I want to write so badly, but I don't feel like I can write today. I haven't had my antidepressants in going on 3 days and I'm in major withdrawal. I want to cry at the drop of a hat, I feel totally nauseous and sort of visually disoriented. The weird electrical popping in my ears hasn't started yet, but I can only imagine it will.
The reason I haven't taken my antidepressants in 3 days now is because I am almost out and had an issue at the pharmacy last week where they told me that my insurance company denied my claim because they should have "issued a new card" to me, but I didn't have it. Because I work part-time, and make so very little, I'm on Medicaid. I just spent 40 minutes on hold with Boulder County Medicaid to check on this to be told that nothing is wrong with my account and that they did not issue new cards for the new year. So now I have to call the pharmacy back and ask them what the fuck. Because seriously, WHAT THE FUCK. Because Effexor XR, the only medication that has been able to keep me stable over the last 5+ years, are roughly $10/pill without insurance.
I hate that I am sick. I can't imagine that there are people out there that delight in being sick. I'm definitely a low-grade hypochondriac but I also definitely have Depression, Anxiety, Hypothyroid, and Endometriosis. The combination of these diseases - while not fatal - is absolutely miserable. My body and my brain are working against me. Without medication, my brain is virtually unable to make enough Serotonin or Dopamine to allow me to feel joy for any reason. Depression and Anxiety alone indicate seriously low levels of Serotonin and Dopamine, the two neurotransmitters that allow you to feel joy or euphoria, then throw in Hypothyroid, which also messes with your hormone levels, and a huge symptom of which is Depression. And Endometriosis causes the body to produce too much endometrial tissue (the tissue the body eliminates during monthly menstruation) which can eventually cause infertility due to scar tissue. To treat that, I'm on oral birth control. Which messes with your hormones. I know women who are on or have tried oral birth control, who have no other illnesses, who go completely insane because of what oral birth control does to their hormones.
And so I drink. Alcohol. Lots of it. Daily. Which combined with Depression and antidepressants is ruining my liver and my brain. But it's the only way that I can get my brain to shut off enough to not want to dissolve into a puddle of tears or maybe even kill myself. Today has been one of those days that I knew was going to be rough just by the thoughts that I was recognizing floating around in there as I was getting ready for work this morning. And it has been rough. I almost burst into tears 3 times at work. I'm crying right now. I've spent the last hour that I've been home on hold with Medicaid and three different billing companies trying to check on the mountainous amounts of money that I owe lab companies for bloodwork and collections agencies for the 5 days I was in inpatient treatment at a mental health facility last year, plus the 10-week stint of Electroconvulsive Therapy I received after my breakdown about a year ago. I feel like no matter which way I turn, I run into a huge wall.
I don't know what to do. My boyfriend is just about the only reprieve in the whole thing because he's so optimistic and supportive of me and tries so hard to be my rock and my anchor. Sometimes he suggests that we get married just so that I can be covered under his insurance, and while that is a solution, marriage should never be used as a solution to a problem. Marriage is hard enough without adding something like that.
I'm broke. I owe upwards of $40K in student loans and somewhere around $5K in medical bills from the past year or two. I work a part-time job at freaking $13/hour even though I worked my ass off through this horrible disease for 8 years to get my freaking college degree and I can't even use it to make payments on my student loans. I know exactly where my passions lie, and what kind of career I want, but there's not a damn thing I can do about it. I apply for jobs in that area weekly.
And lastly, my family, the one thing that I never thought would disintegrate, has essentially disintegrated. My parents split up. My grandma died. My dad's health is quickly spiraling downward because of the impact of these two things and I cannot hold him up on my own. My little sister works full-time even though she's a damn genius (Bachelor's in Forensic Chemistry, the only one in the 2014 graduating class at UNC) and she's so overworked, underpaid and exhausted from it that she can't do much to help my dad, either. It is absolutely killing me to see them being beaten down, and there's nothing I can do to help either one of them. My family has been perhaps the biggest source of my anxiety, but usually the biggest source of my joy, too, and it is no longer.
I need help. I need to escape. I don't know what to do.
The reason I haven't taken my antidepressants in 3 days now is because I am almost out and had an issue at the pharmacy last week where they told me that my insurance company denied my claim because they should have "issued a new card" to me, but I didn't have it. Because I work part-time, and make so very little, I'm on Medicaid. I just spent 40 minutes on hold with Boulder County Medicaid to check on this to be told that nothing is wrong with my account and that they did not issue new cards for the new year. So now I have to call the pharmacy back and ask them what the fuck. Because seriously, WHAT THE FUCK. Because Effexor XR, the only medication that has been able to keep me stable over the last 5+ years, are roughly $10/pill without insurance.
I hate that I am sick. I can't imagine that there are people out there that delight in being sick. I'm definitely a low-grade hypochondriac but I also definitely have Depression, Anxiety, Hypothyroid, and Endometriosis. The combination of these diseases - while not fatal - is absolutely miserable. My body and my brain are working against me. Without medication, my brain is virtually unable to make enough Serotonin or Dopamine to allow me to feel joy for any reason. Depression and Anxiety alone indicate seriously low levels of Serotonin and Dopamine, the two neurotransmitters that allow you to feel joy or euphoria, then throw in Hypothyroid, which also messes with your hormone levels, and a huge symptom of which is Depression. And Endometriosis causes the body to produce too much endometrial tissue (the tissue the body eliminates during monthly menstruation) which can eventually cause infertility due to scar tissue. To treat that, I'm on oral birth control. Which messes with your hormones. I know women who are on or have tried oral birth control, who have no other illnesses, who go completely insane because of what oral birth control does to their hormones.
And so I drink. Alcohol. Lots of it. Daily. Which combined with Depression and antidepressants is ruining my liver and my brain. But it's the only way that I can get my brain to shut off enough to not want to dissolve into a puddle of tears or maybe even kill myself. Today has been one of those days that I knew was going to be rough just by the thoughts that I was recognizing floating around in there as I was getting ready for work this morning. And it has been rough. I almost burst into tears 3 times at work. I'm crying right now. I've spent the last hour that I've been home on hold with Medicaid and three different billing companies trying to check on the mountainous amounts of money that I owe lab companies for bloodwork and collections agencies for the 5 days I was in inpatient treatment at a mental health facility last year, plus the 10-week stint of Electroconvulsive Therapy I received after my breakdown about a year ago. I feel like no matter which way I turn, I run into a huge wall.
I don't know what to do. My boyfriend is just about the only reprieve in the whole thing because he's so optimistic and supportive of me and tries so hard to be my rock and my anchor. Sometimes he suggests that we get married just so that I can be covered under his insurance, and while that is a solution, marriage should never be used as a solution to a problem. Marriage is hard enough without adding something like that.
I'm broke. I owe upwards of $40K in student loans and somewhere around $5K in medical bills from the past year or two. I work a part-time job at freaking $13/hour even though I worked my ass off through this horrible disease for 8 years to get my freaking college degree and I can't even use it to make payments on my student loans. I know exactly where my passions lie, and what kind of career I want, but there's not a damn thing I can do about it. I apply for jobs in that area weekly.
And lastly, my family, the one thing that I never thought would disintegrate, has essentially disintegrated. My parents split up. My grandma died. My dad's health is quickly spiraling downward because of the impact of these two things and I cannot hold him up on my own. My little sister works full-time even though she's a damn genius (Bachelor's in Forensic Chemistry, the only one in the 2014 graduating class at UNC) and she's so overworked, underpaid and exhausted from it that she can't do much to help my dad, either. It is absolutely killing me to see them being beaten down, and there's nothing I can do to help either one of them. My family has been perhaps the biggest source of my anxiety, but usually the biggest source of my joy, too, and it is no longer.
I need help. I need to escape. I don't know what to do.
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