positive mental health: flourishing. I think it's similar to the World
Health Organisation definition. In simplicity I take it to mean either
getting the most for the individual or the most for society out of the
individual. It's about people flourish in life and achieving their
potential and their potential for society.
I know more than a few mentally ill people who have had significantly
worst employment outcomes in life because of their illness. The reasons
are numerous. It can be the depressed person who has low self-esteem and
applies for low level jobs. After my first psychiatric crisis I didn't
work for a year and lived off a loan I took while I was hypermanic and
the money I made doing a graduate job. The first job I took as I started
my recovery was putting leaflets through people's letter boxes telling
them when their rubbish would be collected over the Christmas break. I
then worked as an internal postie sorting through the mail for the
accounts payable department at a local council. I'd been recruited from
4000 applicants to 10 places at the corporation I worked for before my
first psychiatric hospitalisation and diagnosis of madness.
The negative outcomes can also be because of the root stigma in society
of the symptoms of madness, a stigma so prevalent in the UK that only 5%
of people with a diagnosis of schizophrenia are in employment and education.
The loss of capital caused by the stigma is a great cost to the nation.
The loss of the life and life opportunities for the individual is even
more significant. It's one of the reasons why schizophrenics kill
themselves in later life.
The government cuts will devastate the lives of those with severe mental
disabilities. Their lives are pretty shit already. It just doesn't have
to be this way.
I haven't worked through this idea fully yet but to me the future means
more people will be unemployed and this is the root problem of any
economic recession: productivity falls.
The way the cuts have been set up many will be forced into poverty.
Those who can get jobs and who have had prolonged mental illness will
only be able to get the most menial roles. They'll be lucky to be
administrative staff or call centre operators. They'll be reduced to
doing jobs that machines can do, that require little brain power and
suck the soul dry of life.
Why not think different? Training, education and support can help
slingshot a person into a role where they can flourish. This is
expensive and there is little money on to spend. This is where this idea
is flawed. The money may be spent better on job creation programs which,
as far as I am aware, is the tried and tested method to get a nation out
of an economic recession.
I perceive the mentally ill like a goldmine that is just waiting for the
technology to come about so it can be tapped. In these dark economic
times there's a need for a goldmine but it's staring everyone in the
face. The mad are the geniuses without opportunity, the heroes without
recognition, the brightest minds of the future living in a world where
their light can't be understood. The gold is all around but people only
see the gold ore. They can't see the shine. They're used to slabs of
concrete, the dull automotons who are incapable of original thought or
passion.
All but a few lucky ones are below their potential be it mad man or
automoton. The mad are most disadvantaged but the loss to society is
significant. The mad would never have let the banking crisis happen
because they'd be the ones ready to criticise. Automotons are hired
because they don't speak out nor challenge the hierarchy. They are
docile. Sheep in a world that fears shepherds and calls them ill.
Creation of appropriate jobs for the mad is the opportunity in these
dark times. Supporting them through their return to productivity
benefits the individual and the nation. It is my hope that if there are
more mad people in workplaces and at FTSE 100 companies then perhaps the
nation wouldn't be in this crisis.
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