This week it’s been reported that a coroner has found that a 51 year old man has taken his own life after worrying about how he would survive after his benefits were stopped. Meanwhile, Betty Stevenson, chair of Edinburgh Tenants Federation, has said the bedroom tax would have a “terrible effect” on people with mental illness, which could lead to a spike in suicides.
I’m researching this and wider ideas of the impact of cuts on people with mental health problems for my New Statesman column.
Have the cuts had a serious effect on your mental health? This can be either if you had existing mental health problems (and they have worsened, for instance) or if they have since developed.
This is clearly a very sensitive topic but one, with your help, I hope to highlight. (If needed, stories can be given anonymously with no names being published.)
Please get in touch on frances.ryan18@btinternet.com (rather than leaving a message here as I would not want to miss anything). Many thanks, Frances Ryan.
