Work shy and disillusioned with life.



I’m from the school who believed that a large proportion of the people who search out a doctor for anti depressants and need a doctors note to have time off work,  are, to some degree suffering from hypochondria and exhibiting an example of being work shy.  The Secretary of State for Work and Pensions has been complaining that too many people are having a “sickie” by taking too much time off work or refusing to rejoin the work force because they don’t feel up to it. Their claim for a sick note is backed up by the increase in the evidence for a rise in reported general mental illness amongst the population at large. Apparently in this world of stress and strain which contributes to some mental conditions which would have made Fraud blush, the more we discover about the working of the mind the more cause we have for reflecting on the  aberrations to arise due to our psych being constantly needing to deal with a messy world.  This morning there have been a plethora of callers describing their stressful condition brought on, either by an abnormality in the way their brain functions or by conditions in the workspace/home-place where bullying and the expectation from work colleagues and family as to the role they play in the success, or otherwise and their life’s  attainment and success.
Of course ‘it were ever thus’ but we never had the narrative or the definition to enable us to find common ground with other mental sufferers. Our aches and pains like our hopes and fears were ours and not often shared. Today we head straight for Google for a broad analysis and find reams of information to categorise us into one psychological camp or other. A trip to the doctors surgery and we have our fears confirmed and, with the prescription in hand we join the queue at the chemist for this or that chemical powder.
The cause and effect of our malady has their source elsewhere and in that sense we search answers elsewhere. The stoicism of the past in which you constantly upbraided yourself to “get a grip” is missing and help is continually sort from the therapist, (the shrink), a prop in what ever form it takes as the mind reveals itself to be inherently unstable. The instability is due in large part to the complexity of the daily, hourly, minute by minute, second by second input it receives, tuned into the smartphone we sidestep the reality and scratch around us for the immensity of everyone else’s problems, is it any wonder we hobble ourselves like donkey's to one crisis after another and so become one ourselves.