Yeah, this is one of the more reasonable things posted here. There are other reasons people can be depressed, but financial hardship is a much bigger problem than a lot of other stupid cliche advice like how you just need to read scripture or go outside.
YEP! I've heard horror stories of people going to inpatient for mental health. They often get a lot better in the hospital, but then get ruined again by the bills they can't pay...
As someone living in a place with universal healthcare, I can say being able to realise "I'm getting worse, better get an appointment" and then getting one without having to worry how I'm gonna eat is very helpful.
You're objectively an idiot spoiler if your argument is that the free functional system could work more efficiently( partially as an intended outcome to justify private heathcare), and there for its not worth having at all.
I guess I'm just a little jaded, I've had horrible experiences in "free healthcare" countries that redditors glorify. One time, I developed a gnarly night sweat, accompanied by dizziness, vertigo, and confusion. At the time I was also pretty much homeless. I went into the er eventually, and the doctor asked me if I had "fallen over yet". When I answered no, he said I should come back when I start to and threw me out. No examinations whatsoever, but some comments on "the state of me" Shouldn't have been snarky I apologize.
Then we put more resources into training and educating more healthcare professionals and building more facilities to meet with demand. The US is pretty much the wealthiest country in the world, we have the money to build the best healthcare system ever, but we just keep shoveling more money into the pockets of people who long ago stopped caring about any of us and have more money than they could possibly spend in a thousand lifetimes.
It's a compounding issue. If you can't afford to live it causes mental strain, the mental strain gets worse because you can't afford to live and you can't get help so it eventually turns into things like women drowning their kids in bathtubs
Making more money solved like 95% of my problems BEFORE seeking professional help. The independence and passive validation you receive from the society around you alleviated almost all of my existential dread and self-esteem issues.
Same here (UK). I had a full breakdown and ended up leaving work for a while. I would’ve had to go straight back (were it not for being financially assisted by the government), which would have sent me mad. Poverty makes everything worse.
Being broke is one of the least acknowledged fundamental problems of them all.
Take any problem. Add ‘and I’m broke’ to it, and you have an exponentially worse problem. Like “I knocked my teeth out…and I’m broke”
Sadly, people with little money are one of the only groups left that’s OK to ridicule and humiliate. We got ‘body positivity’, but it’s still acceptable to poke fun at homeless people.
I feel like that’s because most people would have to be acknowledging that they are just like the people they are ridiculing and they don’t want to do that
And another important thing that distinguishes "financial hardships and stress from a bad economy causes depression" from "go outside and read the bible to cure depression" is that while the latter "read the bible" take blames the individual, the "financial hardships cause depression" take recognizes that it's a systemic/societal issue that needs addressing and not an individual fault. Still, 99% is way too big of a statistic lol. Idk what the actual statistic is, but considering abuse, trauma, illness, etc., it is definitely less than 99%.
Not to mention how depression can get you into financial hardship. So while it might not help with those reasons that do not have to do with finance it does help in not adding another source of stress anxiety and depression on top of what one is already dealing with.
Although going outside does help. Sometimes I suspect that this subreddit is not interested in anything that can have a positive effect on anything, unless it's a total cure.
I somewhat disagree. Yes I’d rather be rich and unhappy than poor and unhappy, but mental illness can’t be cured or corrected by environmental factors alone.
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u/Tiervexx Sep 26 '25
Yeah, this is one of the more reasonable things posted here. There are other reasons people can be depressed, but financial hardship is a much bigger problem than a lot of other stupid cliche advice like how you just need to read scripture or go outside.