it is frustrating to hear people ask those thinking about taking their own lives to take sole responsibility for it by 'reaching out'. Nor is it a friends and family burden. Let's look at the core of this issue: the countries that have the longest average working hours have a very high suicide rate. The idea that working long unsociable hours away from friends and family is demonstrating admirable passion should be completely dismantled

also companies exploit our virtuous ideas of 'working hard' for our families and it is completely toxic and isolates us from each other. we should be able to be released from this enslavement to have time to be fully human, not forced to adhere to answering emails at 2am or doing 3 jobs a day for next to nothing

I'm not pretending to know the magic bullet but I do think there is a link between work culture and mental health. I lived in Japan for two years and it happened in *high schools* because kids had one hour to themselves a day before bedtime and doing it all over again

sorry for bringing it up it has been weighing on my mind for so long. everyone knows someone who has done this and it makes me upset that people don't hold a culture of overwork responsible. leave people time to be bored in the company of others. fuck the idea of always-on productivity

@caraellison It's interesting how America and Japan have career stressors in different ways. In the US, there's just no safety net; debt defines most of us, and any health incidents can literally bankrupt you. In Japan it seems more of an honor thing, though I can't pretend to grok it, having never lived there.

It just feels like such a systematic, societal problem. We need to stop shaming people and making them just feel like a burden on society if they're not 110% productive.