For two days depression and other mental health conditions have been back in our mouths and on our fingertips. They are back there – on social networks, in the bubble of those who already know what depression is, from hearing or experiencing it. We’ll write emotional texts until we drop. And this until the next shock of an untimely death, which will again be left with many words – full of pain, necessary – but from the string of which some, very important ones will be omitted – the harder we live from a material point of view, with both our mental health becomes more vulnerable.
In the afterlife, the real one, where rent or mortgage is paid, unfriendly systems are faced, doctors are sought out, including psychiatrists (not to be found in broad daylight), work is done, if you are lucky to work or unlucky to work too much, at the end of the day, mental health is at most a rhetorical question: “When will I have time to take care of it?”.
It has become a cliché to say that depression does not choose – from the peasant to the king, no one is exempt from the disease of the century. It’s just a way to sweeten the pill. Precarity, irregular working hours, shortages and life, where every day is like a spreadsheet, and job instability – a worm that grinds us inside, are catalysts for depression and other mental health problems.
Contrary to widespread preconceptions, depression is not a disease of the wealthy. People with the lowest incomes are usually 1.5 to 3 times more likely than the wealthy to experience depression or anxiety.
The rich cry too, no doubt, but it is the loss of income, the worry and uncertainty of tomorrow that cause or exacerbate mental illness.
At the same time, state-supported anti-poverty programs, including cash assistance, reduce depression and anxiety. Access to everything that represents a dignified and comfortable life, where the days are no longer to be survived, but to be lived, are an essential condition for a mentally healthy life.
