CW – medication shenanigans, pissedoffedness at the American Healthcare system, feelings.

Today we are embarking on the adventure of trying the meds. My therapist agrees that this is a path that makes sense.

A psychiatrist’s office who happens to take my insurance happened to be taking new patients during a time when I happened to have insurance during a time when I happened to be in a solid enough mental space to make a phone call and schedule and appointment. This is like one of those planetary alignments that only happens once every several thousand years.

Feeling a little scared. The last time I tried to do this, I got a prescription from the kind of GP who immediately goes into crisis mode whenever the words “suicidal ideation” enter the room.

It’s like the conversation ends at the precise moment when the emergency training takes over. The talk is no longer about trying to find a way to make my life more livable, the talk is now about keeping me alive. There’s a difference there.

And I came here today because I needed your help with the first thing, not the second thing. I came here because I can’t do this thing by myself, I have tried, I still really haven’t let go of needing to do this alone because my ego takes up so much space but I’m here, and I really need to focus to stay on the thing that I came here for. I don’t want to talk about whether or not I have a plan, or if I have people in my life who’d be sad if I wasn’t here anymore. Not with you. Not with a stranger with a clipboard in this sterile, impersonal room with florescent lights. Please.

Not in this moment when it’s impossibly hard to remember what I came here to ask for and why in the first place because my thoughts are scattered from the drive and the traffic and the co-pays and the children in the waiting room. Not in this moment when I’m not sure if I’ll be treated for the right thing becsuse the words that convey what I’m trying to tell you won’t necessarily come out of my mouth when they’re called.

Last time I tried taking meds, and didn’t feel comfortable being open with the doctor doing the prescribing, I was… I ended up being too tired to move for several months and I never realized why. Ultimately, I ended up taking myself off 30mg’s of antidepressants, not quite cold turkey but almost, without telling anyone, just when they’d actually started working, because…

sometimes, I am miraculously dumb.

We’re trying this again, now, because I’m in a place where things are livable but I don’t know when the other shoe is going to drop. I have to try to put a safety net in place while the sun’s still out, before it’s too dark to see. But I don’t know if this net is actually going to catch me.

And I – you know. My mother told me once that she worries that if I take meds that mess with how my brain works, I will literally become a different person without realizing this from the inside. Because she doesn’t trust western medicine, she finds evidence in fringe places on the internet to support that the possibility that the side effects isn’t worth the risk of trying to find something that helps. When I tell my family that I’m going to try taking meds again, her jaw clenches and the lines around her eyes get harsher.

If only I would take fish oil, and go for more walks in the sun…

It’s hard for me. I can’t tell if this feeling about not wanting to have to take pills is my pride or my intuition or my mother’s bias.

Anyway.

I went and met with psychiatric nurse practitioner – over the phone, because COVID, but her voice seemed alright. It went okay. Those meetings are strange, because of how personal they become, so quickly.

Apparently I have to try one kind of medicine first, even though it might not be perfect for me, because insurance companies will only pay for the better stuff if I can’t tolerate the older stuff which happens to be cheaper. On the plus side, it sounds like this person will listen to me if I tell her I’m not tolerating it well.

I really just kind of hate the entire American health care system.

Also, note to self – don’t fall down the internet rabbithole of reading reviews about people who experienced horrible terrible side effects from the same exact dose of a new medication that I’ve been prescribed. Don’t do that, ever again. That is the stuff of nightmares.

Breathe.

I’m glad I got around to doing this.

There were a lot of things on my list, in the world of health, at the beginning of 2020. Find a therapist, replace the glasses I lost in Germany, take care of the wisdom teeth, start the process of finding meds that actually feel okay. I’ve done those things, even in the midst of the chaos that this year has been. And it feels good, even though I am exhausted, even though there will always be other things. I feel oddly lucky.

For now, I am just – sitting on the couch. It’s grey out. There are cats. I don’t have that pervasive feeling that I’m not really, actually loved, because I’m too busy thinking about how to build a sentence out of German words. My legs hurt, but I’d like to walk soon anyway.

Love you. Soo much. 🖤