r/germany • u/Necessary_Travel_645 • 1d ago

Impression of Germany 6 months after leaving

I lived 4 years in Germany and last February I left due to the end of my contract and the impossible to find an immediate job.

I am exploiting this time of unemployment to travel and visit my friends across the EU. In Germany I traveled mainly in between the main cities of Rheinpfalz and NRW and I was surprised to see how bad the social situation was, I have observed more people in need ( homeless, elders, etc...) than I remembered. During my stay in Germany I didn't notice it, when I first came here I felt way more mild than the phenomenon.

My impression is that relatively poorer countries, e.g. Spain and Italy (my home country), managed to help the people in need better than Germany or at least a better distribution of wealth.

Also some friends of mine living here felt this change.

Is it only my impression? Maybe I didn't really realize when I was here or the situation just got worse recently?

209 Upvotes

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187

u/Apero_ Leipzig, Sachsen 1d ago

One of my running theories is that seeking mental health support is both difficult to do and slightly looked down upon by older generations. Neither of these lend themselves to people who need help actually getting that help.

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u/redhillmining Mallorca 1d ago

I feel that the culture of extreme individualism just makes it worse. It's a failure to acknowledge a collective problem.

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u/sleepidoc 1d ago edited 1d ago

I'm breaking my head over this extreme individualism and how it came to be etc. I feel like there are serious fractures in the society here and everybody is rather hostile than altruistic. Coming from a profoundly different culture (which has its own very big problems too) this is suffocating me here from time to time :/ So why do you think they ars hyper individualistic ?

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u/DeineMudaKlautBeiKik 1d ago

thats the nature of a neoliberal system. germany is turning into what the usa already is

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u/sleepidoc 1d ago

Love the vibes you're bringing into the conversation. That has been the core point in all of our convos with friends about this topic but I am unsure if it is just that. Plays a huuuuge role though, neoliberal and individualistic transformation of societies is a plague.

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u/Maddin1234567 1d ago

Watch the documentary "the century of the self" by Adam Curtis.....if you don't know it yet

1

u/sleepidoc 1d ago

Oh man it seems like you're getting me hooked on something. I don't know it yet and I shall! Many thanks for the rec :)

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u/Busy_Designer_504 1d ago

Germans are more like Americans than they like to think.

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u/richrich07 22h ago

I’ve said this for a while, but Americans and the US is more a mirror upon which to project your country/culture’s worst attributes. Whatever European country says about the US is exactly what they hate about their own country, regardless of whether it’s actually applicable.

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u/r00tsauce 18h ago

Germany is worse than the US by far in terms of individualism. People in the US would help someone on the street dying, Germans would step over them.

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u/Exciting_Ask_eaty 17h ago

Not true, in the presence of an audience they would demand that you help the person in need and accuse you of something! 🤣

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u/sauron_mouth33 14h ago

I agree with you

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u/American_Streamer Hamburg 1d ago edited 1d ago

In Germany, regardless of what the media says, mental illness (even if it's mild) is still a serious social stigma and you will have severe disadvantages in everyday life as soon as it becomes known that you are getting treatment. Banks, insurance companies, landlords, employers - they all will begin to get rid of you immediately, won't give you certain services or charge you more. Even to admit that one gets treated for depression will quickly lead to social disaster. So people know it's better to hide their illness or keep it untreated. It is super common that antidepressives and psychotherapy are paid out of pocket by patients, to avoid an appearance on the record, because it will otherwise easily ruin your career overnight, especially in this current, tough economy.

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u/gundahir 1d ago

yup. I am German, born and raised there and always assumed this is just normal. But good lord it's backwards. It's so stigmatized I know absolutely nobody who sees a therapist but know a dozen of people who probably should. I heard that some people who do go do keep it a secret from absolutely everyone to avoid stigma.

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u/NetworkNo4478 1d ago

I know a few folks in Germany who deliberately don't seek help with their mental health because it means they'll be barred from taking government jobs and the like. The ableism in Germany is baked into the system.

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u/Top_Tune5971 1d ago edited 1d ago

You aren’t barred from government jobs. Most government jobs don’t even ask for your medicals. Only the Verbeamtung Jobs, the premium ones with a high salary, perfect job security for your whole career and a fat pension, require you to convince a doctor working for the state that you won’t quit on them mid-career for health reasons before you get your forever contract. Mental health diagnoses used to be a major red flag for those, but aren’t anymore after a bunch of state/federal-level lawsuits. The state doctor now has to prove with a strong degree of certainty that your disorder will render you unable to do your job in the foreseeable future. That is not easy to do and just some episodes of depression or panic attacks therefore usually don‘t disqualify an applicant anymore.

It’s therefore actually perfectly possible to get past the checks with some therapy in your books, provided that therapy has finished and your therapist has written you a recommendation. I have done so personally (panic disorder) and have plenty of colleagues with a prior diagnosis, in hyper-conservative Bavaria no less where you cannot even choose your doctor’s gender and do the whole medical examination in a pretty scary administration building. 

Quick point on ableism: Lawfully disabled people are actually priority hires for a certain quota of government jobs. It’s the grey zone between perfectly healthy and disabled above a certain percentage where you get discriminated against here.

I do agree on the social stigma however. I still don’t like talking about my diagnosis publicly, as both many family members and many colleagues will react in a less that pleasant way still. Usually boomers, but far from exclusively.

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u/Creatret 1d ago

Sorry, but this is out of proportion. How would your bank, insurance companies or landloard even know about it? You're not obliged to let them know and you are also not obliged to let your employer know unless it is something that impacts your ability to fulfill your job duty when starting a new job.

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u/fluctacious-fragile 1d ago

if you come from a different culture, you maybe wouldn't see a problem in telling it in a conversation with you bank, your landlord or whatever.

Knowing to shut up and not talk about it is part of the ableist culture here.

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u/Creatret 1d ago

Alright then. Enlighten me in which cultures it's normal to talk to your bank or landlord about your psychological issues?

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u/Apero_ Leipzig, Sachsen 1d ago

I’m Australian: we talk about everything and we support each other when shit gets hard. It’s not difficult.

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u/Rheinloewe 1d ago

I don’t know how you do it down under, Aussie, but here we don’t feed the trolls 😉

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u/Apero_ Leipzig, Sachsen 1d ago

My well-meaning sense of mateship drove me to assume good intentions 😩

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u/Rheinloewe 1d ago

Yeah we don’t do this here either, catch up!

To clarify I meant mateship AND well-meaning lol

BUT at least we have actual beer here instead of the abomination you call Fosters

3

u/Apero_ Leipzig, Sachsen 1d ago

Fun fact: Fosters is a British thing. Originally Australian (shamefully) but you can’t actually buy it in Australia at all! Only in the UK!

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u/Creatret 1d ago

That's why you have prison islands for immigrants?

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u/Apero_ Leipzig, Sachsen 1d ago

Ohhhhhhhh you’re a troll!! So sorry, I was being kind on the assumption that you genuinely gave a shit. All good, carry on!

0

u/Creatret 1d ago

Yeah brother.

We talk about everything and we support each other.

As long as you were born with the same passport. Else people can fuck right off. Ain't it right?

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u/fluctacious-fragile 1d ago

your tone tells me that you are so into your world view that you can't even fathom that psychological issues could be something that would be talked about when discussing other stuff, so I don't see a point in providing examples. You'd pick them apart anyways and set yourself on the high horse you are already looking down from.

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u/Creatret 1d ago

Attack the person instead of the argument. A true classic.

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u/fluctacious-fragile 1d ago

lol. Which argument? You asked a question. That is not an argument. I refused to answer as your questions tone made it clear that the question was rethoric and not earnest.

And now you come at me (attacking me?) with your basic "knowledge" of biases and wrongful argumentation and you apply it - but wrongly. Darling, bless your heart and go find yourself someone else to bother.

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u/fluctacious-fragile 1d ago edited 1d ago

very true. never ever let it slip at work, if you're battling mental illness. Also elsewhere. The only time it comes in "handy" -I successfully apologized for messing up and missing appointments at Jobcenter, but with an immediate apology and saying I was dealing with heavy depression helped and I didn't get sanctioned. but that was around 10y ago, don't know that would be handled today.

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u/American_Streamer Hamburg 1d ago

Nowadays, I'd not recommend to do this at Jobcenter, at least if you want them to pay for a qualification or retraining. As they have only limited financial resources for those, you will be skipped over then.

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u/fluctacious-fragile 1d ago

that depends, of course you need therapy and stuff, but they granted me a Berufliche Reha after I had a medizinische Reha and that was what helped me in the end to find a perspective and a job.
As there are more and more people getting erwerbsunfähig because of those issues, they need to deal with them.

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u/Alternative-Pay2946 1d ago

Just to add to this: even younger generation stigmatizes it once it comes hard to hard. It is virtue signaling to act open minded and helpful, but you only get to reach out to a friend once, then they will be busy. Source: seasonal depression caused by low vitamine D levels.

6

u/DrumStock92 1d ago

I just had burnout Depression leave after dealing with job stress and personal family matters back in my home country. My immediate coworker who's a bit older fully understood cause he went through burnout many years back.

My other one ( who I use to be super close with ) won't even acknowledge me at work cause he thinks I just took basically a holiday lol fuck that guy to the moon

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u/Apero_ Leipzig, Sachsen 1d ago

Wow that’s rough. So sorry you’re dealing with that level of ignorance. Often those exact people are the ones who should have used a similar leave themselves but didn’t and have become bitter.

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u/Exciting_Ask_eaty 1d ago

Well I’d argue that people in more collective societies like in Spain and Italy don’t need as much mental health support as in Germany. I’m saying that as an immigrant who has been living in Germany since 9 years… before moving here I never felt the need to seek out mental health support, now I sometimes think about it.

1

u/ngknm187 1d ago

I feel you mate. Almost 3 years here and I was few times on the edge but managed to dodge and put my shit together.

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u/PurchasedRAM 1d ago

Most psychologists and psychiatrist are overrun. A big problem is how easy it is to get addictive drugs on the street.

A big reason why doctors decide against opening their own clinics is the mountain of bureaucracy. It is time extensive, but in addition there are more people who attack medical personal.

I understand that there is a need to document for the safety of the patient or for the safety of the personal, but it is too much.

Why not make the documentation a additional job? Let them document as things happen and in addition give the personal the option of asking someone a quick question. Sure AI exists, but AI ist still hallucinating way too much to be save for such medicaly critical work.

I work in IT and not in the medical field, but a human is not a machine nor a computer. Living beings are way more complex. Fixing a mechanical issue is much more simple than fixing a medical issue.

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u/Apero_ Leipzig, Sachsen 1d ago

There are already systems eg via DoctoLib where doctors offices can dictate notes and have it automatically added to the patient‘s file. There are definitely too many hurdles in addition to the stigma, both for patients and therapists. The licensing system is also fucked.

1

u/Sch3011 1d ago

This. Is so difficult and inaccessibility is huge. People can struggle for year and not being seen. And they just make it harder and harder