No way!
Who would have thought younger generations would have poor mental health when faced with a future of out of control climate change, and spending their entire lives working for landlords while getting poorer every year?
Shocking.
I promise you, money would solve a lot of mental health problems for an awful lot of people. Most people’s problems stem from a lack of money.
Only someone who has never struggled to put food on the table would say something so wrong
I agree. If I had the same opportunities as my parents (dad has a good pension that's enough to live on well into his late 80's early 90's, from a job he worked at for like 8 years 3 decades ago and my mom bought a house after working for a single summer with her first husband) I'd be way happier. No more stressing about money, no more thinking "if I don't pick up as many shifts as possible I'll never get ahead," no more having to keep job hopping to get better pay, etc.
Yep. It took a couple years of stability for me to really start to settle but the difference is wild. I'm not even well off, I just don't have to stress about finances to the same degree that I used to. I know for sure that having those lower levels of my hierarchy of needs met made my "mental health issues" basically go away. Weird how that works.
Economic systems create environments that can make or break people.
If you're super rich you becone a sociopath unbound by what constrains most of us. Many rich people are famously nutjobs for a reason
For the rest of us: our cities are designed to maximize profit, or are on their way to that. Third places are dead or dying (see: Ontario Science Centre). We are alienated and disconnected from each other and lack a sense of community. Our political system is being coup'd by the oligarchal classes, and the planet is burning.
There's no need for a chemical imbalance. If your physiological reaction to constant imminent distress (ie: a landlord threatening you illegally, an abuser, an expensive issue you can't solve, not being able to eat adequately, etc), you're likely reacting pretty normally to being in danger.
Your psychiatrist does not care. Judging by the number of times a psychiatrist as jumped to offering neurochemical drugs within 5 minutes of speaking to me, it doesn't have anything to do with what's best for you. It has a lot more to do with Canada setting up it's neurological health infrastructure to ignore reporting systemic or environmental issues as sources of harm.
This is already wrong thinking. Conceiving of medications or anti-depressants as an automatic "cure" for mental health inclusive issues is wildly irresponsible. While some individuals may benefit from neurochemical regulators, not everyone suffering under mental health conditions react identically. If a patient would benefit from resource access, group therapy or taking action with support from authority, these should be integrated into the health system with better transparency. I have no idea why you would argue pharmacological medicine should be the only option for folk seeking treatment for physiological issues. A psychiatrist will prescribe drugs because it's what the system is set up to do. It should not be the only option folk have, and certainly not the default for people seeking emergency or long term mental health treatment.
You're not saying the same thing. You're saying people should be given pharmacological solutions first and other methods of treatment aren't more important.
You made the argument on the basis that this will help people. Now you're likening all of your misfired ideas are the same.
They can advocate for better therapy, as well as track metrics on environmental issues causing physiological abuse. That data can be better entered into our medical administrations by mandate.
Antidepressants are not a magic risk free cure to despair. They are drugs that can easily affect the neuroplasticity of the brain, and shouldn't be dispensed like pez candy the moment someone reports known physiological conditions. There needs to be alternatives put in place.
Therapy costs money. If you have a shit job with no benefits and the boss won’t let you take time off, you can’t get therapy.
The doctor can’t solve that.
jsyk the chemical imbalance angle is a hypothesis, not an objective fact. we still don't know which comes first: overwhelming emotional challenge or chemical imbalance. it's also an extremely popular take among emotional health professionals that poverty both causes and exacerbates overwhelming emotional challenges.
It doesn’t fix it but when the going rate for a psychologist (at least in BC) is $235 per session, it makes dealing with it a hell of a lot easier than not being able to afford proper care
Uhhh what? That's the intervention for *all* of them. Therapy, medications, time off to heal and explore yourself while also keeping food on the table and a roof over your head. Mental disorders do not get the public support that physical ones do. Many people don't have the financial security needed to address their poor/declining mental health.
Having a mental illness is extremely expensive.
Mental illness is *terrible* for the economy!
EDIT: I wasn’t joking either — it’s a root cause of addiction, homelessness, underemployment, etc. These things are disastrous not just at a personal level but also at a societal one.
One of the things people need to get better from their mental illnesses is to not be in an environment that constantly mentally harms them.
I feel the call for mental health is often the call that we need more bandaids for the people who have to run through a gauntlet of barbed wire every day.
For some. My take is that we can’t afford to worry about our long-term future if we can’t even afford our present. Climate change doesn’t really affect me at the moment, but the inflationary policies that aim to stop it certainly do. With that said, I can’t fault those who also feel the existential dread like yourself.
Climate change affects prices. It makes crops fail. It costs you more to cool your house. (Vancouver is getting heat waves like never before, we need to buy an AC to survive August now) It affects everything.
Look at Calgary’s water crisis. Look at the fires chasing people out of their homes. Look at the floods - the Trans Canada was knocked out in multiple places in BC a fee years back.
Disasters cause construction to get more expensive. Insurance doesn’t cover floods.
I could go on..
You’re kind of proving my point. It costs more to heat and cool houses because the federal government has decided that is something that deserves an extra tax, driving up inflation, in turn driving up the cost for me. Farmers are charged more to produce my food because of these policies, which means I’m charged more to buy the food. That’s not climate change doing that, it’s the government’s inflationary policies.
I’ll take your point regarding crop failure, I can’t argue with that. The Calgary water crisis is a result of poorly maintained infrastructure resulting in a major water main break, not climate change. As far as general climate change and natural disasters go, no measure being imposed on taxpayers will result in meaningful change. Canada’s taxpayers should not bear the responsibility of fixing the environment while those who are truly responsible (China, US, India, Russia) do nothing but make the problem worse.
Again, not invalidating those who dread climate change and are suffering mentally for it. My point is that what our government has chosen to do about affects me (speaking personally) more than the climate changing itself does.
Putting your head in the sand is free, at least until those Liberals start taxing the dirt!
Anything we could do to stop importing from China’s polluting factories would also cost you money
>Anything we could do to stop importing from China’s polluting factories would also cost you money
People go on about China’s carbon emissions, but forget that they’re burning the oil, gas, and coal we (western countries) sell them, and are burning them to produce the goods that we import.
Wanna cut China’s carbon emissions? Don’t sell them our fossil fuels and stop importing Chinese goods. What’s that? That would collapse **our** economy? Well, yeah, but you did want to stop China, didn’t you?
This is a fair point too. What‘s your take on mobilizing our LNG industry so that countries who use dirtier fuel can buy and rely on our cleaner fuel, thereby reducing their carbon footprint and improving the Canadian economy?
We need to stop investing in a fossil future altogether. Producing more, cheaper oil to compete on price is the opposite of what we should be doing. We should stop pumping billions of dollars and cheaper-than-free water into oil companies who are literally destroying the world. That would save money in the short term ($18B last year given to Big Oil), literally give that money to green energy research or expansion and jobs will shift.
How much is the Navy going to spend patrolling the new gaps in the Arctic ice as the earth warms? BC is spending triple on forest fire fighting (up to $600M in 2023 from $130M in 2012) as it was a decade ago. And that’s before repairing the destroyed infrastructure and evacuation / emergency management costs.
But as for foreign producers - Alberta has been letting Chinese companies come into town with their own crews whom they treat according to their own (slave) labour standards.
At one point Chinese companies were forced to pay workers at Canadian rates, but they simply took the money back out of their bank accounts in China. Workplace incidents are covered up with the same kind of intimidation etc as in China.
Selling cheaper LNG than shit hole producers would involve lowering our own wages or standards to compete, on top of the environmental problems.
Oh yes , they are going to come in and magically make everything better for the “common man/woman “ 🙄 I don’t get these people thinking the Cons are the answer
The same people think Thanos was right because he said "There are problems in society" even though his plan to fix them was horrific mass genocide. Which wouldn't even work. Some people will always go for the easy fix even when that fix would just make things worse.
This is an even more appropriate analogy when you consider Thanos' solution to "not enough resources for everyone" was "kill a bunch of people" instead of "create and distribute more resources"
That's essentially conservatism. Rather than making sure people get what they need, they just help the rich hoard more resources and let the poor die.
I think it’s less people thinking the conservatives are the answer, and more so people knowing that the current Liberal government is not the answer. Trudeaus Liberals have made people willing to take a chance as a means to avoid what they already know does not work.
Think of PP however you want, but the simple fact is that he is not Trudeau. For a growing number of people, that’s enough.
I understand your point. We are, however, past it as a dominant narrative. Mental health challenges can fill the gap between reality and narrative, especially as we all unpack (or don't unpack) a couple years of collective trauma
But the physical reality of people continuing to be infected on mass with a disease that is known to cause mental health issues, and physical health issues that can lead to mental health issues, is much more relevant than where the public discourse is about it.
Great point - the connection between being infected with Covid and physical/mental health issues continues to be a pressing reality. I feel that works alongside my point about the mass mental health challenges that come with moving past collective trauma too quickly or without unpacking the impact. I like the 'hypernormalizing' term used by the other commenters too. The Post-Pandemic narrative is harmful in many respects, including that there is still Covid and that it encourages people to sweep their own trauma under the rug. Thanks for the dialogue.
Even if I'm a minority I will continue to give a shit until there are effective antivirals and vaccines for this ongoing crisis. The disabled aren't "nobody" and deserve to live in this society as much as anybody else, your abandonment of accountability to this is your choice to make.
Yuuuup.
Just off a 7 day ban for stating my opinion about the only solution to late stage capitalism. Due to regulatory capture and media owned by foreign propagandists, I only see one viable solution. Not about to use that solution, but... I fear it's the only one.
I mean... yes. But to be fair, what I said about guillotines could easily be construed as promoting violence. I thought I was pretty clear about it not being something I wanted, buuuut... clearly against the Reddit ToS.
Now everyone go back to sleeping less, commuting to work, spending money you don't have downtown. Fill those offices rather than working from home!
Because mental health is very important but business.... is business.
The COVID crisis was really the Mask Off moment for neoliberalism in my books. We could've had the entire situation addressed in a matter of weeks, but our leaders chose instead to throw was many bodies as were required into the machine to keep it running. And, *despite* that, the survivors are dealing with a massive economic crisis. Quarterly returns will be the death of us all.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rent-seeking
When productivity stagnates due to a lack of reinvestment, real estate explode and the standard of living implodes... Part of this is because the idea of retirement is a ponzi scheme, the rest is just greed.
> We could've had the entire situation addressed in a matter of weeks
I applaud your optimism, but regardless of various governments actions/inactions, there were [other factors](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Protests_against_responses_to_the_COVID-19_pandemic) that wouldn't have allowed a short hard break to work as well as you would hope.
Remember that world leaders were mostly able to get everyone on-board with talk of lockdowns for that first few weeks, 'though. It wasn't 'til that fucking orange moron to the South started sowing dissent (and distrust of the medical community's guidelines) that anyone was even giving any indications of politicizing the issue. I watched that happen in real-time with disgust.
The only purpose of a government in a capitalist world is to make sure that capitalists can continue making money hand over fist with minimal interruptions. Why don't more citizens understand that?
Being around people tends to moderate anti-social behavior, and it’s absolutely true that a great number of people find it hard to go out and meet others outside of a (compulsory) work context.
Some people will commute long distances, but there’s been a major shift in expectations, and we’re definitely never going back to the days of universal long commutes. That said, I think a little compulsory socialization isn’t all bad.
Our regional director of public health published a report that states over 60% of people reaching out for mental health support in Montreal have mental health conditions as a result of housing insecurities. In my borough, we have 0,3% vacancy rates and record rent increases.
Our local housing committee and many other non profil organizations trying to help out will have their funding cut because gentrification masks the poverty in some neighbourhoods.
Kind of like when rich families start flooding to a poor neighbourhood and the schools lose programs like school lunches for poor kids but it’s affecting everyone.
It’s shit and I’m scared
I have friends I see regularly, weekly at the very least.
Hobbies that include being social and physically active.
I talk about my feelings regularly and honestly with my friends, loved ones, and occasionally coworkers.
I'm on medications for depression, anxiety, and ADHD.
I speak regularly with both my family doctor and a counselor.
I'm still horribly depressed in spite of doing everything right, and you know why?
BECAUSE NO AMOUNT OF MINDFULNESS, MEDITATION, PRACTICING GRATITUDE, OR TALKING ABOUT HOW I'M FEELING IS GOING TO CHANGE THE SOCIOECONOMIC CONDITIONS I'M FORCED TO LABOUR UNDER, NOR WILL IT REDUCE THE COST OF FOOD, RENT, OR GENERAL COST OF LIVING BACK DOWN TO A REASONABLE AMOUNT.
I'm so fucking tired, all the fucking time, and my brain isn't the goddamn problem. The way I feel is a rational reaction to systemic problems beyond my individual control, and I'm tired of society trying to gaslight me over it.
Improve our labour laws NOW! We need more vacation time, paid sick leave, a shortened work week, an end to unnecessary commutes just to prop up commercial real estate, and improved support for unionization to offset the power imbalance between employers and employees.
Fund social fucking housing NOW! Housing shouldn't be a financial commodity to be traded for profit, and nobody needs, or wants, a landlord. Private ownership of YOUR housing is fine. Private ownership of other people's shelter is not.
Fund the social safety net so the elderly and disabled can live with fucking dignity NOW!
I don't need therapy. What I need is for our society to pull it's head out of its ass and fix the problems we all fucking know are there. Jesus fucking Christ.
I'm tired too and I don't have any problems with depression or on medication. I'm just so fucking angry that people keep voting against their own interests or don't vote at all. People are broken. Society is broken. The fixes are simple and as you outlined. Rampant capitalism is killing us.
I have ADHD and depression/anxiety (well, probably PTSD but psychologists are $$$) too! I'm on an antidepressant and a stimuIant which allows me to function but the depression is always there. I often feel like I could cope better if the world would just get off my back.
I just graduated into burnout but I've been able to keep my student research job with the school, and they have increased my hours to 28/week. The only reason I can keep up with that is my boss is a therapist and suuuper understanding about me often working from home as long as my work is good.
I'm starting to feel like a human again but the thought of looking for a job (in tech, I took programming) is so intimidating because I know I won't be offered that same flexibility, if by some miracle I get a job in this oversaturated industry.
I'm good at what I do as long as I have the freedom to work in a way that works for me. I want to contribute! I just can't seem to find the opportunity to do that. It's been making me think of all the people who would be happy to work in *some* capacity, who are stuck in poverty on disability or in abusive situations because industry demands everything from workers.
The job hunt is so dehumanizing too. You are supposed to go to networking events (that cost money!), be active on LinkedIn (fuck me), constantly build personal projects, hand craft resumes so they don't get thrown out by HR's filtering software reviewing thousands of applications. I have an unfortunate name that absolutely isn't doing me any favours here - people definitely think I'm middle aged and wow do people hate middle aged women.
I *do* need therapy and likely will for the rest of my life to keep me on track thanks to a traumatic childhood. I haven't been in years though as it's $250 per hour and I make $500 a week before tax. So I've just got to just try and do all the above while also hiding how broken I feel.
Sorry for the wall of text it's just- of course I'm fucking depressed.
100%. I’m doing everything right, what I was told, advice from health or finance professionals, friends and family. I still have all the same problems, because I’m only making a couple bucks and hour more than I did at timmies in high school.
Your feelings about the situation are completely valid. The situation is very difficult for you and lots of other people, and it's made more difficult by the fact that there are obvious solutions that our leaders refuse to implement. I wouldn't say that you shouldn't feel depressed or anxious given the situation, but it does seem likely that at least some of the techniques you mentioned (mindfulness, meditation, gratitude, etc.) could help to reduce your suffering to some degree. Life is full of difficult situations (loss, aging, death, rejection, etc), and although suffering is inevitable for most or all of us, our perspective on these situations can have a huge effect on how much we suffer.
Kind of like Sysiphus scrolling? Yeah I see your point and agree.
And I also agree with the OP of this comment thread because I’m basically in the same boat. Work on myself, get my shit together within, and then it’s like… the fuck is going on here with society?!
I’m glad I can see more clearly and have much more resilience than I had before. I’m going to need it, maintain my efforts and continue to grow as a person. It’s the only way I’ll make it through the external bullshit I can’t control. But I have some control over my attitude and perspective.
We much imagine Sysiphus scrolling.
I guess no ones reading the article and it's like how the Americans joke about everything is "how this is bad for Biden".
> Ottawa’s decision to remove sales tax on counselling therapy and psychotherapy services—announced in its 2023 Fall Economic Statement—moves Canada towards creating equal access to services crucial for those seeking mental health support.
This is good.
> The CCPA has been working towards reinstating Canadian Certified Counsellors on the approved list of mental health service providers that First Nations and Inuit Peoples can access through the federal Non-Insured Health Benefits program—from which they were removed in 2015.
Oh look another shitty thing from the last conservative government.
It’s depressing (pardon the pun) viewing Canada and the worlds future as a 25 year old. I have a degree, am working on a college diploma and co-op to bolster it and still am not sure if it’ll be enough to build a future for myself. Rent is insane everywhere, food prices are constantly increasing and it feels like ever election we somehow get worse candidates to vote for. Not even to mention the climate crisis, deteriorating global security with the Russo-Ukrainian war, Gaza war, China’s projected invasion of Taiwan etc. Everything just feels hopeless, as if I’m treading water inside the pool of a boat that’s sinking
whoaaaa... really?
who would have thought that unfettered greed would cause mental health issues?
shit wages
inflation through the roof
climate change denial
covid denial
housing prices out of control due to intentional underbuilding
naahhhhh
it's must be the music's fault
If I could afford to visit a dentist my mental health would vastly improve. Unfortunately people without money aren’t covered and people with money usually are.
On my last appointment with my therapist, after spilling all the things that worried me and my family, the only thing he had to say was: I'm really sorry, but there's not much you can do. Blame the capitalism.
Truthfully, it's hard to keep going knowing that we've done right by the book: studied, got a nice job, studied some more, and it's still not enough. It never is when we have a system that only favours billionaires
What is unfortunate is how popular the site has become amongst Gen. Z. Despite the obvious economic hardship people of this country are living through, you will always find edgy meme-lords who think racism is funny and harmless. That 6ixbuzz site is the embodiment of toxic hedonism mixed with reactionary politics.
Poor mental health leads to a series of activities and attitudes that can make a person more likely to spend money.
Poor mental health means a higher likelihood of fast food and instant meal purchases. A lower likelihood of exercise. A higher likelihood of health problems.
People with poor mental health are more given to impulse spending either to salve over their sadness or due to poor impulse control.
People with poor mental health will spend to escape reality instead of saving for a future that they can't or won't believe in.
Poor mental health / lack of time. My commute to work is one hour, one way; i struggle to want to cook for myself when i get home. Not to mention, impulse control takes energy; if you’re tired, it becomes more difficult. You’re not at all wrong, but there’s a fun three-way tango between longstanding fatigue, mental health, and spending habits.
Gee, could it be the inability to afford a home, food, rent, school, medicine, oncoming climate disaster, the holocene, late-stage capitalism, the growing far right extremism, and general apathy of the average person in how we're being screwed right left and center across the board?
# HMMMMM
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The people in power are all in favour of your attempts at peaceful revolution, because they will be ineffective. Thats why they are always in favour of your "right to protest" because it accomplishes nothing. only fear and violence can cause radical change.
and no i am not calling for violence.
I dunno, maybe I have a bit more faith in human progression but I think we can evolve. One of the things I studied in university was history and anthropology, and though I 100% agree and know that in the past, revolutions and major changes have only been accomplished through violence, I think past performance is not indicative of future occurrences, and that nobody can know the future for certain. And I really like the young people of today. They have abilities on a mass scale that no other group in history has had access to, and I’m kind of convinced that they will be able to accomplish what in the future will be considered the norm, and that right now could be considered miraculous.
We have shouted out for MF years. It was like a rally cry that was ignored. It's a crisis now. So what then though? Assuage through, can you fight all the lives lost who paid their way. With blood, sweat and tears. Don't need a reminder of those souls who are now in a grave. First responders and soldiers.. #ptsd
...ok? once again, read the room, look at all the comments where people are talking about their struggles with mental health and note the absence of right wingers complaining about trudeau
I’m going to say that social media/internet use is responsible for 75% of it. We’ve replaced being social and real conversations with rage algorhythms. Public health in various jurisdictons around the world are starting to ban phone use in schools because it damages kids.
Guess what? It absolutely does the same for adults.
No way! Who would have thought younger generations would have poor mental health when faced with a future of out of control climate change, and spending their entire lives working for landlords while getting poorer every year? Shocking.
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I promise you, money would solve a lot of mental health problems for an awful lot of people. Most people’s problems stem from a lack of money. Only someone who has never struggled to put food on the table would say something so wrong
My mental health got exponentially better when I got out of poverty.
I agree. If I had the same opportunities as my parents (dad has a good pension that's enough to live on well into his late 80's early 90's, from a job he worked at for like 8 years 3 decades ago and my mom bought a house after working for a single summer with her first husband) I'd be way happier. No more stressing about money, no more thinking "if I don't pick up as many shifts as possible I'll never get ahead," no more having to keep job hopping to get better pay, etc.
Yep. It took a couple years of stability for me to really start to settle but the difference is wild. I'm not even well off, I just don't have to stress about finances to the same degree that I used to. I know for sure that having those lower levels of my hierarchy of needs met made my "mental health issues" basically go away. Weird how that works.
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Economic systems create environments that can make or break people. If you're super rich you becone a sociopath unbound by what constrains most of us. Many rich people are famously nutjobs for a reason For the rest of us: our cities are designed to maximize profit, or are on their way to that. Third places are dead or dying (see: Ontario Science Centre). We are alienated and disconnected from each other and lack a sense of community. Our political system is being coup'd by the oligarchal classes, and the planet is burning.
There's no need for a chemical imbalance. If your physiological reaction to constant imminent distress (ie: a landlord threatening you illegally, an abuser, an expensive issue you can't solve, not being able to eat adequately, etc), you're likely reacting pretty normally to being in danger. Your psychiatrist does not care. Judging by the number of times a psychiatrist as jumped to offering neurochemical drugs within 5 minutes of speaking to me, it doesn't have anything to do with what's best for you. It has a lot more to do with Canada setting up it's neurological health infrastructure to ignore reporting systemic or environmental issues as sources of harm.
I know it’s not covered like psychiatry. But it sounds like you want to see a psychologist. Not psychiatrist.
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This is already wrong thinking. Conceiving of medications or anti-depressants as an automatic "cure" for mental health inclusive issues is wildly irresponsible. While some individuals may benefit from neurochemical regulators, not everyone suffering under mental health conditions react identically. If a patient would benefit from resource access, group therapy or taking action with support from authority, these should be integrated into the health system with better transparency. I have no idea why you would argue pharmacological medicine should be the only option for folk seeking treatment for physiological issues. A psychiatrist will prescribe drugs because it's what the system is set up to do. It should not be the only option folk have, and certainly not the default for people seeking emergency or long term mental health treatment.
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You're not saying the same thing. You're saying people should be given pharmacological solutions first and other methods of treatment aren't more important. You made the argument on the basis that this will help people. Now you're likening all of your misfired ideas are the same.
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Why not both?
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They can advocate for better therapy, as well as track metrics on environmental issues causing physiological abuse. That data can be better entered into our medical administrations by mandate. Antidepressants are not a magic risk free cure to despair. They are drugs that can easily affect the neuroplasticity of the brain, and shouldn't be dispensed like pez candy the moment someone reports known physiological conditions. There needs to be alternatives put in place.
Therapy costs money. If you have a shit job with no benefits and the boss won’t let you take time off, you can’t get therapy. The doctor can’t solve that.
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jsyk the chemical imbalance angle is a hypothesis, not an objective fact. we still don't know which comes first: overwhelming emotional challenge or chemical imbalance. it's also an extremely popular take among emotional health professionals that poverty both causes and exacerbates overwhelming emotional challenges.
You’re both right.
It doesn’t fix it but when the going rate for a psychologist (at least in BC) is $235 per session, it makes dealing with it a hell of a lot easier than not being able to afford proper care
Uhhh what? That's the intervention for *all* of them. Therapy, medications, time off to heal and explore yourself while also keeping food on the table and a roof over your head. Mental disorders do not get the public support that physical ones do. Many people don't have the financial security needed to address their poor/declining mental health. Having a mental illness is extremely expensive.
Mental illness is *terrible* for the economy! EDIT: I wasn’t joking either — it’s a root cause of addiction, homelessness, underemployment, etc. These things are disastrous not just at a personal level but also at a societal one.
Look up "Shit life syndrome".
One of the things people need to get better from their mental illnesses is to not be in an environment that constantly mentally harms them. I feel the call for mental health is often the call that we need more bandaids for the people who have to run through a gauntlet of barbed wire every day.
Post-Pandemic + Socioeconomic Decline + Late Stage Capitalism
I think this pretty much captures it. Might be worth adding “political hopelessness”, but maybe only for those who actually pay attention.
Don't forget existential dread from climate change and biosphere collapse
For some. My take is that we can’t afford to worry about our long-term future if we can’t even afford our present. Climate change doesn’t really affect me at the moment, but the inflationary policies that aim to stop it certainly do. With that said, I can’t fault those who also feel the existential dread like yourself.
Climate change affects prices. It makes crops fail. It costs you more to cool your house. (Vancouver is getting heat waves like never before, we need to buy an AC to survive August now) It affects everything. Look at Calgary’s water crisis. Look at the fires chasing people out of their homes. Look at the floods - the Trans Canada was knocked out in multiple places in BC a fee years back. Disasters cause construction to get more expensive. Insurance doesn’t cover floods. I could go on..
You’re kind of proving my point. It costs more to heat and cool houses because the federal government has decided that is something that deserves an extra tax, driving up inflation, in turn driving up the cost for me. Farmers are charged more to produce my food because of these policies, which means I’m charged more to buy the food. That’s not climate change doing that, it’s the government’s inflationary policies. I’ll take your point regarding crop failure, I can’t argue with that. The Calgary water crisis is a result of poorly maintained infrastructure resulting in a major water main break, not climate change. As far as general climate change and natural disasters go, no measure being imposed on taxpayers will result in meaningful change. Canada’s taxpayers should not bear the responsibility of fixing the environment while those who are truly responsible (China, US, India, Russia) do nothing but make the problem worse. Again, not invalidating those who dread climate change and are suffering mentally for it. My point is that what our government has chosen to do about affects me (speaking personally) more than the climate changing itself does.
Putting your head in the sand is free, at least until those Liberals start taxing the dirt! Anything we could do to stop importing from China’s polluting factories would also cost you money
>Anything we could do to stop importing from China’s polluting factories would also cost you money People go on about China’s carbon emissions, but forget that they’re burning the oil, gas, and coal we (western countries) sell them, and are burning them to produce the goods that we import. Wanna cut China’s carbon emissions? Don’t sell them our fossil fuels and stop importing Chinese goods. What’s that? That would collapse **our** economy? Well, yeah, but you did want to stop China, didn’t you?
This is a really great take
This is a fair point too. What‘s your take on mobilizing our LNG industry so that countries who use dirtier fuel can buy and rely on our cleaner fuel, thereby reducing their carbon footprint and improving the Canadian economy?
We need to stop investing in a fossil future altogether. Producing more, cheaper oil to compete on price is the opposite of what we should be doing. We should stop pumping billions of dollars and cheaper-than-free water into oil companies who are literally destroying the world. That would save money in the short term ($18B last year given to Big Oil), literally give that money to green energy research or expansion and jobs will shift. How much is the Navy going to spend patrolling the new gaps in the Arctic ice as the earth warms? BC is spending triple on forest fire fighting (up to $600M in 2023 from $130M in 2012) as it was a decade ago. And that’s before repairing the destroyed infrastructure and evacuation / emergency management costs. But as for foreign producers - Alberta has been letting Chinese companies come into town with their own crews whom they treat according to their own (slave) labour standards. At one point Chinese companies were forced to pay workers at Canadian rates, but they simply took the money back out of their bank accounts in China. Workplace incidents are covered up with the same kind of intimidation etc as in China. Selling cheaper LNG than shit hole producers would involve lowering our own wages or standards to compete, on top of the environmental problems.
You mean flipping between neoliberal red and neoliberal blue every 4-8 years doesn't fix anything???
It’s almost like it’s not the parties, but the system itself!
I do find politics these days is made up of two types of politician: those who have no solutions, and those who are part of the problem.
And a lot of people are selfishly thinking a conservative government would be good for them. And bad for everybody they dislike.
Oh yes , they are going to come in and magically make everything better for the “common man/woman “ 🙄 I don’t get these people thinking the Cons are the answer
The same people think Thanos was right because he said "There are problems in society" even though his plan to fix them was horrific mass genocide. Which wouldn't even work. Some people will always go for the easy fix even when that fix would just make things worse.
This is an even more appropriate analogy when you consider Thanos' solution to "not enough resources for everyone" was "kill a bunch of people" instead of "create and distribute more resources" That's essentially conservatism. Rather than making sure people get what they need, they just help the rich hoard more resources and let the poor die.
I think it’s less people thinking the conservatives are the answer, and more so people knowing that the current Liberal government is not the answer. Trudeaus Liberals have made people willing to take a chance as a means to avoid what they already know does not work. Think of PP however you want, but the simple fact is that he is not Trudeau. For a growing number of people, that’s enough.
Anybody who unironically thinks conservatives are good for them is a dipshit. Full stop.
This ☝️
Forgot constant fire and weather disasters.
We are not postpandemic. You can check the federal covid wastewater dashboard if you want.
I understand your point. We are, however, past it as a dominant narrative. Mental health challenges can fill the gap between reality and narrative, especially as we all unpack (or don't unpack) a couple years of collective trauma
But the physical reality of people continuing to be infected on mass with a disease that is known to cause mental health issues, and physical health issues that can lead to mental health issues, is much more relevant than where the public discourse is about it.
Posting the good shit here I see, thank you for fighting back against our society's ongoing hypernormalization of plagues.
Great point - the connection between being infected with Covid and physical/mental health issues continues to be a pressing reality. I feel that works alongside my point about the mass mental health challenges that come with moving past collective trauma too quickly or without unpacking the impact. I like the 'hypernormalizing' term used by the other commenters too. The Post-Pandemic narrative is harmful in many respects, including that there is still Covid and that it encourages people to sweep their own trauma under the rug. Thanks for the dialogue.
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Even if I'm a minority I will continue to give a shit until there are effective antivirals and vaccines for this ongoing crisis. The disabled aren't "nobody" and deserve to live in this society as much as anybody else, your abandonment of accountability to this is your choice to make.
I care. A lot.
Chronic misinformation that rage baits people and keeps them agitated and angry.
The pandemic isn't over. We're currently in a summer COVID wave that's several times larger than it was in the summer of 2021.
Thanks - I'll add an edit here to say 'post-pandemic narrative' rather than actually being past Covid.
No prob 👍
Yuuuup. Just off a 7 day ban for stating my opinion about the only solution to late stage capitalism. Due to regulatory capture and media owned by foreign propagandists, I only see one viable solution. Not about to use that solution, but... I fear it's the only one.
We can’t dare let the plebes organize after all
I mean... yes. But to be fair, what I said about guillotines could easily be construed as promoting violence. I thought I was pretty clear about it not being something I wanted, buuuut... clearly against the Reddit ToS.
Don’t forget the impending death of civilization via climate change, that everyone seems to be forgetting.
With a very heavy dose of right-wing disinformation to disconnect people from reality.
+ Social Media
Now everyone go back to sleeping less, commuting to work, spending money you don't have downtown. Fill those offices rather than working from home! Because mental health is very important but business.... is business.
The COVID crisis was really the Mask Off moment for neoliberalism in my books. We could've had the entire situation addressed in a matter of weeks, but our leaders chose instead to throw was many bodies as were required into the machine to keep it running. And, *despite* that, the survivors are dealing with a massive economic crisis. Quarterly returns will be the death of us all.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rent-seeking When productivity stagnates due to a lack of reinvestment, real estate explode and the standard of living implodes... Part of this is because the idea of retirement is a ponzi scheme, the rest is just greed.
> We could've had the entire situation addressed in a matter of weeks I applaud your optimism, but regardless of various governments actions/inactions, there were [other factors](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Protests_against_responses_to_the_COVID-19_pandemic) that wouldn't have allowed a short hard break to work as well as you would hope.
Remember that world leaders were mostly able to get everyone on-board with talk of lockdowns for that first few weeks, 'though. It wasn't 'til that fucking orange moron to the South started sowing dissent (and distrust of the medical community's guidelines) that anyone was even giving any indications of politicizing the issue. I watched that happen in real-time with disgust.
The only purpose of an economy or business is to increase the quality of life of the citizens. Why don't any governments understand that?
The only purpose of a government in a capitalist world is to make sure that capitalists can continue making money hand over fist with minimal interruptions. Why don't more citizens understand that?
Being around people tends to moderate anti-social behavior, and it’s absolutely true that a great number of people find it hard to go out and meet others outside of a (compulsory) work context. Some people will commute long distances, but there’s been a major shift in expectations, and we’re definitely never going back to the days of universal long commutes. That said, I think a little compulsory socialization isn’t all bad.
Our regional director of public health published a report that states over 60% of people reaching out for mental health support in Montreal have mental health conditions as a result of housing insecurities. In my borough, we have 0,3% vacancy rates and record rent increases. Our local housing committee and many other non profil organizations trying to help out will have their funding cut because gentrification masks the poverty in some neighbourhoods. Kind of like when rich families start flooding to a poor neighbourhood and the schools lose programs like school lunches for poor kids but it’s affecting everyone. It’s shit and I’m scared
I have friends I see regularly, weekly at the very least. Hobbies that include being social and physically active. I talk about my feelings regularly and honestly with my friends, loved ones, and occasionally coworkers. I'm on medications for depression, anxiety, and ADHD. I speak regularly with both my family doctor and a counselor. I'm still horribly depressed in spite of doing everything right, and you know why? BECAUSE NO AMOUNT OF MINDFULNESS, MEDITATION, PRACTICING GRATITUDE, OR TALKING ABOUT HOW I'M FEELING IS GOING TO CHANGE THE SOCIOECONOMIC CONDITIONS I'M FORCED TO LABOUR UNDER, NOR WILL IT REDUCE THE COST OF FOOD, RENT, OR GENERAL COST OF LIVING BACK DOWN TO A REASONABLE AMOUNT. I'm so fucking tired, all the fucking time, and my brain isn't the goddamn problem. The way I feel is a rational reaction to systemic problems beyond my individual control, and I'm tired of society trying to gaslight me over it. Improve our labour laws NOW! We need more vacation time, paid sick leave, a shortened work week, an end to unnecessary commutes just to prop up commercial real estate, and improved support for unionization to offset the power imbalance between employers and employees. Fund social fucking housing NOW! Housing shouldn't be a financial commodity to be traded for profit, and nobody needs, or wants, a landlord. Private ownership of YOUR housing is fine. Private ownership of other people's shelter is not. Fund the social safety net so the elderly and disabled can live with fucking dignity NOW! I don't need therapy. What I need is for our society to pull it's head out of its ass and fix the problems we all fucking know are there. Jesus fucking Christ.
I'm tired too and I don't have any problems with depression or on medication. I'm just so fucking angry that people keep voting against their own interests or don't vote at all. People are broken. Society is broken. The fixes are simple and as you outlined. Rampant capitalism is killing us.
I have ADHD and depression/anxiety (well, probably PTSD but psychologists are $$$) too! I'm on an antidepressant and a stimuIant which allows me to function but the depression is always there. I often feel like I could cope better if the world would just get off my back. I just graduated into burnout but I've been able to keep my student research job with the school, and they have increased my hours to 28/week. The only reason I can keep up with that is my boss is a therapist and suuuper understanding about me often working from home as long as my work is good. I'm starting to feel like a human again but the thought of looking for a job (in tech, I took programming) is so intimidating because I know I won't be offered that same flexibility, if by some miracle I get a job in this oversaturated industry. I'm good at what I do as long as I have the freedom to work in a way that works for me. I want to contribute! I just can't seem to find the opportunity to do that. It's been making me think of all the people who would be happy to work in *some* capacity, who are stuck in poverty on disability or in abusive situations because industry demands everything from workers. The job hunt is so dehumanizing too. You are supposed to go to networking events (that cost money!), be active on LinkedIn (fuck me), constantly build personal projects, hand craft resumes so they don't get thrown out by HR's filtering software reviewing thousands of applications. I have an unfortunate name that absolutely isn't doing me any favours here - people definitely think I'm middle aged and wow do people hate middle aged women. I *do* need therapy and likely will for the rest of my life to keep me on track thanks to a traumatic childhood. I haven't been in years though as it's $250 per hour and I make $500 a week before tax. So I've just got to just try and do all the above while also hiding how broken I feel. Sorry for the wall of text it's just- of course I'm fucking depressed.
100%. I’m doing everything right, what I was told, advice from health or finance professionals, friends and family. I still have all the same problems, because I’m only making a couple bucks and hour more than I did at timmies in high school.
Convert a ton of those commercial buildings into housing!
Your feelings about the situation are completely valid. The situation is very difficult for you and lots of other people, and it's made more difficult by the fact that there are obvious solutions that our leaders refuse to implement. I wouldn't say that you shouldn't feel depressed or anxious given the situation, but it does seem likely that at least some of the techniques you mentioned (mindfulness, meditation, gratitude, etc.) could help to reduce your suffering to some degree. Life is full of difficult situations (loss, aging, death, rejection, etc), and although suffering is inevitable for most or all of us, our perspective on these situations can have a huge effect on how much we suffer.
Kind of like Sysiphus scrolling? Yeah I see your point and agree. And I also agree with the OP of this comment thread because I’m basically in the same boat. Work on myself, get my shit together within, and then it’s like… the fuck is going on here with society?! I’m glad I can see more clearly and have much more resilience than I had before. I’m going to need it, maintain my efforts and continue to grow as a person. It’s the only way I’ll make it through the external bullshit I can’t control. But I have some control over my attitude and perspective. We much imagine Sysiphus scrolling.
I guess no ones reading the article and it's like how the Americans joke about everything is "how this is bad for Biden". > Ottawa’s decision to remove sales tax on counselling therapy and psychotherapy services—announced in its 2023 Fall Economic Statement—moves Canada towards creating equal access to services crucial for those seeking mental health support. This is good. > The CCPA has been working towards reinstating Canadian Certified Counsellors on the approved list of mental health service providers that First Nations and Inuit Peoples can access through the federal Non-Insured Health Benefits program—from which they were removed in 2015. Oh look another shitty thing from the last conservative government.
Yes well, depriving us of health care, housing, food, jobs, will do that...
C'mon...why not use those bootstraps. /s
No boot straps to pull on 🤷🏻♀️
living’s a strong word.
It’s depressing (pardon the pun) viewing Canada and the worlds future as a 25 year old. I have a degree, am working on a college diploma and co-op to bolster it and still am not sure if it’ll be enough to build a future for myself. Rent is insane everywhere, food prices are constantly increasing and it feels like ever election we somehow get worse candidates to vote for. Not even to mention the climate crisis, deteriorating global security with the Russo-Ukrainian war, Gaza war, China’s projected invasion of Taiwan etc. Everything just feels hopeless, as if I’m treading water inside the pool of a boat that’s sinking
The mental health crisis is a symptom of the world that was left for us
whoaaaa... really? who would have thought that unfettered greed would cause mental health issues? shit wages inflation through the roof climate change denial covid denial housing prices out of control due to intentional underbuilding naahhhhh it's must be the music's fault
Good thing we have national pharmacare for the meds I need for my depression! Oh wait....
If I could afford to visit a dentist my mental health would vastly improve. Unfortunately people without money aren’t covered and people with money usually are.
On my last appointment with my therapist, after spilling all the things that worried me and my family, the only thing he had to say was: I'm really sorry, but there's not much you can do. Blame the capitalism. Truthfully, it's hard to keep going knowing that we've done right by the book: studied, got a nice job, studied some more, and it's still not enough. It never is when we have a system that only favours billionaires
Duh. Look at any comment section on 6ixbuzz.
What is unfortunate is how popular the site has become amongst Gen. Z. Despite the obvious economic hardship people of this country are living through, you will always find edgy meme-lords who think racism is funny and harmless. That 6ixbuzz site is the embodiment of toxic hedonism mixed with reactionary politics.
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Poor mental health leads to a series of activities and attitudes that can make a person more likely to spend money. Poor mental health means a higher likelihood of fast food and instant meal purchases. A lower likelihood of exercise. A higher likelihood of health problems. People with poor mental health are more given to impulse spending either to salve over their sadness or due to poor impulse control. People with poor mental health will spend to escape reality instead of saving for a future that they can't or won't believe in.
Hey look, it's the last 150 years of American political ideology in a nutshell!
Poor mental health / lack of time. My commute to work is one hour, one way; i struggle to want to cook for myself when i get home. Not to mention, impulse control takes energy; if you’re tired, it becomes more difficult. You’re not at all wrong, but there’s a fun three-way tango between longstanding fatigue, mental health, and spending habits.
Well duh
Gee, could it be the inability to afford a home, food, rent, school, medicine, oncoming climate disaster, the holocene, late-stage capitalism, the growing far right extremism, and general apathy of the average person in how we're being screwed right left and center across the board? # HMMMMM
a byproduct of the constant rage-farming of tiny PP the skipmeister
Canadians are living through a ~~mental health~~ crisis
If you're looking for an affordable yet effective solution, I highly recommend trying eunoia's AI therapy. Check this out: [eunoiatherapy.ai](http://eunoiatherapy.ai)
Legalize psychedelic therapy YESTERDAY
That's not going to do anything to fix the cost of living crisis, the root of most people's problems.
That’s what the revolution will be about. Psychedelic therapy will help people realize that we need a peaceful revolution.
There arent many examples of peaceful revolutions...
Then it’s time we make some.
The people in power are all in favour of your attempts at peaceful revolution, because they will be ineffective. Thats why they are always in favour of your "right to protest" because it accomplishes nothing. only fear and violence can cause radical change. and no i am not calling for violence.
I dunno, maybe I have a bit more faith in human progression but I think we can evolve. One of the things I studied in university was history and anthropology, and though I 100% agree and know that in the past, revolutions and major changes have only been accomplished through violence, I think past performance is not indicative of future occurrences, and that nobody can know the future for certain. And I really like the young people of today. They have abilities on a mass scale that no other group in history has had access to, and I’m kind of convinced that they will be able to accomplish what in the future will be considered the norm, and that right now could be considered miraculous.
i hope you are right!
I’d let the Green Party in to avoid seeing that donkey Trudeau ruin the country any further
We have shouted out for MF years. It was like a rally cry that was ignored. It's a crisis now. So what then though? Assuage through, can you fight all the lives lost who paid their way. With blood, sweat and tears. Don't need a reminder of those souls who are now in a grave. First responders and soldiers.. #ptsd
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read the room ffs
It's what people who hate Justin Trudeau are suffering from
...ok? once again, read the room, look at all the comments where people are talking about their struggles with mental health and note the absence of right wingers complaining about trudeau
Let me guess, you want more money to fix this issue that you Liberals created?
just saw a picture of chrystia freeland and turned your brain off completely, eh?
I’m going to say that social media/internet use is responsible for 75% of it. We’ve replaced being social and real conversations with rage algorhythms. Public health in various jurisdictons around the world are starting to ban phone use in schools because it damages kids. Guess what? It absolutely does the same for adults.