Poverty and mental health present a classic “chicken and the egg” conundrum. Does mental illness hamper economic success? Or do financial failures threaten one’s mental well-being?
Those are the questions a multinational group of researchers sought to answer with a groundbreaking study in the journal Nature Human Behaviour. And the short answer is, yes. The two aren’t just linked; they’re part of a causal relationship.
“This study indicates that certain mental health problems can make a person’s financial situation uncertain,” Amsterdam UMC psychiatrist Marco Boks said. “But conversely, we also see that poverty can lead to mental health problems.”
I literally have PTSD from a decade of struggling in extreme poverty and can’t sleep most nights, I can’t look forward to anything and can’t enjoy anything because everything feels like it can be lost or taken away at any moment, and instead of enjoying good moments, I can only fixate on things that can go wrong and things that could help me if I lose everything. Again.
I’ve been in and out of therapy for this and for other issues, and have gotten a lot better but this is permanent scarring, if you’ve been harmed by society, that harm lasts as strong and as real as actual physical wounds.
I feel that so much. I’ve improved after about 5 years of proper stability since finding a wife, but it still shows in minor ways.
Can we count wealth hoarding as a mental illness though?
Somehow, living a stressful life of uncertainty causes mental strain 🤔 good to have actual evidence to back it up though.
So my I’ve been watching this Tidy Your Life show on CBC
Probably 80% of the people who are hoarder types come from poverty and they grew up with very little, so they can’t stand to throw things away and the clutter overwhelms their life and things get worse.
But it’s all very logical — you don’t know what you’re going to need but don’t have, so you need to hold on to all these random things, or you see a deal and you might need it later.
That’s just one vignette into people’s lives, but yeah, poverty is mentally awful.
I never lived in poverty but my mom and grandmother did, and I feel huge shame when food expires and I have to throw it out.
Therapy costs money
And just because you get a therapist doesn’t mean that you got the right therapist, or a good therapist, or a therapist that is capable of helping you deal with the issues that you’re going to therapy for.
Therapists are human beings and therefore fallible, and the systems that enable access to therapy are designed by human beings and therefore fallible, and many, many people fall through the cracks.
I for one am SHOCKED
Mendelian randomization does not a causal claim justify. It’s almost certainly the case that poverty causes mental illness, but this study’s design does not permit causal inference.
thank you bayes 😘
I read this thread title 4 times before I finally saw it said poverty and not poultry. The chicken and egg line made some sense with my misreading…
Hymn of Breaking Strain, Kipling
1 The careful text-books measure (Let all who build beware!) The load, the shock, the pressure Material can bear. So, when the buckled girder Lets down the grinding span, The blame of loss, or murder, Is laid upon the man. Not on the Stuff—the Man! 2 But in our daily dealing With stone and steel, we find The Gods have no such feeling Of justice toward mankind. To no set gauge they make us— For no laid course prepare— And presently o’ertake us With loads we cannot bear: Too merciless to bear.
3 The prudent text-books give it In tables at the end– The stress that shears a rivet Or makes a tie-bar bend— What traffic wrecks macadam— What concrete should endure— But we, poor Sons of Adam Have no such literature, To warn us or make sure! 4 We hold all Earth to plunder— All Time and Space as well— Too wonder-stale to wonder At each new miracle; Till, in the mid-illusion Of Godhead 'neath our hand, Falls multiple confusion On all we did or planned— The mighty works we planned. 5 We only of Creation (Oh, luckier bridge and rail!) Abide the twin damnation—
To fail and know we fail. Yet we–by which sure token We know we once were Gods— Take shame in being broken However great the odds— The Burden or the Odds. 6 Oh, veiled and secret Power Whose paths we seek in vain, Be with us in our hour Of overthrow and pain; That we–by which sure token We know Thy ways are true— In spite of being broken, Because of being broken, May rise and build anew. Stand up and build anew!
