Mental Illness: Institutional Stigma?

Have you seen the recent news about benefit sanctions and those most commonly affected?

Take a quick read here.

You may have probably seen some of the press about the levels of sanctions that people on benefits are facing have risen significantly.

Now, I don't wish to turn this into a benefits debate. What I'm most concerned with is the particular type of illnesses that seem to be being sanctioned the most, and this report shows it is those suffering from a mental illness of some description.

This comes as no surprise personally. When someone can't get out of bed because they have physically debilitating issues, who can deny it would be unfair to sanction them? You can see it with your eyes.

Mental illness however, you cannot. To recognise a mental illness is debilitating, you need to be able to empathize. And for a person who may never have suffered badly from such would find this difficult. They may not believe it exists.

Institutions such as the benefits system would definitely not wish to recognise that mental illnesses can be just as harmful as a physical injury or ailment.

But the big question is, what can we do about it?

It's difficult, because of the stigma surrounding such subjects. People would accuse such people of being lazy, and perhaps an absolute minority would abuse this, fake mental illness in order to get away with being 'lazy'.

So, the solution?

I honestly don't know. But cutting off the very livelihood that keeps those with mental illnesses going doesn't appear to me to be the right answer.

How can you expect those to recover from whatever illness they suffer when they can't even afford to eat in some cases? Why should poverty be a punishment for disability?

I'm not professing to know the answer, I'm not trying to generalise every case. What I am trying to do is encourage people to think twice before stereotyping.


Have you heard any stories of people being affected by such stigmas?