Bedroom Tax

[marje]

So, there's been a suicide because of the 'bedroom tax'. Poor woman couldn't afford the £80 per month for 2 empty bedrooms when her children left home. How many more before it's abolished?

[hc4361]

According to the newspaper reports, this lady had not been using her heating over the winter period, nor her lights and was not eating properly - before she lost the £80 per month benefit.

She was upset about her children leaving home and being alone. Who knows what other problems she had? In all fairness a small bungalow which was offered would be cheaper for her to run and manage, seeing as was also in ill health.

[ummmm]

Yes, it does. People of sane mind do not contemplate suicide as a way of escaping personal pain.

[magsmay]

Octavious -you have a valid point -years ago I had a client who was a lorry driver who killed two people on the highway - one was trying to throw himself under the truck and the other trying to save him (turned out to be uncle and nephew) -he had major PTSS -flashbacks of dismembered limbs hitting the windscreen -horrible images -so there will be at least another victim in this suicide.

[Zeuhl]

/thoughts of suicide, however brief, are signs of mental health issues/

Really?

So if a 15 year old is diagnosed with an unpleasant, terminal disease - thoughts of ending their own life by their own choosing is a sign of a 'mental health issue'?

That seems a rather subjective and self serving idea

[THEMOTLEY1]

Losing track there for a minute guys, going by the OP are we not meant to be slagging off the Government over this unfair tax they've introduced?

[MadMen]

"People of sane mind do not contemplate suicide as a way of escaping personal pain."

Lets hope I don't get this job in mental health, eh.... :-)

[anneasquith]

no one commits suicide unless they have a mental health problem ie depression . suicide is not a spur of the moment thought.

[woofgang]

sorry magsmay but I disagree. I suspect that every human adult on the planet has, at some time or other, thought about suicide. The difference is that most of us can dismiss the thought just as we can dismiss the though of murdering someone, or to suggest lesser actions, theft or violence.
the mental health issue comes when we cannot dismiss the thought or think it through rationally

[woofgang]

Ummmmm!!!!!! do'h of course they do.......

[naomi24]

This lady was 53 – not too old to work a few hours a week to earn the extra £20 she needed. She was offered three alternative properties, but felt none were suitable, so no one can claim she wasn’t considered. The fact is the welfare system is over-burdened, families are homeless, and in order to utilise the available funds to the best advantage, changes must be made. People cannot expect society to continue to pay for that which they want, but don’t actually need.

Lend me your tin hat, Woofgang!

[magsmay]

//Say someone loses their child, or their husband, and makes a decision they no longer wish to live their life without them. That doesn't mean that person has mental health issues, surely?//

yes it does -they are not coping (obviously) and need psychiatric help to recover as best they can. They could want to kill themselves two weeks after the tragedy -but two years later feel completely different.

[Ric.ror]

Poppy - could your daughter consider a smaller property?
I dont mean to be rude I dont really know anything about this tax as I do not rent a property

[ummmm]

You'll be fine MadMen. It's eye opening.

Zeuhl - that's a different scenario. Choosing that you no longer want to live with a condition isn't the same as killing yourself because of £80 a month.

[anneasquith]

re the original question............if ever the tory's need to do a u turn it is on this issue.

[magsmay]

Naomi -I was thinking the same thing -she could have tried to get a job cleaning or something -there are jobs out there or we wouldn't be 'inundated' with people coming into the country 'taking jobs off us'

[Octavius]

Suicidal ideation is a condition of mental illness or psychological instability - usually depression of some sort or another.

[jim360]

Most people affected by this needn't go anywhere, and should be able to stay in their own homes, albeit around £1,000 a year worse off. Yes, this is a huge sum of money at the level of most people on benefits. No, this case is not going to be repeated at any major level up and down the country. For many there will be just about enough room to cope with the hit, and for many of the others a contingency fund is in place. The law may well need to be thought through better, though, as this is only a temporary measure. Housing benefit is due to be replaced in 2017 by Universal Credit, and an informed source suggests that there aren't yet plans for the same sort of "discretionary payments" when UC takes over.

This is the reason why it is not rational, because there was a known and available alternative. As I say, from experience I know that you often do not consider such alternatives when suffering from mental health issues, so I can say with a great deal of confidence that this was not the only thing that bothered this woman.

Without your going into details of what specific scenarios you'd want to die in, Sharingan, I'm certainly not going to judge your mental health! I hope they're all going to be pretty unlikely and extreme scenarios, though...

[magsmay]

wolfgang said //sorry magsmay but I disagree. I suspect that every human adult on the planet has, at some time or other, thought about suicide. // really? well I haven't

[China Doll]

If you lost a house or a child, then wouldn't that cause depression... which IS a mental health issue.

I agree thinking about how you'd want to go out if you had a terminal illnesses or serious accident then is NOT a mental health issue, sadly in some cases it's just practical.

I don't think bedroom tax is only to blame. It sounds like she had other issues.

[Zeuhl]

/no one commits suicide unless they have a mental health problem ie depression/

that seems to be akin to 'if you don't share my model of the world you must be mentally ill' - the Soviets used to apply it to their political dissidents

If we really respect other people's rights, then we have to accept that in some circumstances, some people will want to end their own lives

To dismiss that as 'mental disease' seems rather arrogant