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this post was submitted on 16 Dec 2023
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Fun fact: mental health issues are less prevalent when you're able to afford a healthy diet, roof over your head, occasional social activities, and aren't constantly stressed about all the bills you have to pay.
Here's my solution:
First, I'm incredibly fortunate to have a high paying job. Second, that high paying job lets me get good healthcare and quality living standards. Third, my job also pays for my psychologist! So I'm kinda in this extremely fortunate circumstance where I get so much support.
Versus my family. No one in my family makes above 40k. None of them has the perks I have. They all go through some struggles. And no amount of therapy will help them when really, the issue always leads back to finances.
It's a shit cycle.
While money doesn't but happiness the absence of money surely makes happiness almost impossible with how much you always have to worry about different stuff...
I'm very thankful to be in a position where I don't have to worry about which supermarket has the cheapest groceries as I know I can afford it if it's 10% more expensive than it needs to be - seeing my mom spending hours going through ad-magazines to figure out where to buy what only to save a handful of euros is something I'm very glad I don't have to do
Affordable healthcare specifically including mental health treatment. Unfortunately, in many countries it's not included under universal healthcare AND it's fully taxed.
Biologist here. You are absolutely correct.
The “mental health” we talk about is 100% the functioning of your physical brain. Your physical brain is partly a function of your genes, inherited from your parents and grandparents stretching back to before the first two cells decided to cooperate. It’s partly epigenetics - if your mother was malnourished or stressed that will carry over onto you and can last until your kids’ generation. It’s partly the embryonic environment - nutrition, drug and alcohol use, physical and emotional stresses of the mother, overall medical health. It’s partly how you were raised - physical and emotional abuse, education opportunities, supportive environment, racism, violence, poverty, acceptance. It is constantly being tuned - if you’re in an honor culture in which physical defense of personal honor is mandatory, you’ll have received rewards for doing so. Those help pre-condition the brain to do that kind of thing again, more easily next time. PTSD, whether you’re a marine from Iraq or a kid from Gaza, will change your brain.
Mental health care including medication and therapy can help these problems, but systemic problems need to be addressed systemically, and we’d be better off if we were able to start to alleviate these issues at their causal level.
Here's a quote from a relevant Financial Times article about Blackpool, a deprived English seaside town:
Politically controversial though, so good luck getting politicians to tackle some of the root causes, even if it would likely end up saving money and increase productivity.
Oh, I completely understand. That’s why I’d never oppose something like prison reform - although I think it’s a medical problem and the notion of prisons are problematic, I’d rather make life better now than hold off for making everything much much better.
Still, it happens. People used to think epilepsy was caused by demonic possession. We now know it’s just brains misfiring. Knowing that, we can treat the condition with medicine and therapy. We need to expand on that kind of understanding.
I misread your statement on prison reform and was really confused for a minute there!
You're spot on about now vs later; anytime somebody advocates for waiting for improvements over time, it's almost always a lie to distract from an unwanted compromise now.
Minor quibble: that’s money spent by the government and private citizens for healthcare. Anything of that $7.5k that didn’t come from government spending can still be reallocated from our military budget though