Extreme Discrimination against Mental Health

Yet again I'm continuing from yesterday but this story came up fresh on the news today and I find it really quite disturbing.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-manchester-26377119

There is the link to it if you want to read the full story but I'll try and explain it a little here and why it's so horrific. Now, a woman in Rochdale, England has severe bipolar disorder. She has done since she was a child. She hasn't been able to hold down a job since she was 16. She has been on disability benefit for 27 years for this. This means that in the UK she categorizes as "long term unemployed". That basically sticks a massive target on her head. She was suddenly pushed onto the "Work Programme" in December last year. That means that she, after 27 years, is meant to apply for 15 jobs a week to force her out to work. Because of her reassignment she was sent on an intensive job-seeking course for 8 days. This sent the woman into a manic episode which meant she had to be hospitalised. In hospital she then suffered a heart attack so severe she had suffered brain damage and fell into a coma.

Now, if all that wasn't bad enough. She has now been sent a letter telling her she must find work or have her benefits cut completely. She is STILL in the coma. Now, the department in question and the government have apologised to her family for this but I, and several MP's agree with me in the article, think that this just shows how much people with disabilities are hounded by the benefits office. They push and threaten everyone because they think they have the power to get away with it. And the sad fact is that they do. I, and everyone else collecting benefits, are at the beck and call of their every whim. Before they agreed I was entitled to my disability benefit I had to apply for 15 jobs a week, show them proof I had done so, go and sign on every week and whilst their explain to them why I had yet to find a job. It is ritual humiliation.

Being on disability benefits isn't much better. You spend 6 months at least arguing with them why you are entitled to it at all. Then you go to endless interviews where they ask you irrelevant questions to try and tell you that you are perfectly fit to work. They will even falsify answers to get the result they want, I saw that on my own assessment forms. But even after you have proven you are entitled then you could have your benefit cut partially or altogether at a moments notice. You fear every brown envelope that comes through the door in case they are telling you about cuts or that you are no longer entitled or that you suddenly have to attend intensive training or find work "or else!".

I am aware I have now made this argument at least 4 or 5 times on here. But every time I read things like this I feel physically sick. What sort of world do we live in where this happens. And it's not like it's in a distant land that doesn't understand these things or whatever excuse we would like to think. This is happening in the country I live in. A country that claims to be enlightened about mental health but STILL refuses to help or even address it properly. If I try and talk about this with my grandparents they would just shout at me how right the government are to treat me and others like this. That I just have to accept it. That I should be thankful for what I get whether it comes with abuse and discrimination or not. It can't just be me that finds this both sickening and heartbreaking? I wish their was something real I could do about it. That I could tell the people doing this how wrong they are. That I could tell this backward thinking government how much they are ruining people's lives. This blog is the best I've got.