[Archive] ISC Podcast Ep. 26: From 2023 to 2024: A Review of Just About Everything, Pt I.
Note: This is an archival repost, originally posted to our now-defunct prior website (RIP old site 31.12.2024, sniff) on 29th March 2024.
Content Warning - This article contains discussions about sensitive topics including mental health/mental illness, disability and discourse around socioeconomic disadvantage.
Please be mindful in engaging with this as you read this article and/or listen in below.
Peace, Love and Grindcore xoxo - Brady.
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Preface:
Like my previous episode, this discursive review is framed in the context of three main concepts - setbacks, successes and directions.
For this pro-forma, expect some of the heavier elements at the forefront. The intention behind this is to not leave you, Dear Reader, with an all-pervasive sense of doom. We have enough of that online and in the real world right now, innit. There is positivity here too, as there is hidden pretty much everywhere.
Where you see [X] numbered next to the text, that's a denominator for a reference list down the bottom. No, I'm not keeping it in APA 5th edition style, nor any other academic rubric. That shit still haunts me to this day and I'm almost a decade out of post-grad.
Another 'content warning' - the length of this goddamn article. Feel free to peruse this in a few sittings. I'm not exaggerating in saying this article is near thesis-length. (It's likely this will be edited in future if I decide to break it up into more manageable chunks).
Oh yeah - lots of swearing likely imminent if you're not wanting the kids to be exposed to swears.
Introduction:
I’ll be honest with y'all.
The last couple of years have really done a number on my overall energy levels, productivity and general capacity to do just about anything. I feel more sluggish and overwhelmed in the post-lockdown era than I ever did before, but I'm damn sure I'm not alone in this.
The longer I delayed getting this episode out there, the more I suffered in additional to y'know, suffering.
Procrastination was largely driven by an irrationally-stupid but pervasive, expanding dread in being ‘late to the post’ as a writer and 'content-creator' (Christ on a bike, how I dislike that term).
But enough is enough. I think you and I need the shared catharsis, and I for one have a LOT to get off my chest. So much so that it hurts. It's an inalienable need to release my thoughts out into the world, growing hungrier, nastier and more forceful. Kinda like the world's most impulsive and hyperfixated chestburster but in head-thought form.
'To quote Monty Python - GET ON WITH IT!'
Ahem.
As I was saying... things are rough right now, and it's evident I'm not alone in this struggle. I'm not just talking mental health, as much as that cannot truly be delineated from burnout as a concept and cluster of symptoms.
I'm also talking, among many other things:
The cost of living crisis.
An increasingly insecure, overly-competitive, gatekept and deskilled labour market.
The Western labour model pivoting towards largely knowledge-work bases, and the strange intra-space we find ourselves between increased automation, and mind-numbing lever-pressing of programs and data.
Climatological doom and gloom.
Macroeconomic uncertainty, pervasive disadvantage and the associated ambient stress that brings for (almost) all of us.
Ennui and a growing deluge of meaningless AI-drafted advertising drivel, bombarding our limited cognitive faculties and daily energy with increasingly meaningless slop.
Social media platforms rendered nigh-inhuman by the relentless march of enshittification (see above), and the disconnect between our peers and community this beings.
A frustrating lack of initiative for repairing multiple decades of economic and social decay, borne largely from outdated and inefficient capitalist ideologies.
Complete exhaustion for and disengagement from the background hum of polarisation, ingroup-outgroup biases and other issues further entrenching lines on various internet camps.
Intergenerational conflict and bearing witness to snide opinions of the more privileged against the oppressed. Ongoing weariness being on the outside looking in where property, capital and career are concerned.
The enduring spirit of Calvinism and the Puritan work ethic, probably the worst byproducts of Americanisation currently seeping their stench-addled rot into the globalisation process.
A sense of guilt and loss as my protracted activist spirit finally gives way to the relentless hammer-bludgeon of modern life.
The expansion of vicarious trauma from being an issue formerly more contained within my professional life as a social worker, to being an evidently community-wide problem as more and more folks report mental illness and worsening outcomes.
Phew. And that's just off the top of the brain-dome, really. I've omitted a hell of a lot from what could be said, and I'm sure you've got plenty of your own.
In fact, there really is just such an incredible breadth and depth of issues, concepts and challenges we face in our personal and social lives, that I feel a gnawing obligation to express my concerns about the status quo.
I'll be continuing with these more analytical discussions via a series tentatively titled 'Undoing Ruin'.
You can consider today's topic as the overall prelude to such a series.
(NB: yes, I did rip the title wholesale off this album. But that's exactly the intention - thematically, this album gave me a lot of inspiration and persistence over the past 19 (!!!!) years since its' release.)
If nothing else, I'm quite happy that some traction is finally in place in getting this out of the depths of my convoluted note-taking systems, and into a typed/spoken space.
Despite that, I can't help but feel putting words to a page just isn't enough. My human services professional work barely feels like enough. It just all feels.... vast.
Focusing a bit more on my locus of control has helped, but there's an underlying and chronic irritability about the overall state of affairs that I can't ignore.
It must be ventilated. Purged.
In truth, I am admittedly at this stage where my ability to keep engaged, enraged and IRL-active with sociopolitical goings-on has been utterly kneecapped, if not incapacitated. Mainly, by way of how salient my everyday psychological, work and daily living stressors keep detracting my attention with their screeching, furious immediacy.
However...
Despite my feelings, my mental 'health', neurodivergence-driven executive dysfunction or any other card in the deck - I just HAVE to take a stand at some stage.
I can’t sit idly by and pretend nothing’s wrong - a social norm I feel we’ve unanimously passively agreed to recently.
We've reverted back to complacency and convalescence. Licking our wounds and retreating from the fire, worn-down from such chronic overexposure to fury, indignation, fear, divisiveness and all manner of acute symptoms of a currently adrift, sick society.
Despite the lengthiness of this piece (shit, this is just the intro!), I'm not one going to pretend my little Internet-corner will have scope to cover all of what's happening out there.
Neither shall I pretend I’m the expert regarding any of the domains we’ll be focussing on today.
Those things considered, it is my hope to pull no punches, speak to power and also impart some food for thought. Even if a lot if not all of that is preaching to the choir.
More expert opinions from scholastic and journalistic sources will be cited, same with both luminaries and the everyman in terms of discursive opinion.
Now (finally), let's dive into the meat of this retrospective/prospectus mashup for last year, 2024 and beyond.
2023/2024+ - SETBACKS.
The initial furor and collective bargaining really did feel like that 'wake up, sheeple' moment all the Anonymous memes were bleating about. It truly felt, at least temporarily, like That Guy at the party in the Tool shirt was going to have his reckoning. People were truly starting to wake up, maaaan.
Truth being spoken to power. Large-scale pushback against institutional disadvantage. Demands for more urgent and immediate care from governance, as is our right and their fucking job. And it appeared, on surface-value at least, to have worked.
In particular, it felt like more and more of us were rallying the troops to say 'enough is fucking enough', okay? The roses had been smelt on the shitpile that has been decades of late-stage capitalist neoliberalism, and there was a palpable desire for shedding inefficient and cruel Reagonomics [1]-style razor-gang austerity models.
It got heated. A lot of people stood up. Granted, mainly in their living rooms, but they did.
But, alack. As time wore on, so too did our resolve.
Now? Things just seem.... toned-down.
Rightfully so, if not also unfortunately.
We’ve just lost our fight. It’s too much. The problems are too numerous, too close to home.
Too much to think about.
Too much incoming digital and emotional data, relevant or not.
Too much exposure to too many anxiety-provoking and uncontrollable issues, by an exponential factor of too many fucking times.
Too many widgets to create at work with far fewer resources. etc.
Too many disruptions to the supply chain, logistics, staffing, hiring, caseloads, KPI's, all of it. Which fucked up things at work and progressively made accessing services, supports and communities alike all much harder.
Ironically, we've become more isolated now due to the above, and an online landscape geared aggressively towards short-form content, venture capital expansion and pleasing shareholders. Thus, the rate and quality of information overload have zoomed past one another in what feels like a perfect 1:1 negative correlation.
Hinging so much on our Internet-life when alone, it's become harder to adapt to a new-normal. One with promises of freedom underscored by continuing biological and economic threats.
This is all a lot of our minds to take on, even if we're consciously only really acknowledging or processing a fraction at any given time. Science doesn't care, neuroscience especially. Our delicate think-organ can only take so much stress, so much exposure, so many computations in a given day.
And so, we hastily shield the scarce emotional resources we have left of a given day, lapsing into much-needed convalescence.
Increasingly, we default our fragile leisure time to platforms and systems that feel almost deliberately designed to cause friction, irritate us and detract from a sense of social connectedness.
Collectively, we seem to have exhaled into a massive sigh of resignation.
I get it. I'm right there with y'all.
But surely I'm not alone in also having this simmering, bubbling dysphoric stew of injustice, irritation and existential need rising further to the surface.
Surely I'm not the only one whom, whilst just trying to catch a fucking break any spare moment I can, also asks some important goddamned questions no one seems to have the resolve to ask of the powers-that-be.
Namely, and again amongst many others, I find myself in more acute pain-points, angrily reviewing the following:
Why are long commutes relevant again? Office farms? The resources needed to implement these and so many other ill-fitting and wasteful methods? Why should I care about justifying corporate lease costs, people’s outdated opinions on how limited space and resources are to be utilised?
Why, after years of performative rhetoric from government, corporations and our online world - why are we being asked to revert back to an ill-fitting modus-operandi after what we went through during the pandemic’s acute phases?
When the collective stench of languishing and indeed flat-out economic ruin has become impossible to sweep under the rug... why have we as a people decided we must return to the fantasy-world predating the arrival of COVID? And/or why are we comfortable with such a baseless decision being made for us?
Why are we being saddled with ever-increasing expectations of our time, energy, needs and resources when it was made abundantly clear that 1. Deceleration of modern life and shared-care proved itself healthy, and 2. We supposedly preached new insight into a less turbulent and unsustainable means of both production and societal engagement?
Why (other than burnout itself) are we so stretched that the raging firestorm of social issues we saw during lockdown have been doused in a small cup of water, and tossed out the arse-end of the window into recent modern history? Especially when the socioeconomic chasms that incited such fervor widen more than ever before in human history?!
Why should we continue to pretend that ramping up the Reagonomics-engine is a sensible strategy, when reality-based feedback demonstrates it's inefficient, irresponsible and irrational? Why are now glaringly omitting so many broadly visible examples of trickle-down economics needing to be done with, killed dead beyond recognition?
Why the fuck should we listen to anyone who adores an ideology based on mysticism, in the form of 'the invisible hand of the market?' The fuck?
Why should myself or anyone else feel content with an increasingly user-unfriendly method of social communication, and expose myself to sea of increasingly irrelevant bullshit in ever more skewed noise-to-signal ratio? What's the point?
Why are we not more advanced as a species, given such amazing technological growth? Why should the impetus of such change be maximising shareholder value and not betterment of our fellow man?
Why shouldn’t our ambitions transcend the bordered, the land-locked, the geopolitical and literally reach for the stars instead?
Why isn’t the threat of domestic extremism taken more seriously, especially when so many of us citizens are more vulnerable than once assumed? Deplatforming hasn't cured the issue, it's intensified it in the riskiest and most exploited.
Why can’t, given the issue stems mostly online and therefore requiring less use of a military-industrial complex, more cost-efficient solutions be employed to address this danger being attacked openly and publicly? Are we that heavily simped to a few Silicon Valley brats? What about that whole War on Terror, eh?
Why should we accept the spread of misinformation, fuelled to an uncontrollable extent by AI language-models? Isn't the point of having a knowledge base in order to increase knowledge? How is it that 2023/2024 internet is such an unreliable source?
Why the fuck is it considered okay for us to live like this, man? It's bad enough in the West; why should the Global South be allowed to rot to such an extent when he have the means to help?
Obviously, there are infinitely more questions I could scream into the void. I'm sure you've got many of your own.
Look. I know your capacity to take in all this seething vitriol is likely similar to mine.
My battery is low. I’m done with reading flamewars in comments sections, I'm so fucking done with blatant Boomer-spin fostered by Murdoch-media. So very done with being asked to check out some clearly-unscrupulous influencer who wants to hijack my limbic system, gain income via clicks and my own agitation.
Sigh.
I'm sure by now the mood of this post just feels outright caustic, certainly depressive at least.
And yeah, sure. I’ve surely been depressed, chronically and severely so. Both over 2023 and far behind that. Were I to complete a psychometric like the DASS (The Depression, Anxiety and Stress Scale [2]), it’d probably scream at me to go to see a helping professional.
But... this?! All of.... this fucking stuff?
Nah, chief, c'mon.
This isn’t just something that can be atomised down to individual psychopathology.
And what about you, Dear Reader?
Do you not see and sense and feel a gnawing in your side? A malady that feels in way omnipresent and enmeshed with your own mood struggles, but also sourced from something a bit more pervasive and society-facing?
If not, congratulations. But also, read on because this is important.
I'm talking about the Big Daddy of issues in the modern world today.
The Big Kahuna of what really ails us.
I'm talking about burnout.
SETBACKS - BURNOUT.
If you've somehow managed to dodge this term in online discourse or everyday life, you're either exercising some honestly impressive levels of digital hermeticism or just privileged.
Well, sorry to bust your bubble, but this is something impacting the society we all live in. On an unprecedented scale.
Defining Burnout:
A commonly-shared impression of what defines burnout is, more succinctly:
'A state of emotional, physical, and mental exhaustion caused by excessive and prolonged stress. It occurs when you feel overwhelmed, emotionally drained, and unable to meet constant demands. As the stress continues, you begin to lose the interest and motivation that led you to take on a certain role in the first place.' [3]
It's worth noting that, although not currently included in the current edition of psychiatry-bible DSM-V-TR (The Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, 5th Version, Text Revision) [4], a study by Nadon, de Beer and Morin (2022) [5] discusses the notion that burnout can and should be considered within clinical psychiatry and medical practice as it's own discrete health condition.
I'm not only inclined to agree - I also can't get Primus' 'DMV' out of my head when I see that acronym.
The World Health Organisation (different WHO, no Keith Richards unfortunately?) have incorporated burnout formally into the International Classification of Diseases, 11th Edition, also widely used in healthcare globally.
Mind you - it is listed as an occupational phenomenon, not a medical one.
In reasons for why patients may struggle accessing services, they note burnout as:
'A syndrome conceptualized as resulting from chronic workplace stress that has not been successfully managed. It is characterized by three dimensions:
feelings of energy depletion or exhaustion;
increased mental distance from one’s job, or feelings of negativism or cynicism related to one's job; and
reduced professional efficacy.' [6]
Sound familiar?
It of course doesn't just apply to the workplace, although the sting we're all feeling as a result of compounding workforce crises ain't helping either.
Burnout's Ever-Expanding Tentacles.
#sorrynotsorry if you've just gotten the ick from this sub-heading. You should be grossed out and disgusted with burnout. Both as a lived experience and with some of these stats:
The American Psychological Association's empirical Monitor report (2022) 'Burnout and Stress are Everywhere' [7] found that, in a widespread survey of healthcare workers in 2021: '79% reported experiencing unrelenting stressors in the month prior. 3 in 5 employees experienced personal/professional lack of energy/motivation/drive, 19% experienced lack of capacity to enact effort at work, 36% reported cognitive issues, 32% reported emotional exhaustion, and an astounding 44% reported physical fatigue—a 38% increase since 2019'.
I'd just like to point out that this is research that predates a LOT of the systemic staffing crises, funding reduction/withdrawal and other logistical issues that ensued with the post-lockdown policy changes. Both in the US, and abroad.
Anecdotally, I feel more stressed, stretched and under-resourced now, than I ever did in my years 2008 - present in the human services/healthcare profession.
I'd like to also note - these are people responsible for saving lives, preventing deterioration and employing immediate care for society, including our most vulnerable.
'Oi yeah-nah, what about 'Straya ay?'
Righto mate, righto. Hold onto those VB's kents, I've got some sobering stats for ya's.
2. Reporting for HCAMag, Dexter Tilo notes the following:
'Forty-six per cent of Australian employees have admitted that they are feeling burnt out, according to the latest ELMO Employee Sentiment Index, as workers start to feel less secure about the economy.
The number of employees suffering from burnout during the first quarter of 2022 is over 10% higher than the 34% reported in the same quarter last year, according to the report.
24% said they had taken more responsibilities in their jobs, and 32% feel overwhelmed about the amount of work they need to carry out.
only 15% of Australian workers still believe the economy is secure, down from the 20% in fourth quarter of 2021, and 30% in the prior comparable period of the first quarter.'
3. Research for the same publication is even worse when it comes to more temporal figures:
'The latest Microsoft Work Trend Index showed that Australian workers suffered a higher level of work burnout than other countries surveyed.
62% of Australian workers reported being burned out at work, compared to the global average of 48% of employees.
Moreover, the report revealed that 66% of Australian managers suffer burnout compared to 53% of global managers.' [8]
4. And when push comes to shove, further studies show that an increasing number of employees feel more than reticent to engage with the oft-maligned HR department:
Over half of employees surveyed in a recent study (56%) felt HR and employers were ineffective at addressing both their own burnout, and that of their peers.
Only 21% of employees accessed HR for issues relating to chronic burnout and its' impact on productivity and wellbeing.
76% of employees felt that workplace stressors were one of the largest contributors to depression and anxiety. [9]
Look. I know the ongoing archetypal meme of HR as a department in most our minds is reminiscent of some very choice thoughts Bill Hicks had about working in marketing (via this infamous bit).
But the point stands that human resources are meant to, in an ideal world, assist employees and not just act as a perceived stand-in for management. Trust should be increasing and consolidating with time, and yet as our work demands increase, so too does our perception of available supports. That's burnout writ law.
Pulling even further to just over a week prior to this essay, we can see things haven't exactly ameliorated, either.
Here's some more ugly factoids for ya, demonstrating that our young adults are some of the most at-risk:
Source - Calm Business: 2024 Voice of the Workplace Report[10]
There's a gendered element, too.
With only 25% of female employees feeling like fertility and other gendered health concerns are supported at work, and with chronic work stress being a proven common precipitant of said issues, there's a rising concern with this impacting menopause in older workers, and fertility issues globally:
Source - Calm Business: 2024 Voice of the Workplace Report[10]
Technology isn't exactly lending a helping hand, either. The omnipresent expectation to be taking work phones home, to have them off silent and to be more readily available is having a direct influence, too. [10]
Of course, we could dwell forever on the subject of those currently employed and feeling the pinch. But what about our students at high school and university? What of the next generation anxiously looking forward with grim prospects?
Well, the story doesn't fare much better there either, I'm afraid.
Whilst those of us in work are trying manage their own crises, our job-seekers face unprecedented disadvantage in making waves.
Some calming surf-art to break up the tension a bit. Credit: @koniaowskyoceanrt. Great profile!
The Labour Market
The Australian Bureau of Statistics [11] provides some pretty gnarly measures around unemployment in our Great Southern Land, dude.
As of February 2024:
Unemployment remained stable at 4.8%.
Overall participation rates decreased to 66.6% of the population. (side note, 666 dude! lol)
Underemployment remained stable at 6.6%. [11]
Going further, there's both clear disparities between genders and those with/without long-term health conditions to manage (of which mental illness is inclusive):
Source: ABS [11]
Phew. I need a breather. And this is just work stuff.
I'm casting a broader net now, though.
I mentioned a lot of factors in the earlier part of this piece and by gum it's my intention to outline those too.
SETBACKS: SOCIETY
Like it or not, we are more interconnected and terminally online than ever before. Changes to both the nature of work, technology in a broader sense and even the recent impact of time spent in lockdown have all broadened the reach and scope of the digital into our lives.
As noted by Andrew Sullivan, President and CEO of The Internet Society within their comprehensive 2021 Impact Report [12]:
'There’s been a seismic shift in how
the world uses the Internet.
For many, the Internet has become the foundation of
our lives. It’s steadfast. It doesn’t buckle during times
of crisis but bends to meet new challenges.
Communities now rely on the Internet without
giving much thought to what makes it work or who
makes it possible. Its stability gives us stability and
independence, allowing people on almost every
continent to move seamlessly between their offline and
online lives.'
Lovely, agreeable, and well-and-good by the sounds. <3
To quote the Davos Agenda in their brief treatise on how humanism is at risk with the ever-encroaching influence of all-things digital:
'Without the benefits of physical proximity and face-to-face communication, we’ve lost something crucial that we once had in our interactions a decade ago: humanity, intimacy, depth and empathy. We have traded deep connections for surface-level interactions.'
We have sacrificed intimacy and compassion on the altar of convenience and speed. Now, the costs of this exchange are starting to become clear.'[13]
Borderline-pithy, but it's a sentiment I absolutely agree with.
I feel that, in the wake of so much time spent indoors and the veritable explosion of tech since, we've become so accustomed to our lives being lockdown-like, that we're essentially living it still. Often due to aforementioned burnout.
Quoting the same article:
'Multiple studies have demonstrated that our digital interactions are having real, measurable effects on our mental health and emotional wellbeing.
A study by the University of Arizona, for example, reports that “smartphone dependency predicts higher reports of depressive symptoms and loneliness.” Another found that people who spend the most time on social media are twice as likely to experience perceived social isolation.
Today, over 30% of adults worldwide report feeling lonely, totalling up to approximately 2 billion people. Technology is not the only factor, but the evidence is clear; we are in the midst of a loneliness epidemic.'
So we're burnt out at work, finding more difficulty getting into the workforce, more lonely as a measure of so much enforced and encouraged time spent alone.
Oh, I'm not done yet. Feel like a cigarette, yet? I quit months ago and do so myself just from bloody typing this.
Okay. Now you're back, let's keep the shit-show on the road!
If you're feeling overwhelmed by your online life, well, you're not alone. I'd like to remind you that we're facing an absolute deluge of increasing droll in the spaces online we spend more and more of our time.
As noted by Don Grant, President of American Psychological Association's Society for Media Psychology and Technology [14]- spending more time online and thus being relegated to exposure to deliberately ire-inducing headlines can, duh, have a major effect on our wellbeing:
“‘In today’s hypercompetitive and incessant news delivery ecosystem, slightly more than half of U.S. adults report that they get their news through social media “often” or “sometimes,” according to a Pew Research Center survey conducted from August 31 to September 7, 2020. To drive “clickbait,” news coverage and social media postings also tend to highlight the more negative or dramatic news.”
“This leads to suffering from, as Grant describes it, “media saturation overload,” and he is not the only mental health professional noticing this specialized type of stress. Similar terms that have emerged recently include “doomscrolling,” “headline anxiety,” and “headline stress disorder.” While these terms are newer, the psychological strain of living through and absorbing dismal news is by no means confined to recent years. ”
“But lately, said Grant and other psychologists, the steady drumbeat of headlines and related social media commentary has been without pause: an ongoing pandemic, racial injustice, climate change, election controversy, mass shootings, and the list extends onward.’[15]”
But it's not just drama-driven headlines that are creating an increasingly-infuriating online experience.
Distilling down the more technical details of Pellas' 2023 study on attitudes towards AI-generated video content, we can summarise key findings as thus: the exponential explosion in AI-driven content is positively correlating to more information overall, and therefore far more risk of information overload (a known contributor to depression, anxiety and stress). [16]
The growth of auto-generated and oft-unchecked 'news' has sweeping ramifications for journalism and, therefore, society and culture more broadly.
In his Executive Summary introducing the Journalism, Media, and Technology Trends and Predictions 2024 , Nick Newman offers some foreboding advice about the year we find ourselves in for journalism's future:
“‘The disruptive power of artificial intelligence (AI) will sweep through the information space this year at a time of intense political and economic volatility around the world. ”
“The implications for the reliability of information, and the sustainability of the mainstream media are likely to be profound in a year that sees critical elections due in more than 40 democracies, with wars continuing to rage in Europe and the Middle East.
Against that background – and with one forecast suggesting that the vast majority of all internet content will be synthetically produced by 2026– journalists and news organisations will need to rethink their role and purpose with
some urgency.”
Source: Survey of over 300 leading media/print organisations' executives. Journalism, Media, and Technology Trends and
Predictions 2024 (Reuters Institute for The Study Of Journalism). [16]
This is backed by science, with leading journal Nature also noting we are exposed to more information than ever before, at a time where said information is increasingly irrelevant or pastiched by bots from uncredited authors and sources. [17].
... And The Rest Of It
Feeling a bit morose and moribund about the state of all this?
Well, it's no small surprise then, that rates of mental illness are through the fucking roof. Why wouldn't they be, when we have so much to contend with? So much irreverent advertising and AI-driven slop? So much difficulty getting work, and then being strung increasingly thinner and thinner in said job?
And yet, when going to access appropriate mental health care, even in the relatively privileged West we find more systemic barriers than ever before.
The absolute haemmorhaging the Australian supply and logistics chains have taken post-COVID in medicine, healthcare and all other industries [18] is undeniable.
Food's more expensive, so is fuel, rent, everything. More stress = more mental health issues.
And how are mental health services doing, then, as a result?
From a consumer and professional perspective - not great.
I'll let the figures speak for me on a more data-driven level.
Quoting Sebastian Rosenberg of the The Medical Journal of Australia (click on relevant sources within quote for further perusal):
“‘Readers who follow the fortunes of Australian mental health reform continue to endure the vicissitudes of political attention and recognition. The (then) Council of Australian Governments spent more than $5 billion over five years starting in 2006. The then-Treasurer, the Hon Wayne Swan MP, made mental health the “centrepiece” of the 2011 federal budget.
We’ve had roadmaps. In 2018, the then-Treasurer, the Hon Josh Frydenberg MP, referred the issue of mental health reform to the Productivity Commission, which delivered its report in 2020. We’ve had visions and we’ve had pillars.
But in the end, the disappointing slippery dip of Australia’s mental health reform journey is revealed in the graph below, which shows mental health’s share of the total government spending on health care at 6.78%, the lowest it has been since 1992, the year Australia’s National Mental Health Strategy began.”
Again, anecdotally? The Victorian Royal Commission Into Mental Health, whilst direly-needed and welcomed by all, has not been enacted in any tangible ways I can see in my day-job. If anything, we're stretched infinitely further.
Referrals and waitlists (including to my own service, meant to be a tertiary angle of accessing psychiatric care for society's most mentally-unwell) are becoming both disproportionately exclusionary and flooded by an increasing number of average Australians languishing in the post-pandemic period.
The direct slashing of the COVID additional psychology sessions via Medicare has meant many individuals whom could have been treated in a more primary setting (psychologist, GP, etc) are now clamouring at the doors of emergency departments, psych wards and community mental health centres, driving demand further through the roof.
The Better Access Review told government not to cut these subsidies, who were being utilised by a lot of high-income earners. Instead, they pleaded with pollies to redirect these funds towards society's most vulnerable. Did they? No.
To quote the ABC's overview of the issue:
“‘Department of Health data showed an extra 43,544 patients entered the Better Access program after the change, whereas between 2021 and 2022 there was a decrease in the number of new patients receiving the subsidies.
But the government has not yet announced any alternative changes to Better Access promising it would do so, and has not formally responded to the Better Access Review.’ [19]”
Cool. Thanks for the burnout, Federal Government.
Thanks for the decreased access for those who need it, Government.
Thanks for wasting my tax dollars on reactive instead of preventative or maintenance care.... Gubbament.
As less staff scramble to provide more care to more people, more clinicians, psychologists and health professionals are raising the white flag, further entrenching labour shortages.
It's thereby also getting harder to find, retain and take care of skilled workers in mental health, noted in this review by Chris Jones of Logistics Viewpoints. [20].
Conclusion/Some Hope:
There's so much more I intended to cover in this series. Widespread poverty, the encroaching influence of conspirituality, conspiracism and inequity on the middle class, classism on the rise, the absolute dickhead behaviour of Silicon Valley, intergenerational divides, all that shit.
Evidently, there's much left to discuss.
Today, I wanted to paint a truthful picture about how bleak conditions are for us as the average person being alive in 2024.
I am truly of the opinion that society, until it completely collapses anyway, seems to follow a very Star-Wars style saga.
A narrative arc of defeatism and oppression but ultimately one where 'good guys' always win.
I don't think these forces are inextinguishable or unchangeable, but they take a mixture of agitating for proper policy, brave stands against transnational corporate oligarchs, holding the online world to account, and rebuilding our informal, natural community networks + taking better care of ourselves.
I'll assuage you fears about more doomerism in my next post. In fact, I'll be discussing at great length (it's my style, innit) ways in which we can and in fact are improving. Models, strategies and plans we can enact and request of those above us (and enforce if they do not placate us, The People).
From participatory economics, collaboration and international cooperation, exciting developments in all the above spaces, accessible self-advocacy strategies, brilliant examples of community resilience and mutual aid networks - we're not as fucked as the Internet (and indeed this article) would have you feel.
I've set a grim stage for the discourse, but a reminder today we've looked at setbacks.
Join me in the next episode where we will be looking at Successes, and some positive future Directions.
Stay strong. You are strong. You've got this.
Peace, love and grindcore. xo - Brady.
References for Nerds:
HelpGuide.Org - Burnout Prevention and Treatment.
Nadon, de Beer and Morin (2022).
World Health Organisation - Burnout as an Occupational Phenomenon.
Nearly half of Australians suffer from burnout, shows new Report (HCAMag).
Barriers and Incentives to Workforce Participation. (Australian Bureau of Statistics).
Internet Society Impact Report 2021: Staying Connected In A Changing World. (Internet Society).
Division 46: Society for Media Psychology and Technology. (American Psychological Association).
N. Pellas (2023) - 'The influence of sociodemographic factors on students' attitudes toward AI-generated video content creation'.
'Protect Our Environment From Information Overload'. (Nature).
COVID-19 Exposes weak links in Australia's supply and logistics chains. (Deakin University).
Anger and fear as Australians await mental health supports. (ABC News).
Labour shortages in supply chain and logistics: They're not subsiding. (Logistics Viewpoints).