Covered, But Not Really: My Latest Battle with U.S. Healthcare

I have Medicare. That should mean something, right?

I told my psychiatrist I have Medicare. I’ve seen them before. We’ve talked. I’ve paid my copay. It’s all been fine … until now. Now I’m being told they “don’t take Wellcare.”

What is Wellcare? It’s a Medicare Advantage plan. And if you haven’t had the misfortune of dealing with one of these “advantage” plans, let me explain: they’re private insurance companies that slap a Medicare label on themselves so they can skim government money and give you less coverage in return.

So even though I’m on Medicare, I now owe the full amount for my last visit. And unless I want to cancel my next appointment — which I actually need — I’ll be paying the full amount for that one too. Because apparently “covered” doesn’t mean “covered.” It means “maybe, sometimes, depending on how many loopholes we can find.”

This is what healthcare in America looks like.

You can do everything right. You can make sure you’re insured. You can communicate. You can follow every rule. And still you get blindsided. You get billed. And you’re left scrambling to afford the care you already thought you paid for.

Meanwhile, insurance companies profit off confusion. They profit off denial. They profit off people like me being left in the dark until the invoice hits.

This isn’t just frustrating, it’s designed this way. They make it complicated on purpose. If you get screwed, it’s your fault for “not understanding the network.” If you ask for help, they hand you a phone number and a maze of menus. And if you give up? Great. They win. Less to pay out.

This is not a healthcare system. It’s a profit machine dressed up like one.

And right now, I’m just another cog getting crushed in it.

Living with Bipolar 2 Disorder

Living with bipolar 2 disorder is a journey I never chose, but one that has shaped me in ways I’m learning to appreciate.

At its core, bipolar 2 is about navigating two very different worlds: hypomania, where energy and ideas flow faster than I can keep up with, and depression, where even getting out of bed can feel impossible. Neither lasts forever, and learning that was the first step toward building a life I actually want to live.

In the past, I thought stability was impossible. When hypomania hits, I’ll race ahead without sleep, full of excitement, and bold plans. When the depression takes over, I’ll crash so hard it feels like nothing will ever get better. It took some time (and a lot of help involving a wonderful psychiatrist and medication) to realize that these cycles don’t define me. They were just part of the landscape I needed to learn to navigate.

Today, things are different. They’re not perfect–never perfect–but better. With the right support, the right tools, and a lot of self-awareness, I’ve found ways to catch the early signs of a shift. I’ve learned how to slow myself down when I start to climb too fast, and how to reach out when I feel myself sinking.

Therapy, medication, and daily routines have been game changers. So having self-compassion, patience, and the courage to admit when I need help. Recovery isn’t about never struggling again, it’s about building a life that can survive the struggles.

There are gifts in this too. Bipolar 2 has made me more creative, more empathetic, more resilient. It’s taught me to appreciate stability when I have it, to savor the small moments of peace, to celebrate progress no matter how small. It’s taught me that healing isn’t a straight line, and that setbacks don’t erase the work I’ve done and continue to do.

Living with bipolar 2 isn’t easy, but it’s not hopeless although sometimes it feels that way and there are days I want to give up. Every day I’m learning more about who I am, and every day I’m choosing, again and again, to keep going.

If you’re struggling: it’s not your fault.

You’re not broken.

And there is a way through.

Maybe not a perfect cure, but a path: messy, winding, but real. And it’s worth walking.

Boredom’s Not a Burden Anyone Should Bear

I wake up every day just like everyone else does that hasn’t passed away the night before, but here recently I’ve done nothing but wake up stressed and anxious. I go to bed stressed and anxious. I have had to take my anxiety meds more and more as of late, which I don’t like. I feel like my skin is crawling most days. I feel like crawling out of my skin. I can’t sit still, I toss and turn in bed, trying to find the most comfortable position. When I do find a position that’s comfortable it doesn’t last long. I have to switch from my left side to my right and then I’m on my back once again with my hands over my chest, fingers interlocked. I was told by a friend of mine when we shared a hotel room together one night that I look like a corpse when I sleep. At least the dead sleep soundly.

New Year’s Eve was an enjoyable night for me. I got to spend it with friends I don’t get to see very often. However, I’m unable to stay up as late as I once was. I think I finally crashed on my friends’ couch around two in the morning. I remember the times before when I was able to stay awake, drink, smoke pot, and talk about virtually anything until nearly six in the morning. Two in the morning is late for me now. I find myself going to bed around 8pm or so these days, sometimes even sooner than that. I’m not even tired when I go to bed. I just have nothing else to do.

I have new books to read to keep me busy right now. I am able to get through several pages some days and others I can’t finish a paragraph before that feeling of wanting to break out of my skin happens once more. I don’t want to be dependent on meds, but they’re the only way I’m able to feel some sense of normalcy. I’m stuck between wanting to do something and wanting to do nothing at all.

Why aren’t we able to just sit and be bored? Why can’t I just lie in bed and be happy that there’s nothing to do, nowhere to go, no obligations to meet? It’s hard for me to go out anymore. I just can’t bring myself to be around other people. New Year’s Eve was an exception. I had a great time with my friends, but there was still that part of me beforehand that was wondering if I was going to change my mind and just stay home and ring in the new year in a slumber. I’m wondering if my meds need to be changed again, but my psychiatrist said she doesn’t like to switch or alter meds during the holiday season. Who knows? Maybe if she went against what she likes doing with her patients then I’d be OK right now.

Then again, maybe I’ll never be OK. The suicidal thoughts aren’t as bad as they once were, but they’re still there. They happen mostly at night, but not always. Sometimes during the day since it’s just me here with nothing to occupy my time and the anxiety that hits me out of nowhere that I just want an out. Yet I press on. I think I’ll press on right now by taking a nap.

Fuck. I’ve only been awake for four hours and I’m already wanting a nap and fantasizing even more about tonight when I get to sleep for 10-12 long hours only to repeat the entire routine all over again the next day.

Anti-Natalism Chronicles XIV: A Return

It’s going to be hard to type this since I’m on a different computer since my Mac is being serviced at the moment so sorry for any mistakes. It’s a bitch getting used to a different keyboard when you’ve used the same one for three years now. I wanted to talk once again about anti-natalism since that’s mostly what my blog is about and one of my main beliefs as a person.

I was sitting outside just now, having my morning coffee when I started thinking about my last relationship and how it ended because she brought up the fact that she wanted children one day. We had known each other for seven years. We dated for two of those seven years. She knew how I felt about having children and at one point said she didn’t want any, either. Out of the blue one night as we were lying in bed together she said she thinks she may want them one day. “Well, you know how I feel about that. Besides, you know I’ve gotten a vasectomy so it’s kind of a done deal for me.”

No harsh words were spoken or exchanged. We didn’t argue. We just kind of decided that this was one area where we weren’t going to be able to reach a compromise. There is no compromising when it comes to children. You either want them or you don’t and I don’t.

I had always joked that every girl from my hometown was born pregnant because they either had a baby by high school (middle school in some cases) or it was the first thing that happened after high school. Practically everyone I know now has at least one child so that sucks for me as far as dating is concerned. It’s just one of those things that’s a definitive “no” for me. Kind of like anal is a definitive “no” for a lot of women. Hey, you don’t do butt stuff. I don’t like kids. I respect your decision to not do butt stuff. Respect my decision to not have children.

I don’t think I’d make a good dad anyway. It’s not like I had a positive influence in the dad department growing up so who’s to say I wouldn’t be an asshole just like my father was? I’ve also got the mental and physical health issues going on so why would I risk bringing a child into the world with said issues? That’s something I’ve never understood about people who have mental issues, emotional issues, health issues, etc. that are genetic. If they’re genetic and you know you risk passing them onto your offspring then why do you go ahead with having your own offspring? Kind of a dick move on your part.

Maybe I have more compassion than others or I give myself credit for. I don’t want to bring any children into a world such as this one; a world plagued by violence, climate change, disease, and a number of other things that could go wrong and do go wrong on a daily basis. I see commercials for hospitals for children with cancer and just think to myself if only their parents didn’t have them at all then those children wouldn’t be going through what they’re going through right now.

We all want suffering to end so shouldn’t we be stopping it before it begins? There’s no suffering in non-existence. I’ve never once met a person who didn’t exist that had cancer. I’ve never once met a person who didn’t exist that got murdered for no reason at all. Call it a coincidence if you want, but I think there’s something more to my theory here.

If you already have children then by all means, love them with every fiber of your being and take care of them to the best of your ability.

If you don’t have children then do what’s best for the children you don’t have and leave them be in whatever dimension there is before birth. All that comes with existence is suffering and eventual death and heartbreak.

What’s My Drug of Choice? Well, What Have You Got?

I remember reading a blog some time ago on another site by some old fuck that lives in her own little world and refuses to accept that the world changes, and she refuses to accept that sometimes people can’t help their situations. One particular blog of hers was about drug addiction, which was something she clearly knew nothing about. “People who use drugs have no one to blame but themselves. They had the choice to use drugs or not to use drugs and they chose to do it so they shouldn’t be helped.”

I was talking to my brother-in-law about this. We used the example of a party one time. No one goes to a party and just blurts out, “So who’s got heroin in this motherfucker?” A lot of the time heroin stems from an addiction to opiates, which are prescribed by doctors to manage pain. We as humans will find any way possible to eliminate the pain in our lives, whether it’s physical or emotional.

I started drinking and using pills when I was 19 or so. I’ve used coke, still smoke weed, drink occasionally (but have recently discovered that I can’t drink alone anymore. I won’t drink alone anymore.) Also, as I mentioned in my previous blog, I tripped on acid for the first time this past weekend. We’re all looking for ways to avoid, ignore, or eliminate pain. I don’t know too many people who become addicts because they’re happy. No one drinks alone because they’re entertaining happy thoughts. Those of us who use are trying to mask, hide, and again, eliminate pain. We’ll go to any lengths to do it.

I know what depression is like. I’ve struggled with it since my teens. It’s not something that’s easy to live with and it’s not something I’d wish on another person. Then again, maybe I would just so someone else could walk a day in my shoes to know what the pain is like. I commented on a friend of mine’s blog about depression, saying:

Sadness and depression are two very different things. I have felt sat before and I struggle with depression. Sadness is the loss of a job, the feeling you have after a fight with your partner, failing that test you studied so hard for.

Depression is wanting out. There is nothing to life and you go along every day and wonder why you still bother in the first place. It’s feeling that nothing is ever going to get better and dreading the days ahead. It’s sleeping the day away because you can’t bring yourself to face it. It’s just not wanting to play anymore as David Foster Wallace said in Infinite Jest. Nothing brings you joy but the nothingness of being unconscious somehow whether it’s from sleeping or being passed out from the night before.

It’s why we choose things that are bad for us to handle the pain. We drink, we do drugs, we try to numb the pain anyway we can because it’s physical and mental. You don’t feel anything when you’re on drugs. That’s the feeling we want … the feeling of not feeling at all.

It’s why so many who suffer from depression commit suicide. They want an out. They’re done with playing and have realized this life has nothing to give them.

I struggle every day with the feeling of not wanting to feel. I lie in bed and sleep for hours on end because I just don’t want to know what the day holds for me and I don’t care. I just want to be out of it. I want to be put into a coma so I won’t have to be dead, but I won’t have to deal with what’s going on in my mind anymore, either.

Knowing this, how could you say you don’t understand why people turn to drugs? It’s easier, faster, and sometimes cheaper than therapy.

You can’t understand a user’s mind
But try, with your books and degrees
If you let yourself go and opened your mind
I’ll bet you’d be doing like me and it isn’t so bad

Drinking, Drugs, and Skydiving

I’ve mentioned that my grandmother has Alzheimer’s. I’ve been helping my mom take care of her for the past five years. On Monday she had a stroke and was unable to communicate with my cousin or myself. She had fallen off her bed and was unable to get back up. We could tell she was in pain, but we didn’t want to move her because we didn’t want to further damage anything she may have broken. We sat there while I was on the phone with 9-1-1, waiting for the paramedics to arrive. None of us knew what to do. My cousin was a mess. She could do nothing but cry. I’ve never been good at comforting others. I can tell jokes and make smart ass remarks all day to make you laugh, but I’m not a hugger and never have been. The only thing I knew to do was to give my cousin one of my anti-anxiety meds to calm her down.

My grandmother is still in the hospital. It was determined she did indeed have a stroke and she has bleeding on the brain. We’ve been told it’s only a matter of time and that we should be thinking about hospice care for her at this point. I’ve made my peace with it. I think it will be a relief to myself as well as my mom. I don’t know what triggered it, but I had a breakdown tonight, just thinking that “So that’s what life has in store for me if I live that long?” I want know part of it. I was looking up states where it’s legal for assisted suicide and I believe that’s what I want to do. I’ll sign whatever papers I need to in order for someone somewhere to take me out of this world if I can’t do it on my own.

I don’t want to be trapped inside my own body that’s no longer working. I don’t want to be trapped inside my own mind half the time already. I mentally shut down tonight and could do nothing but let the tears flow. I guess I’m only human after all and I hate it. None of us are getting any younger. I try to ignore it and mask whatever pain I feel because of it with whatever drugs I have readily available, whether they’ve been prescribed to me or I’ve bought them from a friend or a friend of a friend.

I don’t know how normal people deal with life sucking so much, but I’ve found my way and it’s through substances; substances and sleep. I just want to drift off into darkness until the next day arrives and do it all over again. Is that what we all do? Does everyone just find ways of distracting themselves from the pain of reality and daily life? Do we all take whatever drug is thrown our way whether it’s pills, alcohol, sex, sleep, television, etc.? I even wonder about people who jump from airplanes and parachute and bungee jump. Are they just looking for some type of escape from the emptiness that consumes their lives?

How can we judge people who take drugs or drink when we’re all just looking for our own way to get by in life?

Anti-Natalism and Mental Illness Mash-Up

I’m back again. This is my second post of the night. A lot of my posts deal with my discussing my mental illness as well as my anti-natalist views. I figured why not post a blog that touches on both of these topics? People get the wrong impression as far as anti-natalists are concerned. They think we’re a bunch of misanthropic assholes who just think the world should burn. I’m not going to lie, I am pretty misanthropic, but I consider myself a philanthropic misanthrope. I try to do good by others and extend a hand if someone needs help, but if the human race were to die out tomorrow then I think it’d be for the best and we had it coming for a long time anyway.

Mental illness seems to run in my family. Dad was bipolar. My sister’s bipolar. My mom suffers from depression and anxiety. I think about people who have mental illness in their family who have children and wonder why they decided to have said children. I wonder the same thing about people who have issues such as diabetes, cancer, and things of that nature that run in their families. Why do you want to pass these things onto other people? It’s cruel if you ask me.

People don’t consider what they may be putting their offspring through nor what they may be putting themselves through. I’ll never have children so I’ll never experience the pain of losing a child, but for those out there who suffer with mental illness and have passed it onto their children, what if your children don’t deal with it as well as you do? What if they can’t or don’t get the help they need and do something drastic? It could lead to something tragic, something tragic that could have been avoided had you just not decided to procreate in the first place.

Procreation isn’t fair to the unborn. You’re giving them a life that they didn’t ask for and quite possibly a life they’re going to not end up wanting as they get older. What then? I suppose you could get them help with a professional and get them on some meds, but those don’t always work. Speaking from experience, I’ve been through my share of meds and therapies to try to “get better” and I still struggle daily with thoughts of suicide. They haven’t been as prominent in recent months, but they’re still at the back of my mind. What’s usually on my mind these days is wishing I’d never been born in the first place.

I, like billions of others, had no say in this matter. I just struggle to understand why my parents wanted to have me knowing what ran in the family. Is it any surprise to anyone that I’d be stuck here suffering through the same issues, suffering with the same thoughts and feelings? The shitty part is that I think as I get older, it gets worse. I’m just getting closer and closer to the grave and for some reason it’s starting to worry me a bit and I don’t know why. I wasn’t always afraid of death like I am now.

Why do you want to put others through things like this? It’s not fair to them. We all know life isn’t fair so spare others from experiencing that. Spare others from experiencing thoughts of their own demise. Spare others from the stigma that’s associated with mental illness. Just spare others from pain by leaving them in whatever realm they’re in before this thing called life begins.

I Like the Way You Work It. No Dignity.

Everything is testing my patience today. For one thing the two dogs are restless and I just want them to settle down for the night, but that’s not my main issue. That’s just a minor inconvenience at the moment. They’ll eventually calm down. The main problem I’m having is family related. I don’t know if I’ve ever mentioned it before, but my grandmother has dementia. I’ve been helping my mother take care of her for the past five years. My grandfather had it as well, but he passed three years ago (or maybe it was two years ago. I can’t remember.)

The rest of my family lives in their own little world of denial and seem to think that she’s going to get better. There’s no cure for dementia. It gradually gets worse until the person’s brain pretty much just withers away and they die. No one but my mom, my sister, and I see this for some reason.

At one point it was mentioned by one of my mom’s sisters that I do more to help with my grandmother and that triggered an “Excuse the merry fuck out of me!” response considering I do more to take care of the old bat than my aunt had ever done. I am someone who constantly says how much I do not want children and stand quite firm when it comes to that. I don’t want to take care of a child, much less a 90-year-old woman who acts like a child. If you don’t believe me then spend an afternoon with the woman and see. She pouts, throws tantrums, can’t wipe her ass (and I’m sure as fuck not going to wipe it for her. I leave that for my mom and aunts.)

I’m dealing with my own mental illness and on my particularly bad days it takes all I have to crawl out of bed. I do what I can because my mom asks me to do it and I want to help my mom since she’s done so much for me all these years. I know my mom doesn’t fully understand my mental illness, but that’s my fault for not really opening up about it like I should. She does understand a bit of it, though. She has also informed her sisters about it and that I’m not capable of taking care of someone else with a mental illness like dementia.

It seems like a game of catch when it comes to my grandmother, just tossing her around from one family member to the other. In all honesty, I wish they’d just put her in a home. That may sound cruel to some of you out there reading this, but I think it’d be the best thing for her. She can get constant care. My mom and one of her sisters both work full-time jobs, which is why I’ve stepped in over the past five years to help out. My mom’s other sister is retired and who the fuck knows why she doesn’t just take her? She’s too worried about it cutting into her vacations she takes with her husband, I suppose.

I’ve been stressed ever since my grandmother returned and I’ve been avoiding her in order to avoid a fight. I used to never swear around her, but there was a time a few months back where she was fighting me as far as taking her medication and I had to yell at her, “Take your fucking pills!” Do I sound like the kind of person suited for this fucking job? I didn’t think so, either.

I don’t know why living into old age is something people strive for. If you’re going to lose your mind then you might as well take yourself out because it’s not pretty. Fuck dying with dignity. There’s no such thing.

You know that you tried to hide it Shouldn’t you have said what you meant? Oh…

I found out a dear friend of mine – one of my best friends since high school – tried to kill himself not too long ago. It was because of his wife. He discovered she was cheating on him. They hadn’t even been married a year (eight months.) Her reasoning? She told him that his depression and anxiety caused her to cheat. He gave me the whole story. I don’t know his wife. I’ve never met her in my life. I didn’t go to the wedding or anything for reasons I won’t get into. Eric (not his real name) has always been honest with me as far as I know. I know Eric has his issues. I have mine as well. I know Eric has always struggled with depression and anxiety just as I have. I’ve got something he has never really had though: a support system. I wish he had one so that he didn’t think he had to end his own life.

I’m thankful that he failed at killing himself, but I also feel like shit because I’m not exactly sure how to help, either. We’ve always both just joked about our mental illness. I remember one of the best jokes I ever heard — this is just his and my fucked up sense of humor — being when I hadn’t seen Eric in a while, me asking him how he’d been doing, and I asked what he’d been up to. He replied, “I go to work every day, come home and make myself some dinner; sometimes I’ll play a video game for a few hours; and occasionally I’ll stare at the noose I have hanging in my closet and say to myself, “Maybe tomorrow.” I laughed to the point where I could barely breathe.

This recent turn of events in Eric’s life got me thinking about honesty as well. People always claim they want honesty in their relationship, but do they really? Does a woman or man who has put on a few pounds really want their significant other to tell them? If someone in a relationship isn’t looking their best one day then do they want their significant other to tell them they look like shit (in a nicer way than that, of course)? If your spouse is cheating, do you really want to know?

I came to the conclusion a long time ago that people extol honesty until you’re honest with them. You can tell them all day long how you were honest with someone and they will tell you how you did the right thing, but as soon as they ask a question about themselves and demand an honest answer and you give it to them then you can consider that particular relationship or friendship finished. A husband or wife doesn’t want to know that their partner is being unfaithful. If they ask and their partner says, “No. I’m not cheating on you,” it’s better for both parties because no one gets hurt. However, if you’re caught then you might as well fess up because you know there’s no getting out of it.

I’ve never agreed with someone in a relationship cheating on their partner and just coming outright and telling their partner when their partner didn’t ask. I don’t agree with cheating, either; I want to make that perfectly clear. If your partner doesn’t ask then keep your mouth shut. If your partner asks then should you lie? I guess it depends on whether or not you’re a good liar.

Dr. Brad Blanton’s “radical honesty” isn’t going to win you any friends. Being honest with friends is going to make you lose them one day. My advice? Just stick to lying in order to save face. Read up on it if you have to in order to learn how to do it better.

Or you can just not be a piece of shit who feels the need to do shitty things to people.