Why is it so hard to seek help in the UK?

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Me and my brother are both under stress with our jobs. His workplace has changed and is not a very nice place to work any more and he wants to leave immediately but he can't until he finds another job. He is also suffering from crippling depression, and has had counselling and wants to look further into seeing if he can receive training for a better job but each time he phones up different organizations he just goes round in circles; they tell him they will call him back, and then tell him to phone somewhere else which then tell him to phone somewhere else... And he's getting more frustrated.

And I have employment issues too. I work as a cleaner at a care home, but we're always short-staffed, under pressure, and I just want to leave and do something different. But, like my brother, I can't just leave until I have another job. I've been to citizens advice, who gave me some websites to look at, but they're not what they seem. So I phoned a number I found on one of the websites but they just told me to phone the job centre for advice, but when I did, they said that they only help you in you're unemployed. Also I've been applying for jobs all year but I've gotten nowhere.

So we're trying to help ourselves but we're still not getting anywhere. Does all this mean there basically is no help in the UK for people with depression, anxiety or other emotional issues in employment? Doesn't nobody care? If you're unhappy in your job are you just doomed to be stuck there until you can find another job? How long could that take? 10 years? Who knows? I don't even want to be working at the care home by this Christmas.

I hate money. And I hate Tory government.

It does seem to be a problem in the UK. I've heard of people going to their GP to ask for referral to counselors for talk-therapy for depression and such, and they're put on a waiting list months and months long! If someone needs to talk to someone for problems they're struggling with, they need that NOW! Not in ten months time from now. But apparently that can be what happens.

I've also found the Citizens Advice Bureau to be not helpful at all in any real way. When I was actually in crisis by any standards -- I was living with an abusive partner, desperate to get away, but had only been back in the country a couple of months and was DENIED assistance even from a women's refuge shelter even though they said my situation qualifies me for their emergency shelter but they still said officially they couldn't help me (and I'm a British citizen who has paid my taxes before and after!), the CAB couldn't help me with a damn thing, and the woman I met with there was even extremely cold with me. I phoned various places whose purpose to is help people in crisis with nowhere else to go and no resources, and I was turned away or passed along by each one of them.

Following this government's massive cuts, literally thousands of people have become known cases of having died because the money they were able to live on was cut from them, even though they were genuine case of genuine need, not just "scroungers" which were the supposed target of the cuts. It's appalling. And it's only going to get worse. I even got my diagnosis privately and had to pay for it because I saw that an NHS diagnosis could have me waiting a couple of years, and I just couldn't stand not knowing for sure anymore. However, if I ever need to apply for ANY official help or benefits one day (and will probably STILL be turned down for them under the new criteria), I will have to get the NHS diagnosis anyway, but I'm hoping that never becomes a must-do.

mental health services in the uk are indeed terrible. Even an NT would have a very hard job getting help, I have approached NHS services since 2003 in desperate need for mental health support but never managed to access treatment. Around 2007-2008 I also tried with University counsellors and failed, there was also some "third sector" failures in between.

A lot of my problems were based around neurodevelopmental issues, ASD, ADHD and more. Yet none of these were picked up or asked about even when I was clearly describing symptoms.

I successfully got on my cities ADHD assessment wait list in August 2014 after trying for years but am still 200 in the qeue!

I spent since Jan 2014 trying to access mental health support again for major crisis and posed as an NT to help me access something, but it still didnt help. Ive still had no treatment!

Last point though is that with training and work opportunities, the UK is actually much more than fine. Its great, there are many many opportunities and they are more accessible than in other countries, its not as great as germany or scandinavia but its definitely above average and wipes the floor with the USA.

The wait in the UK really is a serious problem. I have a cousin who had to wait a year to see a doctor for cancer, and by then it was too late to help her, and she died. I'm sorry you're having to deal with that system!

I'm not having any better luck with finding counseling either though. Was in crisis last week, almost admitted myself for suicide hold, but decided to be strong, and just wait to see a regular therapist. A hundred phone calls later, every single mental health professional on my insurance plan is 'not taking new patients', so... Well, that's that.

This is why online support sites like WP are so important. For many of us, there literally IS no other help to be found. The professional mental health system is failing us abysmally, and so it's up to us to be here for each other.

The stark reality is that the UK is a dreadful country, appositely described by Napoleon Bonaparte as a nation of shopkeepers. That is even more true today than in the 19th century. It is motivated by greed and self-interest, a fact that the current government, like those of Thatcher before them, exploits for its own ends.

The world would be a better place if the UK ceased to exist.

Thanks for the replies.

I just feel scared at the lack of support out there. I'm not even entitled to disability, or PIP, as it's called now. That's only for people who are severely disabled. I can walk, talk, make decisions and do chores and errands and look after myself like anyone else, but I just have anxieties with employment. The only way I'll be free of employment stress is if I was in a very stress-free job in a loyal environment, or if I won the lottery, like about 50 million pounds, so I can just leave work and not have to worry any more. I know that does sound bad, but I just want to be a housewife.

You see, back when I started school, I was a really anxious child. So in my first year of school, I only went part time, so the rest of the week I spent home with my mum. Ok I did get a bit lonely and wanted to be playing with other children, but at the same time I loved that feeling of just being at home. I love that 'home' feeling, and it has stuck with me even as a grown-up. At home I get that feeling of security and self-sufficiency. It's like the best feeling in the world and makes me almost not anxious at all.

The NHS is so massively underfunded and understaffed and yet they keep getting their budget cut. Really needs money before it can improve. I've been told that there is next to no help available for high functioning autistic adults - at least in my part of the country. Unless you're high priority for the NHS (e.g. about to die) help is next to impossible to come by.

It's even worse in the US.

I suppose at least it's free in the UK so we don't have to pay an awful lot of money in order to get operations to save our life. I think the tory government wants to turn it how it is in the US so they can make money off of sick people.

I love that "being at home" feeling too -- so much so that even though I was a kid who was basically very honest, the one thing I lied about constantly was to fake illness so that my mum would let me stay home from school.....a lot!

It wasn't the academic side of school I feared, it was the social struggle. My bliss was just to be at home in my own safe environment. I still love nothing better than those days when I don't have work, I don't have shopping to do, I don't have anywhere I have to be and I can just stay at home, feeling safe and doing things I want to do. I too just want to ideally win the lottery so that I can quit my lousy job! All my anxiety is based mostly around work stress, and stress related to executive functioning "wobbliness" about even getting out of the house to get to that work, even though I've tried to find a line of work with the least stress I could think of. I would never qualify for PIP in a million years as I'm "functioning" on paper, but behind that fact is a reality of serious struggle, stress, and barely managing to function at all. It's like the way things LOOK to anyone on the outside doesn't actually tell the story of how hard it is for me to actually keep up that functionality.

But when you think how there are stories out there of people with terminal cancer and zero energy being told they're "fit to work" and getting their money stopped, and people with severe autism the same, people with MS being told they need to get back to work because SOME days they are actually okay (while the next day in a wheelchair) -- you know that this country's system is harsh, cruel and f-cked-up... And if there's no help for those people, there's definitely no help for "high functioning" even though inside ourselves our getting to be that high functioning is a stress carnival.

I've been applying all year for jobs but didn't even get one interview. But my cousin worked 2 years at an airport just selling snacks, then recently applied for a job as a secretary in the office of a car garage and immediately got offered the job. Why can't things be that easy for me?

What if I never find another job? I can't be stuck at a cleaner in a care home forever. I want to move in with my boyfriend, but I can't do that until I find a job nearer to where he lives. But at the same time I'm scared of another job. I'm scared I might be a victim of workplace bullying. Why do people have to bully? Why do people like making another person's life hell at work? You're all there for the same reason, which is to earn money.

I'm trying to look into working from home. But even that's hard, because when I look up online about it, it Just says about starting a home business. But I don't want to start a home business, I just want to work at home for an existing company.

I need a professional person to discuss these things with, but there's no help. It's panicking me. Which way do I turn??

Do you have anyone at home who can support you until you get another job jo?

I'm always finding myself in that same position but I do leave my jobs. Unfortunately benefits wont help us if we leave our jobs so you do need to find a way to get some kind of support.

I always call it "free fall" mode when I do it because I haven't got a clue what the outcome will be financially or anything.

Advice isn't something I would normally give out because everyone's circumstances are different but I would never stay in a job or go anywhere that makes me feel unhappy and if you and your brother can find financial support until you get another job then just f**k your old jobs off.

Or if you can live without money for a while then even better.

Why feel that you have to be unhappy at work? Work is a massive part of your life. You deserve to be happy where ever you are.

Sorry, I didn't answer your question.

It's hard to find help because under a conservative government we are encouraged to help ourselves.

I do know the real answer as to why there are such little amount of jobs out there and little support too, but I'd better not say why, because apparently it could result in imprisonment.

Goes to show that us British citizens are the underdogs of the world.

There's not a shortage of jobs out there but there is a shortage of help, in my humble opinion.

I've tried to get help so many times in the past because I get to the point where I do need support. But the help is not there.

I don't even mean financial help. I mean just help to support me with interviews or resources but I can't get it and god forbid I even attempt to claim benefits.

I swear to god I've been that close to eviction so many times and the amount of bailiffs I've had knocking is nobodies business and really it all boils down to the fact that there is no help. Luckily, I have always been saved by the skin of my teeth but that's not the point.

I'm at a point now where I always make sure that I've got enough money saved so that I can support myself when I'm in between jobs. I ask nobody for a sausage and I apply for every single job I can that is within my capability. I kind of enjoy the hunt and I know that something will come along and then the whole process starts again.

It's an endless cycle. I'll never really have anything that I can call my own (bricks and mortar) or anything to leave as inheritance because the way the system is means that I have to survive.

One might say that I live to survive but then every so often I do give myself a nice long break where I can put my feet up. It's not all bad.