Mental health issues make life very hard for people- I should know, I have them myself albeit relativedly mild, and the simple truth is that a person in the throes of mental health issues who does not have a natural determination and stubbornness to survive may not be able to fight for the things that will help them, or even know how to find and access them.
I doubt there is a person on this earth who hasn't had some form of mental health issue at some point or other. The idea that unless we are in a state of perpetual happiness, we are in fact ill, is a construct of our culture. There are people with serious clinical issues who need medical treatment and there are people who are usually very happy who just occasionally get a bit unhappy and in the middle, is the rest of us. What those of us in the middle do about our issues, how we handle them, how we view them and how we get over them ...or not, is defined by our personality and our motivation, but also by our culture.
I was talking to a Bulgarian doctor last week about a patient who was suffering from mild depression. The doctor told me that in Bulgaria, there is no such clinical condition, depression is considered part of life and something normal for all people to experience and I believe there is some truth in that. In the wealthy west, we have the luxury of being able to be more generous, because our society can afford it, so we err on giving people the benefit of the doubt. Therin lies the problem. For every martyr to their illness, there is a malingerer. For every genuine sufferer, there is a cynical parasite and it is almost impossible to tell the difference between the two. This is what polarises opinion.
There are people who are on their knees and need all the support they can get and there are people who really just need a boot up the backside. We have all met both types. Which camp you are in on this debate, probably depends on your personal experiences and the people you have met, but to deny the views of the other camp in their entirety, is partisan, biassed and blinkered. Some people loose jobs because they are victims of circumstance, but some people loose jobs because they are lazy. Some people are genuinely ill, some people milk it. Some people are unemployed because they cant find work, some are unemployed because they prefer to ponse of others. It's impossible to work out who is who, so society takes a general stance. In Bulgaria, they deny some mental health problems that we accept, because that option eliminates the fraudsters and cheats for them - it's the cheap option. In the UK we support those issues (as far as money will allow), but that option allows for abuse of the health system and social services and oh boy, do they get abused. For those who pay the bills ...the working man, it's understandable that he may prefer the Bulgarian model, because he has dealt with his own mental health problems while somehow managing to hold down a job and pay tax ...and he feels resentment towards those who abuse the sweat of his brow and who really should be doing the same.
I dont know the answer, I dont think Bulgaria has the answer, but we are a mile away also. Too many sick people dont get what they should and too many heathy people get away with things they should not. I think if we are to make progress, then we need to acknowledge there are issues on both sides. That we are letting people down who should get help, but also that there are people getting help who should not be. We need to address both of those issues together.