Sandy Knox

Bi-Polar on Benefits: I Can't be the Only One Sandy Knox

This book is about the reality of coping with Bi-polar Disorder when it has devastated your world. It's about living with Bi-polar on benefits as opposed to, say, Bi-polar on Bollinger, which is all we've seen on TV and in the press, it seems. How many sufferers are there who have lost everything to this burden and face a bleak future? How many sufferers are alone with it, undiagnosed, wrongly diagnosed, untreated, unsupported?

Sadly there's a deep-held view that those, particularly single mums, claiming mental ill-health and state benefits are lazy, ignorant parasites who should get a job! Those who genuinely want to be treated, supported and guided back to work and who, long after the episode has passed, are faced with crippling confidence and self-esteem issues, no money and no apparent opportunities, are at the mercy of boredom, frustration, tedium and illness. This book highlights these issues, takes a poke at the Government, addressing problems within the DSS, NHS and private psychiatry.

Bi-polar (or manic depression, whichever term you prefer) is hard to put form to, hard to describe and harder still for carers, friends and family to understand. Greater understanding could make the world of difference to the sufferer. This book goes some way to providing, for the carer, a little insight and, for the sufferer, a little comfort maybe, in knowing that there are more in their boat than they might once have thought.