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If a victim does not get the help that is needed then their symptoms will worsen which will lead to a poor lifestyle and poor habits.

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victims rather than villains!!!!!

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“A poor quality of life, often experienced by those with severe mental health difficulties, was characterized by feelings of distress, lack of control, choice and autonomy” (Connell, Brazier, O'Cathain, Loyd-Jones and Paisley, 2012).

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When victims are accepted for disability they cannot obtain a job due to their income coming from the government. If they decide to work, this can jeopardize their chances of maintaining this source of income. The income received is not large, in-fact, it is just enough to keep the victims on their feet.

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“A good quality of life was characterized by the feeling of being in control, autonomy and choice” (Connell, Brazier, O'Cathain, Loyd-Jones and Paisley, 2012).

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How can victims get the help they need to improve their lifestyle?

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How can victims get the help they need to improve their lifestyle?

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If you have bipolar disorder, major depressive disorder, or another mental health disorder or mental illness that prevents you from working or maintaining employment, you may qualify for federal social security disability pay.

The Social Security Administration (SSA) provides disability benefits to millions of people every year to help cover medical bills, living expenses, and other financial obligations. The benefits are paid on a monthly basis in an effort to alleviate financial strain. Unfortunately, the disability benefits application process can be painstakingly difficult and many first-time applications are denied.

To be eligible for mental health disability pay from the SSA, your mental health disability must fall under one of the following categories:

SSA Disability Benefits and Payments

The SSA offers two programs, both of which provide assistance to people with physical and mental disabilities. Learn more about these programs and how much you can receive.

Social Security Disability Insurance (SSDI)

This is available for adults with permanent disabilities, as well as their families. To qualify for mental health disability pay, you must have a mental health impairment that prevents you from working for at least 12 months. You must also have previously worked and paid into the Social Security program for at least five of the last 10 years.

Allocated monthly payments will be based on your average lifetime earnings over a certain period of years, also known as your average indexed monthly earnings (AIME). If you worked for many years earning a high salary, you would receive more disability pay than someone who worked for less time and had a low salary. As of 2021, the average monthly benefit for disability insurance is $1,153.

After 24 months of SSDI, you may receive Medicare benefits. If you are receiving veterans benefits, this won't affect your payment amount, but workers' compensation might.

Supplemental Security Income (SSI)

Benefits are given to both children and adults with disabilities who have low income and limited resources. To qualify as a child, you must have an impairment that has lasted or is expected to last for at least 12 months. To qualify as an adult, you must have an impairment that prevents you from working on a regular and sustained basis.

In 2022, the maximum monthly amounts will be:

$841 for an eligible individual

$1,261 for an eligible couple (in which both individuals have a disability)

$421 for an essential person, also known as a caregiver

The payments are increasing 5.9% from 2021 to account for cost-of-living adjustments. How much you receive depends on many factors, including, but not limited to your countable unearned income and living arrangements,

To qualify, an individual cannot have more than $2,000 in assets, and a married individual cannot have more than $3,000 in assets. These assets do not include certain things, like the individual's primary home, car, wedding rings, burial savings, etc.

If you qualify for SSI, you are automatically approved for Medicaid benefits.

Other Mental Health Disability Benefit Programs

If you have a mental health disorder or illness which is disrupting your life and causing you financial stress, you should look into disability benefit programs. Many federal, state, and local initiatives provide assistance and financial support to individuals with mental health disabilities.

Some of these programs include:

The SSA's Old-Age, Survivors, and Disability Insurance (OASDI) program, which provides monthly benefits to qualified retired and disabled workers, as well as their dependents and families of insured workers

State-specific programs, such as Michigan's Disability Assistance Program (SDA), which provide cash assistance to eligible adults who are 65 years old or older and have a disability

Medicaid Section 1115 Demonstration programs, which provide qualified Medicaid beneficiaries with substance use or mental health services

Private disability programs, which assist commercial insurers. These are often included in an employer's benefits package and are ideal for individuals with partial disabilities.

There are also many programs available that can help you through the disability benefits application process. Children or adults who are at risk of homelessness and have a severe mental illness, medical impairment, or co-occurring substance use disorder, for instance, may qualify for the SSI/SSDI Outreach, Access, and Recovery (SOAR). Under this program, case managers work closely with eligible individuals to help them secure SSI and SSDI benefits.

If you have a mental health disability and are considering applying for disability pay, start by visiting your local Social Security Administration office to speak with a representative.

What This Means For You

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How Much Does Mental Health Disability Pay?

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If you have bipolar disorder, major depressive disorder, or another mental health disorder or mental illness that prevents you from working or maintaining employment, you may qualify for federal social security disability pay. The Social Security Administration (SSA) provides disability benefits to millions of people every year to help cover medical bills, living expenses, and other financial obligations.

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Why do I associate mental illness with poor lifestyles?

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Why do I associate mental illness with poor lifestyles?

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Communication is key to change your mindset!

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Rosling states that this instinct involves blaming others for their faults rather than understanding the reasoning behind it. This will lead to a narrow view of the issue and block potential solutions. His suggested method is not looking for heroes or victims, but to change our perception (Rosling, 2018, p. 204).

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“What experts say is that the most effective way to approach someone is not by shaming them for believing something or overwhelming them with counter evidence, but to try and be empathetic, meet them where they are, and nudge them to think more critically” (John Oliver, 2020, 18:00).

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Recently, I spoke with a white faculty member struggling to engage with two Latinx students in her art history seminar. Two of only a handful of nonwhite students in the class, the Latinx students repeatedly mentioned race -- of the artists, subjects and curators. To this instructor, not only were issues of race uncomfortable, but they were also tangential to the subject matter: art and representation. The students, the professor said, by harping on these concerns, had needlessly introduced this "difficult" topic into the classroom.

Conversations about race, class, sexuality and other identities are often called " difficult" or " uncomfortable." Mastering these conversations is necessary, it is often said, because shifting student demographics in higher education, including the increased enrollment of historically underrepresented students, require faculty members to gain facility discussing identity. This rationale is well intentioned as, on the surface, it suggests that faculty must adopt culturally responsive pedagogical practices to meet student needs.

Additionally, this framing is potentially learner-centered, as it acknowledges that the discomfort of these "difficult" conversations must be braved to serve student learning and well-being. And, given the recent widespread protests over the murders of George Floyd, Breonna Taylor and Ahmaud Arbery, among others, professors who seek to carry on with business as usual, without broaching topics such as systemic racism and anti-Blackness, risk appearing tone-deaf and out of step with the current historical moment.

Yet by linking the necessity of these conversations to changing student demographics or current events, we suggest that identity is relevant only when students who have been labeled "diverse" are present and/or when those students call attention to identity. Only when students of color are in the classroom, for example, must we acknowledge race, or only when there are women in predominately male spaces must we recognize gender. Thus, this justification for these conversations displaces the notion of "difficult" onto students who are labeled diverse. Not only are such conversations "difficult," but the existence and very presence of these students becomes difficult. Were these Latinx students not in the class, or were they not vocal about race, the art history professor implied, there would be no discomfort.

This framing also furthers the fiction that when women, first-generation students, low-income students, students with disabilities, transgender students and so forth are in the classroom, faculty members must put aside identity-neutral content and attend to identity. The reality, however, is that all students benefit when a multiplicity of identities are reflected in the classroom, whether in the curriculum or elsewhere.

"Difficult" allows us to dismiss and avoid -- to further marginalize those who surface identity by labeling them myopic or as promoting identity politics. Yet all course content reflects identity politics.

For example, in my conversations with STEM faculty members, I often hear that their disciplines are evidence-based and identity-free. But when prodded, those same instructors might admit to not assigning readings with women as the lead authors, to assuming a level of prior knowledge in introductory classes that favors students from upper-middle-class high schools or to having group projects in which female students often assume a housekeeping role (e.g., note taker). In other words, these instructors eventually admit that underrepresented students do not introduce identity into the classroom, but rather identity is always present in the classroom. Identity is enacted through readings, assignments, classroom structures and classroom norms -- choices made and identities prioritized by faculty members.

The tragedy of the art history class is that the Latinx students attended to ideas that the professor should have considered: What groups have cultures worthy of preservation and celebration? Who decides? What historical processes have allowed the collectors and museums of one place to acquire the art of another? The instructor viewed the students' considerations as tiresome and one-dimensional. But the students, in my reading, understood that complex human and historical forces shape art and representation. Content is not value neutral. Moreover, attending to identity should not depend on which students are present, and already-marginalized students should not be burdened with surfacing issues of identity. Identity informs all students' and instructors' experiences of the classroom, even the experiences of those from dominant groups.

For example, years ago, I taught at a predominantly white institution. During the final class, a student who identified as white, male and upper middle class advocated removing poor children from their families and placing them in boarding schools. This conversation, initiated by a student holding dominant identities, could very well be described as difficult. As an instructor, I was forced to confront a perspective different from my own -- one that I was shocked to learn my student held and one that I personally found reprehensible. I felt stunned, but given that the student had made the comment in front of 49 other students, I also felt pressured to immediately respond.

Therefore, in order to give the student an opportunity to hear how outrageous his statement was and to clarify, I repeated what he had said and asked if I had understood correctly. When the student affirmed his position, I then opened the conversation to all students and asked them to respond with reference to texts we'd read that semester on topics such as assimilation and culturally relevant pedagogy. In the discussion, the class countered their peer's position using literature. I wrapped up the discussion by thanking the student for surfacing the issue and by summarizing the key concerns that his peers had raised.

The reality is that conversations about identity challenge us. Indeed, it is important to acknowledge the negative affective responses -- including shame (over one's lack of knowledge), fear (that one's biases might be exposed) and defensiveness -- that these conversations evoke.
Spaces of Practice
Yes, conversations about identity challenge us. Yet, note that I use the verb "challenge," rather than the modifier "challenging." This is not simply semantics. Though these conversations may be difficult to navigate, I would not call them "difficult." This modifier suggests that identity is inherently troublesome -- a notion that deserves interrogation. Evan P. Apfelbaum and other scholars have found that as adolescents learn social norms, they also begin to understand that it is socially unacceptable to discuss race. I wonder, could this finding be extended to other identities, such as socioeconomic class and sexuality? (Would you feel comfortable, for example, asking your colleague her salary?) As a shorthand, calling certain conversations "uncomfortable" allows for continued silence. This euphemism gestures toward identity but allows us to avoid directly naming class, race, sexual orientation, gender, disability or other identities we have grown accustomed to not naming.

Perhaps conversations about identity are "difficult" not because they are inherently uncomfortable, but because they have been deemed ineffable. Consequently, the first time many faculty members -- particularly those who view themselves and their disciplines as identity neutral -- are forced to consider and articulate their stance on identity is in the classroom. Perhaps that occurs after a student says something racist or otherwise derogatory, and the instructor must fumble to respond while a room of nervous students watches.

But what if these conversations are not actually difficult, but simply unpracticed? In other words, the classroom context and lack of prior engagement with the topic might make the conversation difficult, but the topic itself is not, I would offer, inherently difficult.

Therefore, perhaps faculty members need not fewer conversations about identity but more. Specifically, suppose they had spaces in which to understand the scholarship on diversity and inclusion, as well as opportunities to consider implications to their teaching practices? I imagine, for example, that it is rare to find faculty who object to inclusive classrooms. However, it might be rarer still to find instructors who can define an "inclusive" classroom, identify strategies for fostering one or articulate what students experience in one.

If faculty had spaces of practice, they could gain facility identifying strategies for fostering expected and unexpected conversations about identity and for incorporating identity meaningfully into a class from the first day. They wouldn't just believe, for example, that including a sole Toni Morrison text to represent Black writers in a literature class or asking gender pronouns in a science class will make these courses more inclusive. Through faculty communities of practice, identity conversations move from "difficult" and "uncomfortable" to manageable and educative -- and serve as important opportunities to model for students how to talk and think about identity.

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Why classroom conversations about diversity and identity shouldn't be framed as difficult (opinion)

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Recently, I spoke with a white faculty member struggling to engage with two Latinx students in her art history seminar. Two of only a handful of nonwhite students in the class, the Latinx students repeatedly mentioned race -- of the artists, subjects and curators.

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Understand facts compared to opinions.

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“Symptoms could interfere directly with day to day living by having an effect on behavior control, concentration, memory or decision making, and sense of self-identity” (Connell, Brazier, O'Cathain, Loyd-Jones and Paisley, 2012).

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“Depression was often associated with a lack of energy and/or motivation" (Connell, Brazier, O'Cathain, Loyd-Jones and Paisley, 2012).

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There are various types of mental illnesses which can affect lifestyles habits.

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This is not true, in fact, mental illness makes it extremely difficult for many of its victims to have an enriched life.

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Myself and others have been living under the impression that mental illness does not control the entirety of one's life and that there are still many ways for victims to preserve.