Poverty and Mental Health
May is Mental Health Awareness month. As psychologist I don’t feel the need to highlight this as it’s something I am always talking about here.
What I do want to point out is the profound impact that our social circumstances have on our mental health as well as our access to mental health help and resources. These social circumstances include poverty, housing insecurity, systemic racism (all the -isms), immigration status, chronic illness/disability, etc.
As an example, here is another quote from the excellent book Inflamed: Deep Medicine and the Anatomy of Injustice by Rupa Marya & Raj Patel, “Poverty is a cognitive burden. Working in poverty so that you and your family may eat every day takes a neurological toll. Poverty is associated with lower attention, and lower working memory capacity. Rallying talk from the wealthy to pull oneself up by one’s bootstraps rings particularly hollow when one’s mental faculties are consumed by the demands of survival.”
My message to you if you find yourself experiencing one or more of these burdensome social circumstances, is that it is not a personal failure on your part that you are struggling. You deserve access to mental health supports and you are doing an amazing job with the resources you have.
