHS, psychologists etc, up until they are 18 then the support stops. Obviously the mental health issues do not stop.
It is quite easy to adapt your answers to the mental health assessment questionnaire to get the right outcome, provided you do some research first, and then get benefits.
It seems easy to place some of the blame onto parents but this does not explain how one child can grow up to have issues but their sibling(s) might not
Social media does not seem to help at all, and it may such health issues worse for some children and young adults
For certain people growing up the pressure to have to get work and earn a living is greatly reduced - basically their parents can keep paying for them. Does this mean there is no driver to make someone find their own way through mental health issues and knuckle down?
As has been noted already, this is not really a new issue. But it does seem to be a growing issue. Or perhaps the expectation that help and support will be given, and the stigma has reduced, means more people are willing to get such a diagnosis?
Here in the U.S., reading about our completely dysfunctional government causes a lot of anxiety in people. I don’t think providing free therapy is going to help anyone. That’s like going into a torture chamber and providing counseling to the victims but allowing the torture to persist.
The source of the anxiety needs to be addressed – not just the symptoms, although a couple of drinks doesn’t hurt as long as you don’t drive or get violent when you’re drunk.
Society today is %$#@!ed. Housing is unaffordable, we have runaway inflation in every realm including the price of gas, tuition for higher education is out of reach for many young people, AI is making entire career fields obsolete, robotics are replacing jobs, and it’s only going to get worse!
So it’s no surprise that there’s a mental health crisis.
It’s actually surprising that people have been as restrained as they are. They’re exhibiting enormous self-control by not going out and trying to bring down the entire system!
It’s not like an illness or injury you can see Spitty, so I’m sure that there are bogus claims, the question is…How many, and is it fuelling the recent rise in claimants?
Google quotes…
I’m glad I was born when I was Spitty. I was born at a time when you could survive without a smartphone or access to the internet, and only important people had a car, you could walk to the local school, and everyone worked within walking or cycling distance.
And food was pure…and mostly locally produced.
Laudable stuff Foxy, but a firm safe base is central to a life free from mental anguish, anyone who had this is not entitled to bad mental health, probobly.
These days, people can chat with an AI assistant when they have a mental health issue for free instead of talking to a $150 an hour therapist. That’s a big benefit from the advent of AI. The drawback is, it might be taking work away from therapists.
Mental helth is a sympton of society going soft. Starting in schools where respect is not taught and discipline has gone out the window.
In my day start of the 1950/1960 it didn’t take much to be given 500 lines hand written to be handed in the next day. Or worse being sent to the headmaster and having a cane bought down with force across upturned hands 6 times almost breaking thumb or fingers. PT with an ex army physical trainer expcting 12year old to be the same as soldiers. even the headmaster was sadistic only listing to one side of any event before punishment.
If that happened today there would be outrage and demand for prison sentences
On top of that there’s social media and every phone has a camera, so people now will never have a private moment or room to make mistakes.
I really do feel sorry for young people the most, in many ways it’s the worst time to have been born… and now with AI Surveillance centres, it’s going to get even worse.
Something I generally do is try to be a positive force in the life of others, even if that is to spend a bit of time talking to someone - because life’s hard, and if I can make someone feel a little better just by giving them a few moments of my time, maybe it could help make a difference, or if they were on the brink, make them reconsider.
But again, billionaires and the ruling classes are to blame - for pretty much everything. Our world could be so much better, but it’s not, because of greed and the vile capitalist exploitative system most of us live in.
The situation is incredibly nuanced isn’t it Azz? Regardless of a person’s beginnings in life, status, resolve, moral strengths etc things can happen on the journey. For want of a better word everybody has their ‘tolerances’ . I’ve known relatively strong people encounter situations which they have found or perceived to be insurmountable, sometimes the consequences were devastating!
