Spring 2012 Editorial: Everyday people
As One in Four goes to press the Welfare Reform Bill is finishing its path through Parliament. The Health and Social Care Bill is still up in the air with opposition solidifying amongst many of the established medical bodies and amongst members of the public. We’ve decided to focus on neither of these issues in depth this issue.
Why? Because One in Four believes that there is more to the lives of people with mental health difficulties than benefits and the NHS. We think that treatment and support are fundamental to living a life that is the best that it can be, but we don’t think that’s all that’s important to people with mental health difficulties.
We could call this issue of One in Four something of a real life special, but really every issue of One in Four is a real life special. This time round we’ve got prison (p12), parenthood (p20), technology (p24), sadness and loss (p26), working life (p8), diagnosis (p19) and, joy of joys, spring cleaning (p16).
When you’re very ill it can feel like being unwell is your life. Recovery is about finding a way of being where being ill is simply part of your life. People with mental health difficulties are shuffled into the pack of day to day life, not sitting in a seperate deck.
The current debate about work and benefits can serve to confuse us. When we feel ill and someone suggests that we might like to think of trying new things or even returning to work, it can feel as if are not having our difficulties recognised. Ultimatley, however mis-judged or patronising that advice might be, it does represent something that many of us can work towards. When we’re struggling to survive it can almost seem that a return to work is suggested as a kind of punishment for not being ill enough.
It is true that the labour market is harsher than it has been for a long time. All of us, mental health difficulty or not, are suffering the effects of a financial crisis not of our making. Even in the midst of this it’s important to remember that people with mental health difficulties do find work. It’s also important to remember that having a job and keeping a job isn’t the wrong aspiration to have. It’s a scandal that so many people with mental health difficulties find ourselves outside of the employment market.
We sometimes run the risk of minimising the achievements of people with mental health difficulties who do have jobs by holding the belief that they couldn’t have been unwell in the first place if they’ve managed to stay in the world of work. Similarly, by focusing only on those people with mental health difficulties who have remained in stable employment we risk minimising the difficulties and challenges of those who are not in work or who are too unwell to get back into work.
As a community we have to accept that we are just that, a community. We’re a huge, loose group of people in this country in a vast range of different situations with a vast range of different opinions. The experience of schizophrenia is not the same as the experience of depression, but we all benefit from attempts to reduce prejudice against those with mental health difficulties.
We’re a huge hidden group of everyday people getting on with everyday lives. We aren’t an interest group who speaks with one voice. We’re a community that includes a world of different voices. If we can learn one thing from other struggles, it’s always easiest to attack those with experiences near to your own but different ideas. Where we can find solidarity with each other is the fact that we all experience things that people who do not have mental health difficulties do not.
Mark Brown
Editor
This article appears in the Spring 2012 issue of One in Four
