When it Comes to Mental Health Finances Matter

This article from the Money and Mental Health Policy Institute is slightly older. It was published in Dec. 2021.

I wanted to share it so that I could share their simple infographic.

What we see there is that mental health problems can create debt. When we cannot work, our healthcare costs skyrocket, and we can find ourselves in a poor financial situation. That poor financial situation creates more stress and emotional labor, contributing to mental health issues.

Whether the mental health problem or financial struggle came first doesn’t matter. Once we are in the cycle, it will continue round and round.

That’s what cycles do.

I wanted to share this with you today because it appears that, once again, there have been a bunch of articles claiming to have “the fix” for depression. Most recently, I’ve seen the claim that because exercise is slightly more effective than medication, we should be prescribing exercise, and that will take care of the epidemic of anxiety and depression we have!

Not so fast.

That overly-simplistic scenario completely ignores environmental impacts like debt. Being poor is bad for our mental health. Being a member of an oppressed group is also bad for our mental health. Exercise can’t fix either of those things. Exercise can’t heal childhood trauma, either. I’m not saying you shouldn’t try and get some more exercise. It might help, but it also might not. It won’t solve the financial problems that so many people have and won’t make the world suddenly fair for everyone. (I’ll ignore that for college and professional athletes dealing with depression, it’s not a lack of physical activity.)

At the risk of sounding like a broken record, there is no one cause of depression and anxiety, and no one fix for it. Our current healthcare system can create financial hardship, worsening mental health conditions for many people. We should find a better way.