Intense! How Financial Problems Affect Your Mental Health!

Anyone who has ever had to plunge through real financial hardship can only frown on the glorification of a minimalist lifestyle and pejorative comments about money and wealth. Money doesn't automatically make us happy, but without financial security we're practically sidelined from life. "Nothing works without money" is the motto for these people, not only in the casino, but every day and in every conceivable situation.

Anyone who has only once had to worry at the supermarket checkout whether their card payment will still be accepted will never again maintain a relaxed or even careless relationship with their finances. However, a bottleneck can happen quickly. Job loss, illness, separation or unexpected expenses on a larger scale are all things to be reckoned with.

Those who can feed the piggy bank during flush times to spread out during the thin times. Not only does a lack of money push us into the social sidelines, it also brings with it a whole host of mental health issues that we shouldn't underestimate. We'd like to introduce you to some of these effects on our mental health in this article.

1. Money worries mean stress

This is not a new insight, but stress means something completely different for body and soul than in the casual language of everyday life. Chronic stress first takes a toll on our physical health. It accelerates the heartbeat and causes our blood pressure to rise to unimagined heights. If the concentration of stress hormones in the body remains permanently at an unhealthily high level, this can lead to high blood pressure, which in turn significantly increases the risk of a heart attack or stroke.

So at first, we only feel physically bad when we run out of financial resources. Our thoughts then circle day and night around what bills we can pay, how and when. The pressure from outside grows and soon a state of complete overwhelm and helplessness defines our existence. Some people try to solve their monetary predicament with a second or even third job. Needless to say, this life in the involuntary fast lane plays perfectly into the hands of stress.

2. Sleepless nights

Stress not only robs us of our quality of life, but predominantly our sleep as well. Circling our thoughts around the next rent or other payments due keeps us awake for nights on end. Financial problems are the number one killer of sleep. Without stability and security, we cannot rest and relax sufficiently. If we do manage to relax, our worries and fears haunt us even into our dreams.

Poor sleep leads to concentration difficulties the next day and literally invites us to train ourselves in unhealthy compensation strategies for the excessive pressure that weighs on us. Again, the already stressful symptoms of our money worries only intensify. Chronic lack of sleep also makes us irritable and impatient, which will not be helpful in terms of upcoming problems and finding a solution.

3. Anxiety and panic attacks

If you get heart palpitations and sweats every time the doorbell rings and every important-looking letter arrives in the mail, you can no longer live a relaxed and happy life. Depending on how high our debt mountain is and how numerous the number of people we owe money, a financial shortage can drive us crazy. We associate every situation we face with our precarious situation.

At some point, this leads to a real persecution complex, for example when people ask us completely harmless questions or make witty comments that we relate exclusively to our dark secret. We then feel caught, even if we are completely blameless for our present misery. Like all psychological problems, panic attacks and anxiety manifest physically over time, sometimes manifesting serious symptoms similar to a heart attack.

4. Depression

The constant stress that financial problems bring hits our psyche. We eventually feel holistically overwhelmed with everything and withdraw from the world. We no longer feel any joy and any prospect of an improvement in the situation seems a long way off. Financial hardship creates the perfect breeding ground for depression.

The lack of sleep, withdrawal from life, fear of failure, and sense of shame are the perfect combination for finally becoming psychologically unbalanced. The more severe the depressive phases, the more incapable the sufferers become of taking care of their predicament financially or of doing anything at all. If this downward spiral continues, there’s the threat of job and apartment loss. With this doomsday scenario in mind, our souls slide into a deep black hole.

5. Isolation and shame

Without money, participation in social life quickly ceases. If you have to turn over every penny three times and can no longer afford "nice" things, the only thing left to do is stay at home and brood. To make matters worse, it would of course be embarrassing beyond measure if our closest friends knew about our precarious situation.

The unwritten law of never talking about money takes its revenge most when someone in our midst would benefit greatly from talking about it. There are countless ways to prevent people from slipping into the debt trap. Free debt counseling is only one of them, but also banks have options that might surprise you.

If you can't bring yourself to ask friends and family for money, you will do everything in your power to hide the full extent of your financial drama from them. Besides, our loved ones know us inside out at some point. As passionate prosecco queens or red wine lovers, if at some point we only furtively order a tap water, they'll know what's up.

6. Longer recovery times

People who suffer from depression, anxiety and other mental health issues stay sick longer when they also find themselves burdened with financial problems. This is where the fact that mental health care can be very expensive and many services are not covered by insurance companies comes into play. So even if they seek professional help, they can't always afford it. This creates a vicious cycle that is difficult to break.

7. Suicidal thoughts as the ultimate way out

We wish we could leave out this final step when we talk about money worries and their effects on the psyche of those affected. The motives for suicide may not always be clear and understandable to those left behind. The fact is, however, that financial problems are very often involved when people decide to end their lives. In addition to the hopelessness, the sense of shame and isolation, but also the feeling of having failed, reinforce this tendency.

Today’s Conclusion: Are we finally talking about money?

Money does not make us happy, but it provides us with security. Once there’s no money, there’s no security. And this is exactly where the filthy lucre begins to have a direct effect on our psyche. If the net bottom line is missing, our head and our soul are in a state of emergency.

Money is not everything, but without money everything is nothing. There is always a solution when you get into a financial mess. The only problem is that no one likes to talk about money, least of all those of us who don't have any. That's it for today.