sharkfishinginwales.blogspot.com: The Snakes and Ladders of Mental Health & the Workplace

Friday 18 January 2019

The Snakes and Ladders of Mental Health & the Workplace

I cannot believe that a Liberal Democrat and a so called Labour MP have said the following. Norman Lamb "A change of mindset was required with mental health, and GPs needed to focus on recovery through work" Luciana Berger who said "It was staggering so few with mental health conditions were in work" Now I can't believe that somebody who represents a constituency in Liverpool of all places is saying such a thing. She needs to be watching 'Boys from the Blackstuff ' on a loop. It beggars belief that the 'Suicide Minister' Jackie Doyle-Price is the one trying to rein this pair in and asking for a more holistic culture. I thought that it was meant to be the Conservatives who were the nasty party? perhaps Norman Lamb spent too much time rubbing shoulders with David Cameron in the coalition and Luciana Berger is spending too much time attacking Jeremy Corbyn. I watched I Daniel Blake recently without a TV Licence. I was in tears by the end of the film. The scenes of Daniel Blake in the Job Centre trying to defend his dignity and humanity brought memories back of my own experiences in the Job Centre in Cowbridge Road East, Canton, Cardiff.
Norman Lamb wants "a randomised control trial to target people in primary care." We are not lab rats Mr Lamb, we are not lambs for the slaughter. These politicians, who couldn't get a job in the real world are telling us, those with 'mental health needs',that work will set you free. It is very often work, with its strict limitations on freedom of expression that has made us ill in in the first place. Have you heard about bullying in the workplace?
Middle aged men tend to avoid Doctor's practices and I am one of them. If I know that my GP is working in cahoots with the DWP to coerce me back into unsuitable, soul destroying work, I wont be very happy about it, in fact, I could like a reverse Violet Elizabeth Bott in the Just William books, instead of screaming and screaming, go into a dark cold spiral of deep depression. I am able to do this at will now. All I have to do is watch the news, eat some junk food, go down the bookies, get pissed in the multifarious happy hours and drop a few unhappy pills. Let me marinate with my intrusive thoughts and negative over thinking and then I will be ready for your control group. Despite my qualifications you can drop me in the factory line or fast food chain gang and I will work at Dickensian drudgery so the elite 1% can go ahead and continue to paint lies on the side of buses. Work does not set you free. Unsuitable work coerced on to a desperate population by Doctors and the Department of Work and Pensions will lead to further distrust and resentment.
We can't all be politicians.....tell a lie, I'll back track on that, anybody can be a politician. The next time that somebody on £77,000 a year tells somebody on £73.10 a week Employment and Support allowance to stop 'thinking about their sickness' and 'think about getting into work' then please allow me to attach the electrodes to the politician's head and place the rubber bung in their mouth. Unfortunately, unlike the Milgram experiment, when one of these screams in pain for me to lower and stop the electrical voltage, then its very unlikely that I will stop, because I know that it is a physical illness that they are suffering and not a mental and emotional one.