Stress Chorus (Spoken Word)

This is the spoken-word version of "Stress Chorus" (song #152 on Rock U). It puts the ten drivers from [The Ten Drivers of the Global Mental Health Crisis](/articles/ten-drivers-global-mental-health-crisis) into verse. You can hear the sung version at [rockuunderstanding.online](https://www.rockuunderstanding.online).

Yeah, the weight we carry, it ain't just in our heads. Listen.

The ledger's red, the rent is due. Financial fear is a global view. Work on your back, job security gone, stress is the chorus in the worker's song. Loneliness creeping through the screen and wall, community ties that used to hold us all. Pandemic shadows still hanging long, anxiety rising where we belong.

It ain't no weakness, it's the structure's hand. These are the forces that shape the land. Money, work, connection, system's gate. We bear the burden, but we didn't create. The weight of the world on a single soul. It's time to see what's taking toll.

Trauma and violence, a cycle of pain, from childhood scars to a partner's reign. War zones and displacement, one in five, losing their homes just to stay alive. The system's broken, understaffed and cold, stigma the reason the truth stays untold. Climate in crisis, the earth screams out, eco-anxiety, drowning in doubt.

It ain't no weakness, it's the structure's hand. These are the forces that shape the land. Money, work, connection, system's gate. We bear the burden, but we didn't create. The weight of the world on a single soul. It's time to see what's taking toll.

Social media, a digital glare, overload young minds, stripping them bare. Inequality, polarization's sting, eroding the resilience that we could bring. It's mostly structural, this pattern we see, not individual frailty, let's agree. From the roots of the problem, the solution must grow, building a future where we all can know.

Yeah, it's the structure's hand, not just the individual. We carry the weight, but we can change the load.

Listen to the audio version in the Rock U song list

By Ronnie Patterson. Narrated with AI assistance.