Paying For Treatment

One of the major problems I have right now is that I am currently not on any medication for my depression or ADHD. I can live without ADHD meds... I've developed lots of skills for coping and compensating... but its rough without depression meds. I actually had to quit my new job because my depression was making it too hard to go to work! If I'd had medication I wouldn't have had that problem. But because the job was only part time, I wouldn't have had health insurance from it anyway, so there wasn't even any hope for securing meds in the near future!
In the county I used to live in before I moved back here, I qualified for free counseling and med management, and the doctors at the county mental health office worked with me to help me get my prescriptions for pretty cheap. They would try to prescribe generics that I could get at Target for only $10 or less, and they were trying to enroll me in programs through the prescription companies that would let me get meds for free.
Where I live now is a much larger county that includes a major city. Instead of all low income people in the county going through one mental health center, it goes by the town you live in. For instance, most people in the big city could probably use the city's mental health services. In the suburbs, there are private mental health centers that provide sliding scale services to people in certain groups of towns. If you live in one town, you have to get services from whatever agency is serving your town.
I found out that my town is served by "Creekside Behavioral Health Hospital." At first I was hopeful, because their website boasted a mental health clinic near my house, as well as an outpatient hospitalization program where you can get all the benefits of inpatient hospitalization, but sleep at home. (I was very interested in this option, because my depression was getting so bad, I thought that an every other week counseling session was just not going to cut it this time!)
So I contacted them... and found out their "sliding scale" fees. It would be $160 for an initial evaluation, $100 for a therapy assessment, $80 for each follow-up therapy session, and $55 for medication management. So, assuming I just went to therapy twice a month and got med management once a month (you usually are required to have it once a month in order to get prescriptions for "controlled substances") I would have to have $395 that first month. That is money I just don't have laying around!
I did give them a call anyway... but you have to leave a message with their intake department, and they call you back whenever they get a chance. (Its been a week so far with no call back from them.)
In the mean time, I found a depression study I may be able to enroll in. I have an appointment on the first of August. The study means I will either be on a placebo medication (hopefully not), an already established depression medication, or a brand new medication. I will be on meds (I sure hope its not the placebo) for free for twelve weeks, and if all goes well, I'd be able to continue taking it for free for a year.
Here's the scary news... in order to participate, I'll have to go through a physical exam, including a blood test and an EKG.  I hate blood tests (I usually faint.) And an EKG? Is that the thing where you have to run on a treadmill? I don't think I will do well on that! I really get nervous about physical exams because I don't like strangers touching me.
But... ugh... I guess it is what I'll have to do in order to get on meds!
I also found an ADHD study that I can participate in. I won't get meds, but I'll get paid $10 per hour to do it (four hours of testing) and that is a full tank of gas! I will be doing that tomorrow and Thursday.
If you have depression or another mental illness and you're wondering how I found these studies, I just went on Craigslist and typed "depression" into the Community, Jobs, and Gigs sections. You could also look on the websites of hospitals and universities in your area, since some have links to clinical trials that they are doing.
Anyway... I will be sure to let you know how all of these studies go!

Butterfly's Description Of Depression

Okay, lets try this again.

I'm creating this blog so that I can have a place to write about my real life, the things I go through, and the reasons why. I've had other blogs before, but I've decided to keep this blog anonymous. That way, I'll be able to be honest about everything I go through, without worrying that someone, like a prospective employer who finds this blog, a relative, etc, might take something the wrong way. A few of you do know who I am... but unlike my other blogs, you won't see any pictures of me or any other identifying information. In this blog, I am just Butterfly, a young woman struggling with a plethora of issues including depression, anxiety, ADHD, learning disabilities,some autistic-like tendencies, post traumatic stress disorder, and who knows what else.

The type of depression I have is chronic. It is different from someone who goes through a rough period in their life, sinks into depression, and needs to be on medication for a few months to a year. Mine is lifelong, lurking there, forever.

I am not constantly depressed, though. It seems to happen in a pattern. My depression can be triggered by various things. Everything can be going well for me, until I get the flu, or my dog dies, or I get in a car accident, or I get in a fight with a friend, or I find that I do not like my job. Then, even though these things might be minor setbacks for most people, I seem to get slammed with depression. Suddenly, I'm crying all the time, feeling sick to my stomach, feeling exhausted and dizzy, unable to eat, unable to sleep. Sleep is an especially weird thing when I'm going through depression. Even though I'm exhausted, at night I can't fall asleep. I'll be awake at all hours, tossing and turning, unable to stop flailing my arms and legs. Even Tylenol PM or tranquilizers don't work. I have to trick myself into falling asleep by going downstairs and watching TV until I drift off, in the wee hours of the morning.

When this happens, eventually I manage to get on medication... easier said than done when you have no health insurance. The medication always takes weeks to begin working. When it does work, I start living more and more of a normal life. Then, after a year or so of being on meds, because I have trouble getting it (meds can be impossible to get every month without insurance, and when you skip a few doses because you're having trouble getting them, you start getting physically ill, which, when I'm not going through depression, makes it seem to me that I'm just taking the meds to avoid withdrawal symptoms instead of because I need them for my mental health) or decide I'm ready to be off it, I'll quit taking it. And then, maybe a few months or a year after that, SLAM! I'm back in depression.

That is what happened this last time. I was getting services from the mental health department in the county I lived in. However, that wasn't working out, because I was living with my so-called friends while caring for their children full-time as what started out as a paid nanny and ended up as some sort of indentured servant. Since I rarely got paid for watching the children, my income was basically 0. The county wanted to know how I could survive on 0, and when I explained that I was living with these "friends," the county wanted the friends' tax information. The friends weren't willing to supply it... and so, the county could no longer help me. I ran out of meds, suffered through the painful flu-like symptoms involved with sudden withdrawal for a few weeks, and that was that. (I did try to wean myself off a little by cutting  my last few pills in half and taking half every other day, to ease the pain. It may have worked a tiny bit.)

I ended up moving out of my "friends'" house in December, moving to another county to live with my parents. I was going to try to finish school. I have about a year left. The problem was, when I left my "friends" behind, I also left behind their children, whom I had helped raise full time for the past three years and whom I had known well since their births... and their other friends and family members, who I had known for years and cared for very much. Basically, I left my whole life behind. And that triggered a bout of depression. At first it wasn't so bad... but over the summer, it got super bad, to the point where I cried every day. I, who have been living on my own off and on since I was 17, now found that I cried heartbrokenly when my parents went on a 5-day-long vacation, or when I had to stay overnight somewhere for work, or when I read a sad book... just about anything can knock me down.

And the anxiety that comes along with it... I finally secured a job that could work around my school schedule, only to find that I was sad and nervous to the point of vomiting every day before work. I would be bawling every morning as I left the house, and when I was at work, all I could think was, "I want to go home, need to go home, don't wanna be here, need to go home." This was much more intense than the usual "my job sucks" kind of feeling. I've had other jobs that suck, and when I am healthy, I am able to find a bright side of anything. When I'm healthy, I really am an upbeat person, who puts her heart and soul into any job she has, and looks for ways to make things more bearable. When I am in depression, I cannot do anything but survive each minute.

But I have no meds.

So I finally emailed my new boss and said I need a few weeks off to deal with a medical crisis.

And now, I have to find a way to get better!