Making Your Mind Up

With just 2 more days to go until the General Election the political parties and broadcasters are ramping up their campaigning, fighting for every single vote. There is also a lot of work being done to ensure that young people register to vote and take part in the democratic process.

This means harnessing youngsters' attention across social media, TV, radio, music and more. I think it's incredibly important to make sure they're included in politics as to use a cliche they are the future. However I am getting quite annoyed with the biased way they are dictating to the same demographic who to vote for.

Last week's NME dedicated it's entire front page  and leading article to Jeremy Corbin & Labour's campaign inviting readers to ask questions and detailing the Labour manifesto. Mike Williams uses his Editor's letter to tell the readership to vote for Corbin as does Leonie Cooper in her opinion column. Tomorrow's issue of Kerrang! also promotes Corbin's campaign.

My problem with the coverage isn't because they're worshipping Labour, they are perfectly entitled to give their opinions on who they believe are the best candidates. What worries me is that whilst they are encouraging young people to make their voices heard they are only presenting them with one option.

There are currently 12 different parties represented in the UK Parliament, all who are up for election in their various constituencies across the country. Surely they should all be covered too? NME derides Theresa May and the Tories as a danger to the country hell-bent on sending us all to poverty to keep the rich comfortable. But should they not give equal, or at least some, column inches to what the Conservatives, Lib Dems, Green Party, SNP or even UKIP have to say?

Whatever your political beliefs surely you must agree that it's equally dangerous to give young voters the message that only one party is the answer, without mentioning other parties' policies or pledges. To be fully engaged with the political process everyone needs to do their research, to understand what each party is offering. Not to be dictated to by the media and biased left or right wing coverage.

My plea to anyone, young or old casting their votes is to make sure you can make the most informed decision possible as to which box to put your X in on Thursday.

Love Jen
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Is Mental Health Finally About To Be Accepted Into The 'Big Society'?

It appears that the government have finally woken up to to true horrors of living with a mental illness. Despite years of soft waffle and vague promises nothing has ever actually been achieved. But now David Cameron has decreed that a focus needs to be placed on mental health and bring it's funding in line with money allocated to 'physical health'http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/health-35565216 .

 

Personally I think that it needs to go further than merely bring mental health funding in line, the government need to help the NHS urgently bring in treatment to try and fix those lives shattered by mental illness. To put this in perspective £9.2bn a year is spent on mental health care, that's less than a 10th of the NHS budget bearing in mind that one in 4 people will experience a mental health problem. When the figures are laid bare like that it's impossible not to feel disgust.

 

For years the ruling powers have blustered about equality for those suffering from a mental illness and ending mental health stigma, yet nothing seems to have actually been done. It's taken two charities, Mind (http://www.mind.org.uk/) & Rethink (https://www.rethink.org/), to merge together to form the Time To Change (http://www.time-to-change.org.uk/) campaign to end mental health stigma. Surely something that the government should have tackled as part of their 'Big Society' dream?

 

Has the campaign worked? I'm in two minds. When I first became aware of it back in 2008/9 I hadn't ever really encountered stigma when I'd divulged that I was depressed to people. It wasn't until a couple of years ago during 'memory-stickgate' at my old job when the people who I'd trusted with the knowledge of my illness then used it against me, claiming that I was a 'danger to the service' because it may have caused me to make more mistakes.

 

I think that what I'd call 'mainstream' (and this is in no way belittling the illnesses as I know the hell they can cause) conditions such as Depression and Anxiety and to some extent OCD & Bipolar are far more accepted and there is actually a fair bit of knowledge amongst the general public about what the conditions entail. I know that when I've debated explaining my Borderline Personality Disorder to work colleagues or people I know outside of my family and close friends I'm almost passed it off, saying "it's a bit like Bipolar" to make life easier. They are obviously two very different conditions but telling someone you have a fairly well-known and understood condition vs one that makes you sound like a freak about to attack them with a knife? There's no contest really!

 

I've blogged before about the lack of services availible in my area for mentally ill people, part of this government drive promises more funding for treatment & therapies. I really hope they use this as an oppourtunity to investigate specialised treatments rather than just pumping funds into one size fits all CBT & Mindfullness, currently the mental health buzzwords. There are a lot of people, myself included, who these just don't work for, but there are so many other therapies in existence that would make a real difference to people's ability to cope. I for one would love the chance to receive a therapy tailored to my needs rather than being left by the wayside as I don't fit a specific teatment model. Put it this way if someone didn't have a positive response to a particular pain killer would they be told nothing more could be done for them? No! They would be tried on different medications until the right one was found! Why can't the same be done for us?

 

To my mind (no pun intended) mental health equality means not only being placed on a par with physical health in importance and funding but with effort being made to make sure that everybody, regardless of their condition is given an oppourtunity to receive treatment and support that's right for them.

 

Love Jen

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A Long Way From Home

This morning it was reported that Newport council, in a effort to ‘deal’ with it’s homeless, are debating bringing in Public Order prosecutions or even £1000 fines for those ‘caught’ sleeping rough in the city. I think this is absolutely sickening. Firstly that human beings desperately in need of help are treated as some kind of vermin that needs to be swept away and second of all that the lack of thought going into these plans.

 

Now I admit that, thank god, neither I or anyone I know has ever had any first hand experience of being homeless but it would seem to me that being homeless is probably not a lifestyle choice.  People end up homeless for 100s of different reasons: poverty, running from abuse, drug or alcohol addiction or mental illness to name but a few. The powers that be in this country are wringing their hands about the refugee crisis that we have seen across Europe this summer whilst ignoring the problem, as they have done for many years, far closer to home. Whilst I agree that the refugee crisis is a humanitarian disaster and these people desperately need help, their stories are reported daily across the media. What about the stories of those living rough on the streets? Are their circumstances not as newsworthy?

 

Perhaps because the general consensus is that these unfortunate souls are ‘to blame’ for their situation it makes it easier to treat them as subhuman and look away from them when we pass them in the street. The most popular blame thrown is that they are drug and alcohol addicts and deserve to be on the streets. Opinion varies but I believe that, along with other disorders of the brain, addiction is a genuine illness. My OCD is a form of compulsion which is exactly what substance, alcohol or gambling addictions are, if I was on the street would it be my fault? Or those that have run away from domestic or sexual abuse, are they to blame too? Just as we are learning about the refugees’ individual traumas should we not also apply this to the homeless? Is one human being’s awful situation more valid than another’s just because fleeing from war or oppression is easier to accept than someone desperately in need of the same shelter and medical attention?

 

A large percentage of homeless are in fact ex-service personnel, often suffering from PTSD leading to addiction or poverty, can we surely not afford them the help they need when they have served and often put their lives on the line for this country? For them the conflict doesn’t end  in Iraq or Afghanistan they are still fighting for their lives every day just in a different theatre of war. Do these men and women not deserve dignity and our sympathy?

 

I know that there are not unlimited funds to help everyone but surely a little more money and attention could be given to not only helping those on the streets but identifying those potentially at risk of ending up homeless? I’m not anti-refugee in any way, shape or form, I just believe that to achieve the equality and humanitarian work that this country prides itself on that whilst we care for those fleeing war we also look after ‘our own’.

 

Love Jen

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