Here’s one reality of mental health:

We lost our state insurance at the end of October. We no longer qualified but we make just little enough that our two youngest sons can still be covered by it. We were expecting to qualify, but didn’t find out until the end of the month that we didn’t qualify, which gave us no time to find other insurance for November (we have no insurance at the moment).

Now, I know that would hurt other households too but I’m sharing from my personal experience.

I take nine different medications for my depression, anxiety, bipolar I, and ADHD. One medicine I take, my psychiatrist can only write for one month at a time because it’s a controlled substance and people abuse it (Thanks to all of you that do this because you make it harder for those of us that don’t. Insert heavy sarcasm here.). Three of my medications are between $1,000 and $1,400 EACH per month without insurance. Also, my psychiatry appointment (where I get my medications refilled) is $250 a month. Plus, my therapy appointments once a week at $50 a pop. That’s over $4000 a month!!! Very few of us can afford that. Add in another $1,200-$1,400 in groceries (hello, four growing boys) and gas for my husband to go to work and we’re in the $5,000-$6,000 range.

Now for some of you, this may not be a problem, and if it’s not then congratulations. But for us, it is a problem. I work a whopping 5 hours a month because that’s about all I can handle mentally. It’s so hard to qualify for disability with mental health as the main reason for it. So that leaves the main burden to my husband.

God bless him, he works his ASS off, and when I say that, I mean it. Starting out at 7 AM in the morning and not getting home until 7-8 PM every day except Sunday. But his job is based on commission. He helps people 65+ find the best Medicare plan for them and helps out when any questions come up. He works southern Indiana and part of the northern part of Kentucky as his area. Just as a side note, there are other people out there doing the same thing he is in the same areas. This entails meeting with people face-to-face (usually in their own home where they feel more comfortable), inputting all theirs meds into the system (along with various other information), and then talking about all their options so that they can decide which plan will work best for them given their personal situation. Folks, this takes time!

And then once a year, between the middle of October to the beginning of December is a time called AEP where he visits ALL of his clients, plus new ones, to review their plans and make sure their plan is still the right fit for them. But here’s the catch, he doesn’t get paid on his existing clients until the end of December – January/February time. But he WANTS TO do this for his clients to save them money if he can or get them more benefits. Folks, HE HELPS THE ELDERLY NOT GET SCREWED. Major kudos to him.

So, alas, we are in November with no insurance. I’ve already run out of one of my medications (the most expensive one) and will run out of a lot more before I can finally see my psychiatrist at the beginning of December when hopefully we have acquired insurance through Marketplace (if not, that’s another appointment that I’ll be skipping).

Yesterday was a REALLY BAD day for me with my depression. I have met the requirements to start Spravato (I’ll talk more about this in another post, let’s just say I’ve heard amazing things about it) with hopes that it would work in conjunction with my meds to make the depression bearable but that’s off the plate until we get insurance because that runs between $4,000 – $7,000 a month to start off with.

I woke up at 3:20 AM this morning because I couldn’t get comfortable because my whole body hurt. You see, when you get stressed or anxious your muscles tense up. So if you feel like that all day long your muscles will stay tense and then the next day you feel the repercussions of something you couldn’t help the WHOLE next day. This is a take over your whole body, hello I can identify where every muscle is in my body, I don’t want to move anything, kind of pain.

There is never a choice when it comes to times like this, my family comes first 100%. That means limited meds (the cheap ones) but groceries in the house and clothes on my kids backs. It’s gas to keep my husband going to do amazing things for the older generations. Like I said, there’s never an option for me.

So, if you’ve read this far, thank you. I’m not writing this for anyone to feel sorry for me or looking for anything in return. I’m writing this because there are other people in the same situation, ones that are silently suffering because they have to choose between the help they need and their families’ needs that need to know they are not alone. I know I’m a little scattered with this post but that’s the reality of my life right now, everything is scattered.

And while I don’t believe this right now, I know deep down that we are enough the way we are, we fight invisible monsters daily yet still come out on top just to do it again the next day. You’re doing what you can right now, even if it’s just the fact that you’re breathing, that’s enough. We’ll go through this mess together because you are NOT alone!