First, I'm incredibly fortunate to have a high paying job. Second, that high paying job lets me get good healthcare and quality living standards. Third, my job also pays for my psychologist! So I'm kinda in this extremely fortunate circumstance where I get so much support.

Versus my family. No one in my family makes above 40k. None of them has the perks I have. They all go through some struggles. And no amount of therapy will help them when really, the issue always leads back to finances.

It's a shit cycle.

Affordable healthcare specifically including mental health treatment. Unfortunately, in many countries it's not included under universal healthcare AND it's fully taxed.

mental health issues are less prevalent when you're able to afford a healthy diet, roof over your head, occasional social activities, and aren't constantly stressed about all the bills you have to pay.

Biologist here. You are absolutely correct.

The “mental health” we talk about is 100% the functioning of your physical brain. Your physical brain is partly a function of your genes, inherited from your parents and grandparents stretching back to before the first two cells decided to cooperate. It’s partly epigenetics - if your mother was malnourished or stressed that will carry over onto you and can last until your kids’ generation. It’s partly the embryonic environment - nutrition, drug and alcohol use, physical and emotional stresses of the mother, overall medical health. It’s partly how you were raised - physical and emotional abuse, education opportunities, supportive environment, racism, violence, poverty, acceptance. It is constantly being tuned - if you’re in an honor culture in which physical defense of personal honor is mandatory, you’ll have received rewards for doing so. Those help pre-condition the brain to do that kind of thing again, more easily next time. PTSD, whether you’re a marine from Iraq or a kid from Gaza, will change your brain.

Mental health care including medication and therapy can help these problems, but systemic problems need to be addressed systemically, and we’d be better off if we were able to start to alleviate these issues at their causal level.

Minor quibble: that’s money spent by the government and private citizens for healthcare. Anything of that $7.5k that didn’t come from government spending can still be reallocated from our military budget though

Have a friend administering psilocin/4-HO-DMT to patients for one of those psychedelic startups in Canada. Thought it was cool because the first serious psychedelic research also began in Canada in the late 40s-50s, Humphrey Osmond even coined the term "psychedelic" while experimenting with them at a mental hospital in Weyburn, Saskatchewan, in a letter addressed to Huxley. They first used them as "psychomemetics" with the understanding they mimicked the symptoms of schizophrenia, to better sympathize with the patients (this was in the days of mental institutions.) They used it for alcoholism as well apparently, Osmond said it would reveal to them how their behavior was affecting other people etc.

Although we desperately need better medications (that are affordable), this covers treatment. What's being pointed out here is that we're not addressing the causes. Legalization certainly helps with one cause, but there's clearly way more contributing to the rise in mental illness which is largely being ignored.

Well, do you need a psychiatrist if your life isn't completely fucked by a drug possession conviction?

MDMA got submitted to the FDA recently. They’ll have to reschedule MDMA and I don’t see that happening easily even with evidence it has medical uses.

Not when there's so much money to be had with people's sufferings. :-(

Let me introduce you to the concept of the polycrisis.

That sounds like preventative care and we don't do that in America!

Now you eat these micro plastics so we can sell you pills.

Fun fact;

In war zones rates of depression and anxiety drop down to statistically zero.

There's no time for ennui, to much shit is going on that you can admit you have no control over and every decision you make could potentially mean life and death for anyone around you.

People find their purpose. It's just that it's usually "survive", and might develop into "revenge".