A new piece in The Atlantic examines the relationship between mental health and long-term unemployment. As they point out, it is a chicken-and-egg problem- does long-term unemployment cause more mental health problems, or are long periods without work a symptoms of existing illness?
That’s a tough relationship to investigate, but it does relate to issue that people with mental illness can have- a much lower tolerance for stress and loss. Losing a job is hard for everyone, but it can trigger a serious episode for someone living day-to-day with schizophrenia or bipolar disorder. Even two years of constant stability have not created any kind of illusion. I am still walking on eggshells. A very stressful set of situations, a few days without access to medication, these things can be the difference between being in recovery and being in crisis.
This piece also brings up another component of mental illness- economic hardship impedes growth and recovery. It’s not just those that work losing their job. Millions living with a diagnosis are on disability or otherwise living on a fixed income. The squeeze is bringing plenty of people to the brink, but mental illness just adds a whole set of other complications.
Every stressor that exists has its own extra, sinister side. And in an America that’s in year eight of a recession with no broad recovery for the most vulnerable, the stressors are many, multiplying, and always just a few wrong turns away.
Unspoken Politics 