Editor’s note: This article was first published in March 2012, during the eurozone crisis. Its figures, including a 40% rise in suicides in Greece, estimates of 1,500 to 4,000 indirect deaths a year in Spain and a roughly 30% rise in anxiolytic and antidepressant use, reflect that moment.
The financial crisis doesn’t just breed distrust in the markets; it also breeds a tremendous distrust of ourselves. It’s what we might call low self-esteem, and it hits people who have lost their jobs and/or are about to lose them especially hard. The other day I read that the suicide rate in Greece has risen by 40% since the crisis began (according to figures from the Greek Ministry of Health itself).
In Spain the suicide rate isn’t rising yet, although some associations estimate that the crisis will indirectly kill between 1,500 and 4,000 people a year. The crisis doesn’t only affect the economy; it affects health too.
Unemployed people are twice as likely to suffer from anxiety, stress and all kinds of depressive disorders. Some feel they’re already socially dead: they don’t have to go out to work, and they don’t have money to go out with friends, so their only option is to stay at home looking for the job that never comes and waiting for a situation to change that isn’t going to change in the short term.
Addictions are on the rise
In Spain, the use of anxiolytics and antidepressants has shot up by nearly 30%. It’s a way of easing the effects of the crisis with medication, while drastically increasing the chances of ending up dependent on this kind of drug for life.
Others turn to the “age-old” addiction and resort to alcohol, because it’s the only way they have to escape the reality they’re living.
How do people get here?
Unemployment and the impossibility of finding a job can, when the situation drags on, lead to an enormous loss of confidence and to self-contempt. Having low self-esteem weakens our immune system, leaving the door open to all kinds of illnesses. As the saying goes, when it rains, it pours.
The crisis also increases family arguments, because tempers tend to run much higher. A man feels powerless when he knows he won’t be able to pay the mortgage, and some psychiatrists even warn that this financial helplessness ends up affecting men’s virility, which adds yet another problem to this person’s lack of confidence.
Let’s say people enter a destructive dynamic, a vicious circle that they need to try to get out of as soon as possible, and if possible without taking pills, because pills hide the symptoms, but not the reality.
We previously published an article on how to deal with a personal financial crisis. I would add that you should accept the situation, because there’s no better solution than facing a problem head-on. You should not only accept your situation, but also accept that the global economic situation isn’t going to improve in the next few years. Starting from there, changing your own situation will depend on you alone.
And remember that, when it’s hard to find a job, you always have the option of starting your own business. A crisis is no time to fall apart; it’s time to take action again.
