MENTAL HEALTH

These government ministers talking about rise in Mental Health - I wonder why that is? low frozen pay, no help when ill, inheritance tax looming, frugal savings and hard earned and taxed again pensions, care in old age at a price, NHS teeth etc care more expensive and limited, freedom of speech chipped away for some, taxed to the hilt - unless you can divert your money abroad in companies like the affluent, they are creating a world of fear, slavery and gloom. Plus some bod on radio 4 talking about how easy it is to have a mental health diagnosis - what - you mean waiting 3 years just to see a consultant is easy???? Perhaps they can charge bullies at work for sick leave pay - work related stress! Or the governments own purses - from the mps themselves from their diverted tax salaries abroad, for army and armed forces people who also have PTSD for defending this not great britain anymore.

I did think, how can the Minister say there are too many mental health diagnoses as he is not [as far as I know] medically qualified, never mind in mental health. Radio 4's pandemic five-years-on assessments show hard facts for increased young people's mental health diagnoses.
And an increasingly unpredictable disjointed society gets ever more difficult to navigate if you are neurodivergent, which is not a defect or abnormality in itself, but a difference. The difficulties can lead to eg anxiety and depression, or there may be co-existing learning difficulties. All these may require benefit support.
Denby
[Proud to be late diagnosed ASD & ADHD]

I am autistic and mentally ill. In has been around 20 years since I got NHS mental illness care. All they offer is group CBT for 5 weeks. So of COURSE mental illness gets worse! I could still be working if I had got help when facing discrimination. I lost my job and now have such trauma from that.

Dear Glissando,
My well informed autistic friend says CBT does not work on autistic people. So my sympathies. And on the being bullied out of a job: our daughter had a similar experience ten years ago and still has panic attacks if she sees any of the people around town.
CBT not working is like a lot of NHS treatments, if you are in the near half of autistic people who have liver enzyme differences that mean many medicines do not work properly if at all. [7% of the whole population fwiw].
And the NHs will not test for this.
Denby

Hello,

Apologies in advance because I know this is going off topic, but if you see this message, Denby, please could you let me know where you found this information? Is it from one of the Jessica Kingsley publications you've mentioned before?

I'm interested because, for several years now, our doctors' surgery has been hassling - there is no other word for it, I'm afraid - my son because blood tests repeatedly show enzymes indicating raised liver function. I thought this might be due to his very premature birth, but had no idea it might also be linked to his autism. Since they don't seem to understand autism very well (or even the long-term effects of prematurity) they keep suggesting he gives up alcohol, but he doesn't drink at all.

In the past, he has had very unusual and sometimes quite severe reactions to medication, so is always reluctant to try anything new (not that anything has been offered). CBT can be quite counter-productive for autistic people.

He works at the moment, but is bullied on an almost daily basis, so I hope that any reforms to get people back to work will be done in a compassionate way, otherwise people's mental health will get worse, not better.

Best wishes,

Wendy

Hi Wendy Woo, I'm sorry I don't know where my friend got the info from, if I remember [ADHD!] next time I speak to him I will ask.

Re the liver, if you would like to look it up, one of the key enzyme issues easily searched is
CYP2D6, you'll also see mentions of cytochrome P450, the Wikipedia and nih.gov articles give a fair idea of the problems.
To be fair I do have a bit of science background, if anyone needs me to try and give a simply worded explanation I will be happy to do so.
Hope the above helps,
Denby