Mental health in a time of rising costs: The myth of the Golden Age  

A friend said something to me the other day that I haven’t been able to shake. We were having coffee and talking about how strange everything feels; how even ordinary days seem slightly tilted, slightly off. She paused, looked down at her hands, and said, “I don’t know if I’m losing my mind, overwhelmed or if the country is.” I laughed at first, but the line stayed with me like a stone in my pocket. I knew exactly what she meant. It isn’t just her. It’s collective. It’s everywhere.

We live in a time when uncertainty feels like the air we breathe, but it’s not just the headlines or the crises that unsettle us; it’s the way ordinary life has started to feel slightly out of tune. The country is loud with conflict and division, but also quiet in strange ways: people bracing, carrying invisible burdens. The cost of living rises, but so does the sense that we’re all trying to hold ourselves together with fewer resources: financial, emotional, communal. It’s easy to feel unmoored, as if the ground beneath us is shifting a little more every day. 

But uncertainty itself is not the enemy. 

Complacency is. 

Indifference is. 

Silence is.

Uncertainty is simply the condition of being alive in a changing world. But this moment feels different. It shows up in the price of groceries, in the cost of gas, in rent that rises faster than hope. It creeps in when political division hardens, when democracy feels less like a guarantee and more like a question. It’s the kind that makes people wonder whether they can trust institutions, leaders, or even the stability of tomorrow. This kind of uncertainty doesn’t just sit in the background; it settles into the mind and body. It becomes a low hum of vigilance, a quiet tightening in the chest.

The danger comes when that uncertainty becomes a fog thick enough to make us stop paying attention; when it numbs us, or convinces us that nothing can change. In that fog, anxiety doesn’t just rise, it sharpens. Depression doesn’t just appear, it settles quietly, making even small tasks feel heavier than they should. People begin to doubt their own resilience, their own stability, their own worth. The strain shows up in sleepless nights, in racing thoughts, in the quiet fear that we are not coping as well as everyone else seems to be. Nowhere is this more visible — or more misunderstood — than in the realm of mental health.

Mental health stigma is a border. It divides the “stable” from the “unstable,” the “normal” from the “broken.” It creates an us‑versus‑them dynamic inside a single human being. In this moment, when we’re told we’re living in a “golden age” of economic prosperity even as groceries, rent, and necessities become harder to afford,  that border grows sharper. Stigma tells us that struggling is a personal failure rather than a predictable response to living through economic strain, political turmoil, and the quiet erosion of the middle class. It tells us that if we feel anxious or depressed, it’s because we are lacking, not because the cost of living has outpaced the cost of being human. 

In fractured time, stigma becomes another fracture. When food prices soar, when rent consumes half a paycheck, when families juggle multiple jobs just to stay afloat, mental health challenges don’t simply increase; they compound. Anxiety is not just a feeling; it becomes a math problem. Depression is not just sadness; it becomes exhaustion from navigating systems indifferent to human limits. Trauma is not just memory; it becomes the residue of living in a world where safety feels conditional. Yet even as these pressures intensify, stigma encourages silence. It tells people to “push through,” to “stay strong,” to “not make it a big deal.” But silence is not strength. Silence is surrender. In a moment like this, defined by rapid change, economic strain, and political polarization, silence is a luxury we cannot afford. 

If anything, this era demands a new kind of courage: the courage to name what hurts, to acknowledge what feels unstable, and to insist that mental health is not separate from the social and economic conditions shaping our lives. We cannot talk about rising anxiety without talking about rising rents. We cannot talk about the cost of living without talking about the systems that leave people in despair.

To feel unmoored right now is not a personal failing. It is a rational response to a society in flux. But here is the quiet truth: feeling unmoored is also an invitation.

It invites us to rethink what stability means; not the curated version celebrated in headlines about a “golden age,” but the lived version experienced by people whose paychecks don’t stretch far enough, whose communities carry the weight of discrimination, misogyny, and systemic neglect. It invites us to question the borders stigma draws around our humanity. It invites us to imagine a future where mental health is not treated as an individual issue but as a collective responsibility; one that acknowledges how economic insecurity, racial inequity, and gender-based discrimination shape our emotional lives. It invites us to remember that uncertainty can sharpen our awareness, deepen our empathy, and strengthen our resolve to build communities where stability is not a privilege but a shared reality.

We are not powerless in this moment. We are living through a period that demands attention, imagination, and connection; especially from those who benefit most from the prosperity so many others are denied. The fractures we feel are real, but fractures are not endings. They are openings. They are places where reality gets in, where truth becomes harder to ignore, where the stories we tell about stability and success can finally be challenged. They are places where new structures can emerge, where old assumptions can be dismantled, and where we can begin to rebuild not just our systems, but our sense of one another.

To live in uncertain times is to live in a time of possibility; but only if we refuse complacency, reject indifference, and resist silence. We remember that mental health is shaped not only by the communities we build, but by the choices leaders make, the policies they defend, and the narratives they repeat about who thrives and who is left behind. We remember that stigma persists because it is convenient; because it keeps responsibility on individuals instead of on the systems that produce exhaustion, precarity, and silence. We remember that the “golden age” so often celebrated in headlines is not golden for everyone; it is uneven, selective, and built on the backs of low-income workers, immigrants, people of color, women, and those navigating discrimination that prosperity does not erase.

We remember that stigma is a border we can dismantle. We remember that uncertainty is not a verdict; it is a landscape. Thus, in that landscape, we can choose to build communities where stability is not a privilege but a shared existence, where mental health is treated as a collective responsibility, and where progress is measured not by who prospers at the top, but who finally feels safe enough to breathe.

About the author:

Dr. Sharon M. Holder is a behavioral health researcher with more than 25 years of experience in academia and healthcare. Her work centers on mental health stigma and health disparities, with a strong commitment to improving access to quality behavioral healthcare for vulnerable and marginalized communities.

She lives in South Carolina and holds a Ph.D./MPhil in gerontology from the University of Southampton, UK; a Master of Science in gerontology from King’s College London; and a Master of Social Work from the University of Houston.