I get to stress about my 80 year-old parents driving for Doordash every day, in my car, and I have to trust that they’re going to keep up with the oil changes and new tires and other maintenance.

Because when that car dies there is no backup plan. No one will employ them at their age and both major parties are content to let them starve if they don’t have some other means of paying for the privilege of surviving in America.

TL;DR: it’s been the hardest and worst influence in my mental health at pretty much every point in my life.

We moved a lot as a kid and my parents fought a lot. Why? Because my dad was in the army because there just wasn’t economic opportunity otherwise. I still have some psychological scarring regarding food security, and I’ll have something akin to a panic attack if I eat something that tastes anything like Berry Berry Kix because we bought like a pallet of it when it was on sale one time and it’s all I had for months.

When I graduated high school in 2007, I didn’t attend the ceremony. Why? Because I needed to work. I didn’t want to be economically trapped, so I worked as much as I could so I could pay for community college and then transfer credits to a 4 year school and hopefully get some kind of scholarship based on my good grades. While in community college, that plan changed drastically because of the 2008 recession. I managed to complete my 2 year degree though, thankfully.

In 2013, my mom died. She was 51, almost 52. She was very sick in a country that doesn’t take care of the health of its people. She drank heavily from the stress of money being tight, and she smoked since a very early age, so I can’t squarely blame capitalism entirely for her early death, but doctors weren’t interested in helping somebody who was already so far gone that her death would hurt their statistics. In any case, this launched a deep depression in which I stopped finding joy in any sense of artistic expression or productivity for a long while. I stopped caring so much about whether I was alive.

Soon afterwards, while I was already at a low point, I had a boss that was extremely abusive. I learned what gaslighting is. Nothing I ever did was ever worth an attaboy, but not getting screamed at became the reward I would seek. Basically Whiplash, but with chefs instead of musicians. My employment prospects were extremely limited, so I was stuck there. I strongly considered escaping it in the only way I had control over it all, but thankfully opted for a hail mary risk that happened to pay off; I quit and took a temp job scrubbing toilets.

It’s a long story, but that led step by step to my current job operating a combined cycle power plant at about $130k/year. I met a lovely woman in July 2016, married her in September 2020 (despite the covid of it all), and we just bought our first house yesterday. Despite my eventual successes in life, I still bash this economic system because I knew that ultimately I just got really lucky. But this isn’t the ending. I wouldn’t be surprised if housing crashes again at some point and it turns out that we shouldn’t have bought. Idk, we’re just doing our best here.

I could talk for hours about how profit motivations and economic struggles caused people to clamor for returning to school and work at the peak of the pandemic, which caused a million preventable deaths, but that barely moves the needle in terms of my personal mental health. I was an “essential” worker, which really just means “expendable” but I had already come to terms with that by then. It would be more appropriate to talk about how the music industry changes have impacted my interest in making music since I know it’s astronomical that it could ever even be a hobby that pays for itself, let alone make a little extra through gigs.

I hear from people when I cook or play music or engage in other hobbies and interests that I should (paraphrasing here) find a way to monetize that. These things are my escape from capitalist hellfire. They are the pressure relief valve. Why in the fuck would I invite that vampire into my safe haven? I’d much rather give my music away or give away cooking tips. I don’t want to cater your fucking wedding. I don’t want to track how many listens my mediocre music might get on Spotify. I just want to create.

I make money at work and I make happy at home.

My mental health is pretty solid, but it’s in spite of capitalism. I do pretty well at managing stress, I don’t have any real mental health concerns or other issues. I’m physically pretty healthy, have a decent head on my shoulders, and am lucky enough to work a job thats very secure and for me is pretty enjoyable and pays well enough that I’m not struggling in any significant way.

But damn-near every ounce of stress or anxiety I ever experience has to do with money. What if I lose my job, what if I have a health problem, what if I need a new car, what if my house burns down, etc.

Big one-time infusion of cash or a decent enough raise would eliminate just about every source of stress I have.

It’s been miraculous for me. Everyday I wake up in my spacious apartment and hop to the shops to buy a sandwich breakfast whilst whistling merrily at my landlord who grins at me and does a double thumbs up. As I joyfully catch my bus to work, I strike up a conversation with my fellow colleagues and we trade baking recipes and natter about the calm weather. I then saunter into the office where my boss pats me on the shoulder and offers me a raise. After a productive day making the world more efficient, I head to the park and sit on a bench whilst watching the sunset with friends.

(…what kind of answers were you expecting…?)

I spend most of my time on working with others to destroy it.

I got to couch surf while still working for several months this year because the person who owned the building I was planning to continue living in wanted more money. Did wonders for my mental health

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Reading Lemmy posts about capitalism has caused me some annoyance, but I cope if the inconvenience by liberally using the block button. It works so well!