In Britain I have often found the incompassionate coldness and passive aggressiveness of many people something that has caused me to slip into suicidal thoughts. Meanwhile in Australia the toxic positivity culture seemed to not take depression seriously either.
I can see why very rich people buy themselves a false sense of reality and constantly need to protect it or have more in order to hold it together. It must be a true blessing to have a genuine compassionate and caring loving family. Something money can’t buy.
I was reading a book recently that had a story about a women from the middle east who came to the UK with her husband who was doing a PhD. The women couldn’t work as the visa didn’t allow that so she became depressed at home with no friends.
Back home she had 6 sisters and was never alone. She started feeling judged and ashamed. Told she was being too needy. The assumption in the UK is you must be independent and master of your own destiny. Her Dad came to visit her and couldn’t understand UK society.
He wondered why would they leave a women alone in a group of flats with other people all equally alone for many hours. To him it was logical she felt depressed – it was the environment not her. Yet stigma prevailed. Her own family caricatured the people of the UK as uncaring.
While there were challenges specific to the women’s culture, her cultures focus on community relationships enabled her to expect to reach out for help and to think of receiving help as normal and appropriate rather than as a sign of something being deficient. It makes you think.