Should You Receive Benefits If Your "Laziness" Is Caused By A Mental Health Condition

How do you know that? You never know when they will snap. Then it will be too late.

I'm struck by the amount of ignorance by people who think mental illness is not a disability and that laziness is a symptom...what a load of absolutely bollyhocks!

I have OCD and severe Anxiety.....I was signed off work for 6 months because of it....and I hated every moment! I went through a myriad of symptoms and it was not a fun time at all.

If someone's life is severely affected then they should be given benefits if they cannot work but they should also be helped to reintegrate into society which is what I have done.

2ndClass - I was taking medication and was living my life to the full whilst studying at university but unfortunately family issues got too much and I had a slip up which can happen to anyone. My dad was a strict Army Sargeant but even he had a nervous breakdown. So before you make judgments please do some research about what you are referring to. Mental illness is a recognized disability and should be treated the same as a physical disability as it can be just as debilitating.

Tyrion Lannister - Well done for being open and honest about your mental health illness. The more people that open up about this then the less it is stigmatised.

Are you trolling or ignorant?

The vast majority of mentally ill people never commit crimes. 1/20 violent crimes is committed by someone with a mental illness, meaning 19/20 violent crimes are committed by someone who does not.

So you're actually safer around us

How do you know that? You never know when they will snap. Then it will be too late.

Precisely. Or they should not be asking for benefits. There's enough people already claiming benefits for whatever reasons they can come up with.

I hope youve never taken a paracetamol. Or antibiotics. Or ibuprofen. I hope you've never been to the GP when you're ill. I hope youve never been to A&E if you've broken anything, sprained anything, or otherwise injured yourself. I hope you've never had a filling, tooth removed, or any dental work done. I hope you don't ever use any of the NHS resouces, and don't plan to, because if you did, you would be a walking hypocrite

Natural selection after all

Too many people claim to have 'depression' nowadays, and being stuck at home won't solve it; if anything it will just make the problem worse.

By that logic you should bang up any young, heterosexual male who drinks, because that's who commits most violent crime and you never know when we might just start lashing out at everyone and everything.

I hope youve never taken a paracetamol. Or antibiotics. Or ibuprofen. I hope you've never been to the GP when you're ill. I hope youve never been to A&E if you've broken anything, sprained anything, or otherwise injured yourself. I hope you've never had a filling, tooth removed, or any dental work done. I hope you don't ever use any of the NHS resouces, and don't plan to, because if you did, you would be a walking hypocrite

Natural selection after all

You forgot to take into consideration the fact that there are naturally less people with mental illnesses ...

I am not trolling/being ignorant, but if that's all you have to say just because your own opinion differs from mine, that's cool.

Sorry but this analogy makes absolutely no sense.

Right so you're saying that someone for whom the stress or energy of a daily job who be too much should be hospitalised even if they can care of themselves well enough to function. Most treatment is given 'in the community' because people getting out and about and doing standard tasks like shopping and cooking makes people better eventually.

it's a balancing act between giving the truly debilitated essential help
and stopping a significant portion of the population from abusing a system which would sort of reward 'laziness' and 'lack of will power' (I put these in quotation marks because I realise that they're symptoms of these invisible diseases.)

so, for the benefit of the majority (the country would collapse if everyone began to say that they were 'depressed' and all got a nice sum of money each month for it), some must suffer. Its intrinsic cruelty to the biologically unfortunate made me think of Darwin--sorry if I caused offence.

Too many people claim to have 'depression' nowadays, and being stuck at home won't solve it; if anything it will just make the problem worse.

Just because one person functions on medication doesn't mean it works for everyone. These are incredibly complex conditions.

Depression is not a "feeling"! You can't feel "bipolar"! Depression is a complicated set of biological, cognitive, and environmental phenomena combining to make a disorder that can seriously alter (from 'normal') an individual's ability to feel certain ways, have productive thought processes, and carry out certain actions. It's frustrating and often debilitating. By displaying this level of intolerance you are perpetuating harmful stigma that further worsens a disorder that is perhaps the greatest cause of DALY burden in Western countries.

For slimy ballsacks' sake, the mind is based on functioning of the brain. The brain is a physical organ. WHY are illnesses of this organ treated with such mistrust and disdain compared to illnesses of any other organ?!!

Of course it's relevant. If 1/7 people with a condition are committing suicide and many more are trying, then obviously we aren't doing enough to help these people and they're not fit for work. They should be entitled to financial help.

I'm a drama queen for writing about my suicidal feelings in order to explain what depression is like? And I'm not lazy, when have I ever said that?

Good for your friend. Unfortunately not everyone is so lucky. Also, you don't know what she's like when you don't see her. There are people who have no idea I have depression, who don't know how anxious I get, who've never seen my crying with a razor blade in my hands who think I'm tough as ****. So that doesn't really prove anything.

Again you're ignoring the fact medication doesnt work for all people and doesn't help everything. Would you say the same about diabetes?

Mental illness and that are two different things. Provide a better example ... if you really wanna prove me wrong.

If they can look after themselves with help of medication they should be able to perform simple tasks as well; I am not talking about jobs like working in an oil business, being a scientist or lawyer; just even simply working in Tesco or whatever - not much effort required.

Don't see what's wrong with it if they are properly diagnosed so as to avoid liars

If you're a social daarwinist you should be against all forms of intervention

Exactly that. It's getting to the point that whenever someone feels rubbish they declare themselves as being depressed. I'd say this is the case most of the time.