Struggling after a crisis, the shame of financial problems pushed Leah over the edge

Leah Sheppard was on holiday abroad with her partner when he dumped her. Although the relationship had been very rocky, she returned to Melbourne distraught that it was over.

She was trying to keep her head above water, not only emotionally after “the rejection of the person I thought was the love of my life,” but also financially.

“Suddenly I had to try to earn the amount of money I was making to afford a house on my own,” says Sheppard, recalling the beginning of a downward mental health spiral that pushed her to the brink a decade ago. She was dealing with the emotional issues of the breakup, in addition to a physical injury, which began to hinder her job and her ability to earn an income.

She had dreamed of becoming an art curator, but art jobs were scarce. Instead, she turned to temporary work and tried to build a startup to help women through divorce.

Life started to get difficult. She tried her best to manage her finances, the rising stress levels and the desperate feelings of being alone. “Things were piling up on me,” she says. “It just detracts from your purpose, and you feel like, why are you even here?”

She started to feel more and more irritable, increasingly tired but also unable to sleep. “The more I got sick, stressed and tired, the less time I spent working, the less money I made, and it all started to snowball,” she says.

Although Leah found it increasingly difficult to manage her finances, she was terrified at the thought of going to work. “I would cry at the thought of having to put a smile on people’s faces, that’s way too much energy. I didn’t want anyone to look at me. I didn’t want anyone to talk to me… It was just too much effort to be around people.”

Even planning meals became a struggle. Instead, she resorted to buying frozen meals and Uber Eats. Her shame grew as her energy drained, she says.

Sheppard compares her realization of what was happening to her mental health to the metaphor of the frog not realizing it is being cooked as the temperature slowly rises.

One morning before work she tried to commit suicide. But the thought of who would feed her cats saved her.

In the aftermath, she contacted an online support service that offered non-judgmental help. “It was like the wave of relief that I could talk to someone about it and that everything I was worried about actually had a solution. I just couldn’t see it for myself.”

Sheppard considers herself “lucky”. And she has learned to pay close attention to how she feels. “I have no problem putting my mental health first in my life.”

Downward spiral

A new survey from mental health organization Beyond Blue shows Sheppard is not alone, with nearly half of more than 5,000 respondents saying financial pressures have gotten them into trouble in the past year.

The research also shows that the shame surrounding seeking help is getting worse. Beyond Blue found that 22% of people say they don’t get professional mental health care because they feel ashamed, up from 13% two years ago.

Beyond blue published its first Australian Mental Health and Wellbeing Check in 2022, as cost of living pressures began to rise. It was conducted on behalf of Beyond Blue by the Social Research Center at the Australian National University.

Georgie Harman, the CEO of Beyond Blue, says there is a “very strong” correlation between financial problems and mental health problems, “and we know that the stigma and shame around financial problems is really deep-rooted”.

“In Australia, it’s even worse than mental health stigma: people don’t like to talk about money worries.”

The 2024 survey is a nationally representative survey of the common causes of anxiety. Nearly half of participants (49%) who ultimately sought professional mental health help waited until they were very or extremely upset before doing so.

“That’s just heartbreaking to me,” says Harman. “Some people waited up to ten years before seeking support. That is ten years of driving with the handbrake on.”

The main barriers to people seeking help were waiting lists, the affordability of treatment and the idea that their problem was not serious enough to seek help, the study found.

Just over a quarter of respondents who reported experiencing a mental health challenge in the past 12 months did not seek any support for their mental health.

Financial pressure was the main cause of the problems, followed by housing affordability (34%). Concerns about housing affordability were even greater for the 25-34 (53%) and 35-44 (47%) age groups.

Personal relationships (34%) and loneliness (30%) were also major causes of anxiety.

Harman says financial wellness and mental wellness are “two sides of the same coin.”

“Financial stress can take a major toll on our mental health. But…poor mental health can then make it more difficult to manage our finances or limit our ability to find and keep good work. And it is often a downward spiral that is difficult to get out of.”

To try to remedy that dynamic, Beyond Blue has a strong referral relationship with Financial advice Australiathat offers free financial advice.

Harman urges people not to wait for their problems to snowball. Early intervention reduces the risk of problems escalating into a crisis, she says.

Nicole Black, associate professor at Monash University’s Center for Health Economics, says that “the stigma associated with financial problems highlights the need to talk openly not only about mental health, but also about financial problems.”

Financial pressures can affect mental health, including anxiety and depression, she says. It also makes it difficult to afford goods and services important to mental health, including housing, nutritious food and mental health care.

“The availability of free or low-cost services is crucial to ensure affordability is not a barrier.”