I grew up in NYC where they have always fought to provide healthcare to poor communities through the Medicaid program and other iterations. In a way, I am lucky because as a child from a low income family I still had access to great health care. Thankfully, we did not have to forego any medical care due to our inability to pay. Me and my sister personally benefited multiple times when we were growing up. We were able to be admitted to one of the best children’s hospitals in the country for care, even though our family would have had no way to afford it on our own.
As a young adult, once I started earning a decent living and did not qualify for the free government healthcare I had a rude awakening. I was young and making it on my own but the cost of my copays and medicine for my mental health treatment put a huge financial and emotional strain on me. From ages 19 to 25 years old the cost of my mental health treatment was a huge burden for me. At some points I had “great” insurance but it was still was expensive to get the care I needed. Copays were adding up to $600 per month and that didn’t even include my medications. This made finances part of the reason I had so much stress in my life and kept needing the psychological care. How awful is that?! A lot of my money went to paying for my mental health treatment. It wasn’t until my then fiance and I were in Spain and I found a psychologist there that I found some financial relief. The visits were A LOT less expensive. I had private health insurance, just like in the states, and I finally had a miniman ($50 or less) or no copay. The care was also different and less reliant on constant talk therapy and medication. It was such a refreshing approach and I did get so much better. Plus, the medicine in Spain was so much cheaper than in the US that it was practically free. All the costs that I had to care for my mental health were now less than a hundred dollars per month. That was a $500 difference! It was huge for me. The weight that had been lifted from my shoulders was tremendous.
In Spain I got so much better and when I returned to the US I knew my approach to my mental health care would have to change as well. And I made sure it did. I work with a psychiatrist who was focused on a holistic approach to my mental health and did not drown me or drain my bank account in needless talk therapy sessions. This saved me hundreds of dollars a month on copays, freeing up my income and reducing stress. It also gave me time and space to focus on the things that could help me like exercising, spending time outside, working on my sleep patterns, and circadian rhythms. It has been 10 years since we moved back from Spain and though my life has a lot more stress than it did when I was 19 or 25, I am so happy to say that I have been able to keep major episodes at bay this entire time. That’s ten years of bipolar remission.
