I don't know if it gets better. It gets...different. Sometimes it's an improvement and sometimes it isn't. Sometimes things change but don't get better or worse, but at least it's a change.
Does it get better? It can, and I think the very fact that it's a possibility is important. While there's life, there's hope, as our hero always says.
I'm about to be 29 and I've struggled with depression pretty much since I hit adolescence, although it took me until 18 to be diagnosed. I think....these things come and go. I've had entire years that I felt more 'normal' and things have come more easily. I've had months and months where just getting out of bed and feeding myself seemed like about all I could do
( ... )
Started feeling it around age 13, diagnosed with major depressive disorder at 14, rediagnosed with bipolar disorder at 19. Now I'm 29 and it's a pre-existing medical condition that my health insurance won't cover. Though, really, after my last stint in the hospital I'm not overwhelmed with faith in modern medicine, so perhaps it doesn't matter.
On some days there is hope; it buzzes in the air like a tangible thing and I can smile. (I smile a lot, really, all things considered, and perhaps this isn't a sign of anything.) On other days, though, it is so alien a concept as to be incomprehensible. I wake every morning without knowledge of which day today will be like. Perhaps tomorrow it will be better, but I can never say for the next day. That uncertainty can be hard. Is hard. Maybe tomorrow I'll figure it out, find a way to cope with it. A whole life built on maybes... if it feels fragile, it's because it is.
If you decide you do need health insurance that covers your mental health stuff - due to the recent health care act, every state is now required to offer insurance to people who have been denied coverage due to pre-existing conditions. It's supposed to tide people over until the requirement kicks in for all plans. I don't know how high premiums and deductibles may be.
Also, you might want to call your insurance company and see if they have changed their tune. The insurance at my husband's work no longer denies coverage based on pre-existing conditions, even though in Massachusetts they can deny coverage for 6 months. Probably in some sort of PR effort to keep people from taking switching to the state programs.
Being in one of the worst states for healthcare myself (Texas), I'm not going to hold my breath. But even if I had access to it, it's such a minefield. In my experience there's a very careful path to tread with healthcare professionals, where you have to present yourself in such a way as that you need help, but at the same time hold back because you don't want to go from "try this new medicine" to "what you really need is some time in the hospital." The last I have done both with and without my consent, and this last, I suspect, has engendered some long-term distrust of the medical profession.
I am trying to sort out health insurance right now, though, and if I actually manage to do it, I suppose I'll see where the wind takes me.
I can only say useless things, like that I feel like I know exactly, to a frightening (no, really, utterly terrifying to me) degree what a lot of this feels like, and that I don't know anything about whether or not it gets better. I think I pin my hopes on external things to "make it better" and then keep shifting the bar. That at least deflects the basic idea of hopelessness, and that way I do at least keep on making my life more the way I think it should be, whether or not that's actually better. I think, though, betterness is a possibility? I'm always hoping so, anyway.
I wish I talked to you more. I'm a terrible excuse for a person who cares what happens to others, and I'll work on it.
It's all right. Most of the time I can't be coaxed into talking back, which shouldn't be considered uselessness or a failing of any kind on your part. It's just a thing. It's how things are.
Y'know, you *can* say "No, I don't want to help you today" and I will understand totally. Because I've been there too, and even if I'm not there now I'm still not convinced I won't go back.
So. Yes and no. It gets better, but not all the time, but it gets easier, sometimes, once you work out what is a Thing and what is not a thing. Wanting a daytime nap is just because you stayed up all night watching bad movies, and not the start of something bigger, even though they feel a bit the same.
Oh, no, far better to keep myself occupied, under any circumstance.
Talking I'm not sold on. Words don't really change the shape of things, only describe the shape of things. Life is what it is; things are shaped how they're shaped.
I don't know everything. I may not be right: but similarly, I've invested a lot of time in words over the years and I may not be wrong, either.
Comments 11
Does it get better? It can, and I think the very fact that it's a possibility is important. While there's life, there's hope, as our hero always says.
Reply
Reply
On some days there is hope; it buzzes in the air like a tangible thing and I can smile. (I smile a lot, really, all things considered, and perhaps this isn't a sign of anything.) On other days, though, it is so alien a concept as to be incomprehensible. I wake every morning without knowledge of which day today will be like. Perhaps tomorrow it will be better, but I can never say for the next day. That uncertainty can be hard. Is hard. Maybe tomorrow I'll figure it out, find a way to cope with it. A whole life built on maybes... if it feels fragile, it's because it is.
Reply
Also, you might want to call your insurance company and see if they have changed their tune. The insurance at my husband's work no longer denies coverage based on pre-existing conditions, even though in Massachusetts they can deny coverage for 6 months. Probably in some sort of PR effort to keep people from taking switching to the state programs.
Reply
I am trying to sort out health insurance right now, though, and if I actually manage to do it, I suppose I'll see where the wind takes me.
Reply
I wish I talked to you more. I'm a terrible excuse for a person who cares what happens to others, and I'll work on it.
Reply
Reply
So. Yes and no. It gets better, but not all the time, but it gets easier, sometimes, once you work out what is a Thing and what is not a thing. Wanting a daytime nap is just because you stayed up all night watching bad movies, and not the start of something bigger, even though they feel a bit the same.
Talking helps, mostly.
Reply
Talking I'm not sold on. Words don't really change the shape of things, only describe the shape of things. Life is what it is; things are shaped how they're shaped.
I don't know everything. I may not be right: but similarly, I've invested a lot of time in words over the years and I may not be wrong, either.
Reply
Reply
Leave a comment