Tired Eyes
Submitted by Tired Eyes on Tue, 02/09/2010 - 14:01
Work ethics, benefit claimants, lazy, vilification,
Hi again guys.
My last blog in early December was rather panicky and I never actually got to write about my project. I am happy to say January was a good month for me and I am feeling really optimistic.
Tired Eyes is a project that looks at attitudes to work, the way we work and vilification of people considered to be 'lazy'. The cult of hard work has its roots in religion and sadly whenever hard work is promoted as the solution to the world's ills, rather than solve the world's problems, swathes of people are vilified and in cases been subjected to crimes against humanity.
To name three historic examples, the Irish famine, the Nazi holocaust and history of slavery and poverty of black people in America. In all these cases, people who considered themselves to be upstanding and hard working chose to brutalise people on the basis that they were lazy, feckless or cheats and deserved their suffering.
So how does this apply to mental health discrimination? Today many people who need to claim benefits are unfairly treated by the media, the public and politicians. All claimants can suffer from distress due to the vilification of the unemployed. Those of us who are claiming due to mental health problems are likely to suffer greatly from the vilification. I know I do! I know it hinders my ability to manage my health.
First, let me emphasise something, hard work is not the same as work. We are so conditioned to believe in hard work we equate the two but whereas there is a need for work to provide for our needs, the case for hard work is not as solid as you may think. For a start, historical examples show hard work doesn't automatically lead to good societies. The hard working Nazis is an obvious example. Secondly, there is a strong link between hard work and stress. Stress has many negative effects, on physical health, mental health and communities as a whole.
Many people with higher sensitivity to mental distress are restricted from skilled work, not because we do not have the skills but because we can't cope with the stress. But there is nothing intrinsic in skill that is stressful, the stress is connected to hard work.
Anyway that is enough for now, phew I need a lie down, perhaps you do too?
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Comments
I think our idea of 'hard'
I think our idea of 'hard' work has something masochistic about it..... which is potentially very unhealthy. However, I think some work is basically difficult and you have to sweat over it - you can't always expect to be in 'the zone' where everything flows easily and with little effort - it woudl be nice if it were so but I think this is unrealistic - what do people think? Sometimes you toil and sweat and to no avail, and then when you stop trying, it all comes to you. But perhaps, the one could not have taken place without the other?
hard work and working well
"work well not hard" - now there's something I should print out and put above my desk. I was thinking about how often I say to myself "you've worked hard and deserve a rest/treat/chocolate bar" etc and it is rather revealing! I tend to congratulate myself with "you've worked well" rather less often.
My ideal would be a 2/3 day working week - I feel I need more time to relax and ruminate and to have less time (but perhaps more quality time) at the 'coal face'. Yet, as a freelancer, I am paid per day rather than for quality of work, so it almost invites longer working hours!
Thanks
Thanks for your comments Butterfly and Terese. I agree with both of you.
I agree with the question what is work? In a purely physics sense work is the process to transfer energy. In an occupational sense perhaps it is use of our time and energy to change or maintain something. The problem with the reductionist concept of work to mean paid work is it forgets about the other important things in our life that need our time and our energy.
Loving care is a vital part of our life that also requires time and energy. Relationships require work to be healthy. Communities (the extension of individual relationships) require work. The high figures for mental health problems in the UK and US are from relationship, family and communal problems.
And in that sense work isn't just about providence (providing). Work is about a spectrum of things. So we need to perceive work differently to reflect this spectrum. I believe we can conceptualise this spectrum with three primary currencies - providence, loving-care and wisdom.
Currently we are solely focused on providence, which has caused global over production-consumption at the expense of both loving-caring and the sharing of wisdom.
My idea of work is to be part
My idea of work is to be part of the world and contribute to society . It is also about providing for family . For some a social status.
I worked on a farm, we worked hard. That was more physical labour but was also a pressure mentally.
Reward schemes that change would be a good idea to introduce as it would place value to an individual and provide focus. I like Art and somedays I can do it but others I cannot. Concentration is a major factor and Quite honestly I wouldnt mind sewing mailbags as long as the work was acknowledged and shown as beneficial to society.
A bit muddled in my thinking but I guess its not about the work it is about how its perceived.
No taxing without representing!
The current drift with diverting the allocation meant for support of people with disability - or Incapacity - diverting it to people in employment effectively divides us into camps that have one camp of notionally temporarily indisposed people, not long-term ill, who can unobtrusively slip back into the main-stream world and with some disguises can pass it off as if they were never ill! - and another camp that strands people with real intractable mental ill-health diagnoses in a twilight zone where stigma, ignorance and an attitude problem towards us - digs deeply into our lives so we dare not speak up for ourselves for fear of digging a deeper hole or exhausting the compassion from the people who we rely upon to lend support with our disabilities and sustain us through bad times.
For me the Campaign should be about supporting the long-suffering people towards some kind of occupational fulfillment that addresses years of neglect, and not about fast-tracking the articulate, self-seeking people in camp one, who have reached dry land and can almost lord it over the rest as the 'spokes-people' of the 'user movement', effectively treating the rest of us as rather convenient door-mats for their self-advancement.
This is crudely put, but what unites us is that we are all subjected in varying degrees to stigma, because it is in our histories that we have or have had direct experience of mental ill-health. What that does is to ensure that we never have representation in Parliament by people with that direct experience, and vast areas of public life are closed to us. Butterfly expresses enthusiasm for contributing to society. Society in its turn owes us the dignity and self-respect of being included as full participants - which is not what I call the mealy mouthed dismissal and negativity which has been our fare for as long as anyone can remember.
I think as a first step and statement of benign intent, parliament should cease its practice of banishing everyone who it emerges has first-hand experience of ill-health, and also desist from pronouncements and decisions when they are not Informed by experience! - then at least we have some hope that the decisions affecting us, like the Employment support allowance and the termination of Incapacity benefit have out-comes that are not so wide of the mark that they create more problems than they solve. We could also do with a satisfactory Mental Health Act for once! Maybe then, we could have some semblance of true representation in a democracy, something which the mentally ill have never seen thus far.
The 'tax' I refer to is in fact the demand and expectation that we should offer ourselves as cannon fodder and also-rans in the employment market of the country where we are citizens. Where is the 'quid pro quo'? Where and how are our dignities and inclusive respect being regarded currently? Well parliament is setting the worst possible example to the stigmatisers and detractors. We are scape-goats for all sorts of inconceivable slights and put-downs! Everyday ignorance puts those in need of psychiatric help as inevitably criminally subversive of 'normal' society, and of course we should be detained in secure units! It is of no concern to anyone whether an 'offense' has been committed. Detention without any trial is a matter of course for everyone hospitalised. This will all change with proper emancipation, proper representation and a proper regard for our dignity as equal citizens. Even disability equality does not square with parliament's Exclusion of those with mental ill-health.
Rambuie
http://hypoconcer.ning.com/profiles/blogs/misinformed-misconstrued
This is really interesting,
This is really interesting, I think your distinction between 'work' and 'hard work' is an important one, and a connected question to that is - what is considered to be 'work' in the first place? (and what gets devalued and dismissed as 'not work' and why?) How can we create non-stressful spaces to do productive work which isn't necessarily geared by profit, and which instead is about valuing each individual's contribution? Anyways, these are some of the questions which I started to think about reading your post, so thanks for that. Look forward to hearing more of your ideas as the project develops!
yes i got exhausted reading
yes i got exhausted reading that. I try to work hard but always fall at a hurdle that is invisible. I Have had lots of jobs and cannot find a job where i ever have been okay doing. It can be stress or a way people keep staring . Almost any detail can be triggering. So good luck in finding a way to make it work .