It’s unfortunate that I live in a country where you have to pay to live and pay to be buried (America). I mean I get it. Doctors need to make their living, and they can’t do that by seeing patients who can’t afford to pay up. More than once I’ve had my health insurance ripped away from me, and it left me nervous and vulnerable. I knew that if I got really sick, I’d pretty much be screwed. And of course, it was only after I’d lost my health insurance that I started to deteriorate. It’s funny how life works.
The first time I got sick it was for something physical; excruciating back pain. I went to the emergency room, but I wasn’t allowed to actually see a doctor. Instead I got a consult, where a nurse triaged me to see if my condition was bad enough that it warranted in-depth attention. I was told to take ibuprofen and to not lift anything heavy. About two weeks after that, I got slammed with a bill for over a thousand dollars even though nothing was actually done for me.
The second time that I’d lost my insurance I was seeing a therapist for anxiety and depression. I’d been in the middle of taking a new medication. It was almost like a domino effect. I lost my insurance, and then my therapist, and then my medication. I tried to renew my insurance, but I was unsuccessful at it. I couldn’t afford to pay weekly for my therapy sessions, and I definitely couldn’t afford to pay out of pocket for my medication, so I stopped going to my sessions, and then my life started falling apart all over again.
I started having weird brain zaps, heart palpitations, and dizziness as a result of stopping my meds so abruptly. I wasn’t myself for a long time, and it showed. My depression came back with a vengeance, and I felt like a waste of life. I had to go to the emergency room because of a severe panic attack, and left with another severe medical bill. This time because I was given Ativan to slow my racing heart, and calm me down. I didn’t know what I was going to do without my health insurance. My credit was taking a huge hit because I just knew that I wasn’t going to bother paying my medical bills.
I was so unbelievably stressed out. My mind felt suffocated, like I didn’t have enough room to fit all of my thoughts. I needed a way for me to get everything that I was thinking out of my head the way that I did when I spoke to my therapist every week, and so I started writing. I started writing in cheap, spiral notebooks at first, as a sort of test run.
I’d always enjoyed writing, but wasn’t consistent enough with it. It didn’t take me long to realize that I could fill up a spiral notebook pretty fast, and so I moved on to Moleskines. A bit on the expensive side, but durable and long lasting. It surprised me how cathartic writing everything down could be. No one was judging me, or telling me that my mental illness was all in my head. I could write down whatever I wanted. It didn’t have to be neat or censored. It could be messy, confusing and angry, the way that I was feeling at the time. I felt like I was being my own hero, which felt amazing. My words could eventually become blog posts if I wanted them to, and if I were brave enough, I could even one day tell my story.
It wasn’t until over a year later that I got my health insurance back, but I didn’t immediately begin to see a therapist again. When I did decide to go back, it wasn’t to replace the hobby that I’d picked up, it was just to supplement it. I carry my journal everywhere with me. When I start to feel overwhelmed by life and by my depression, I take it out and write until my hand begins to hurt. I write about every single thing, no matter how small. I want to remember everything.
It’s important for people with mental disorders to have something they can focus on – an outlet – something that calms them, and brings them back to reality, whether it’s writing, or playing guitar, or drawing. It doesn’t have to just be therapy and medication. It’s important to engage in things that you enjoy doing; something you can do for yourself. One day, when I’m old and can barely remember anything anymore, I can look back at the journals I filled up, and hopefully be satisfied with myself.
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