Mental health care is not a luxury good

Somewhere along the way, talking to someone became a status symbol. Therapy was reframed as a nice-to-have for people with disposable income and quiet lives. That framing has a body count.

Anxiety, depression, and trauma do not check your bank balance before they arrive. They arrive in shift workers, in parents, in people who are one unexpected bill from crisis. When the help is priced out of reach, the need does not go away — it compounds.

Funding a therapy session for someone who can't afford one is not charity for the comfortable. It is basic care, delivered to the person who needs it, at the moment it can still do some good.