Happy New Year! I hope you’ve had a great start to the year. It’s such a great time of year as it feels like a clean slate, a new 365 days to change the way we see and do things. I’m feeling positive for this new year and I hope you are too!

Things have been really rough, I won’t lie. I was off my medication for three months because insurance kept jerking us around and we couldn’t afford the medication without it. Just a side note, this happens to many people and they suffer just like I did. I know this because I’m a member of a couple of different mental health groups on Facebook and people post about this a lot. I could go off on a tangent about our mental health system and the drug companies but I won’t do it in this post.

Anywho, I went through over a month of a severe depressive episode. I slept a lot of the days. I felt like everyone would be better off without me. I had thoughts of hurting myself (I was a cutter in my teenage years), but I didn’t thank goodness. I even contemplated admitting myself to the hospital just so I could get back on my medications, but it was Christmas time, I would have missed my whole family greatly, and once they released me I wouldn’t have my medication again so what was the point?

It felt like a heavy weight all over my body. I was drained of energy even when I wasn’t doing anything. I didn’t smile and nothing could make me laugh. I had panic attacks daily and used Xanax and sour candy (Yes! it really does work) to get through. My doctor told me it’s very common that when depression hits, panic attacks increase.

It was so bad that the Christmas tree didn’t get put up until the weekend before Christmas. (But don’t worry, we’re leaving it up for a bit to enjoy it more). I did absolutely NO baking with the kids which I always love to do. Presents were wrapped two days before Christmas. We could do that because Christmas was really small this year. The kids didn’t mind though, they were appreciative for what the did get. I really do have some amazing freaking kids!

So at the VERY end of December, our insurance finally came through. I was able to refill most of my prescriptions, (all except for two that required doctor authorization), and so I was able to start getting my medication back into my system.

My therapist hooked me up with a last minute appointment with my psychiatrist for December 30th where I was able to get scripts for my two medications I was missing. Then, my therapist got me in to see her on January 2nd during her lunch break. God bless her, she’s so good to me and she actually helps me. She even called to check up on me multiple times while I was fighting with insurance and worked me through some panic attacks. She’s freaking amazing!

On December 30th, in the afternoon, I got a call from the lady who handles Spravato. She said insurance approved the treatments (for my treatment-resistant depression)! I’m actually starting them today. In fact, by the time this posts, I’ll be halfway through my first treatment (they last 2 hours).

I’m sure you’re wondering “What is Spravato? What does it do?” Well… next week I’m going to break everything down about it. Then, the following week, I’ll tell you about my first two weeks of treatments.

Thanks so much for sticking with me while I post sporadically. One of my goals for the new year (I don’t do resolutions) is to post consistently and plan posts ahead of time. So far, January is fully covered. Yay!

As always, please share this post. You never know what someone else is going through and how much this may help them!