As a person who has experienced poverty, it played a role in my mental health.
I can't imagine any person I've talked to who has lived in poverty who hasn't experienced some sort of mental health difficulty through that whole process. It's just impossible for it not to happen. You become so dehumanized in the process of poverty that all of these mental health issues or addiction issues rear their ugly head. I'm a survivor of cancer, and I can tell you that poverty caused me more damage than my cancer treatment or other illnesses I've faced. In itself, poverty could be described as an illness also.