So glad I spent the last few evenings reviewing solution-based therapists who specialize in my areas of difficulty only to find the copays prevent me from getting help to navigate this journey.
Unbelievable.
What do I do now that I have not tried before? What else is there?
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That’s the problem. If you need help, you can’t get it if you’re poor. Help costs $$$.
And that’s even assuming help is even good. I’ve had shitty ass therapists and counselors. Not even worth going if it’s free.
You could join free online depression or trauma groups but I’ve done that and they’re not helpful either. Mainly bc they’re just regular ppl who are also depressed.
Some ppl have tried chatting with ChatGPT. You could try that but it’ll spit out the same garbage that must therapists are taught to say.
Chat GPT did help me to recognize that my outlook and responses pointed to a pattern of behavior that I did not recognize as being out of the ordinary.
It actually led me to understand what type of therapy would be beneficial.
How much are your copays?
$50.
I was hoping for short-term solution-based therapy, twice a month, but with other appts and expenses coming up there is now way I can afford that, even if it is a necessity.
It’s insane how insurance covers the sessions but I’m still left with $20-$40 after insurance. For a effing 45min session. And no my therapist was not even good.
That’s what concerns me.
Wasting time and money on a therapist that isn’t suited to my personality or my problem. Then what? I cannot afford to go backwards. I had come so far….
I guess you’ll have to rawdog it like I’ve been doing all my life. And look how well I turned out.
But seriously, if you can’t get healthcare then the only other option is to self-diagnose, self-psychoanalyze and self-medicate. It sounds crazy but if you think about it, no one is more qualified to know about you than you.
Trickiest part is self-medicating. You obviously can’t get the boutique drugs, but if you study which classes of drugs exist and what you need, then you can more or less find something in the ballpark. You’ll have to experiment a lot, and some of these experiments may drive you to jump off a roof or two, but is there any other option?
Psychiatric meds are bs. None of that shit actually helps ppl. It only deadens you so you don’t feel the pain and depression as much, so you go plodding on in life as a zombie
There’s been zero benefit from any such medication, quite the opposite. Paxil made me exponentially suicidal. Effexor made me into an automaton. Prozac made me feel like two separate people, my mind could not rest at night, like I was living a separate life at night that I was completely unaware of.
I also suspect that the whole selective serotonin uptake inhibitor theory is b.s. created to push ****** that doesn’t work. Then they create more drugs to take when an antidepressant doesn’t seem to be working to ADD to the regimen and another to deal with the side effects (tardive dyskinesia). Insanity!!!
There is no such thing as a “chemical imbalance.” That was finally debunked.
The “selective serotonin uptake inhibitor theory” is also bs.
Search for “Dr Josef” on YT. He’s a double board certified psychiatrist that debunks these myths and lies by psychiatrists and the ph.arm.aceutical industry.
He helps ppl taper off these toxic psych meds.
And yes, all this is designed to pad their wallets. Psychiatric meds are a BILLION dollar industry, if not trillions.
Holy fuck, my reply to you was automatically sent to trash bc we’re not allowed to use the word ph.arma.ceutical. How ridiculous is it that we can’t even type that word? Why is there censorship on this site regarding big ph.arma and its dr ugs?
Rawdog is right. Doing that for a long time as well.
Thinking supplements may help, but then we get back into expensive solutions that may not work. Better than doing nothing at all.
How would you describe your problem and what kind of drugs might help? For example I suffer from uncontrollable episodes of anxiety and panic, and during those times I think some sort of tranquilizer helps. I can’t get my hands on the good stuff (Xanax) but sleeping pills (diphenhydramine hcl) are available OTC, and certain painkillers also act like mild tranquilizers, so I that’s what I take as-needed.
An anti depressant would help also, since there are days when I can’t get out of bed. But since I can’t get any, the next best analogue would be a stimulant (“anti-depressant”) so I drink enormous amounts of coffee and eat tons of fresh fruits, avoid heavy foods and avoid alcohol (depressants).
I guess that’s the kind of stuff I’m talking about, a logical methodical approach to self-medicating, not just getting drunk & high which is a trap that’s many self-medicators fall into.
As I see it, our OTC options are stimulants (caffeine), depressants (alcohol), tranquilizers (benadryl) and painkillers (whatever you can get your hands on), and we have to make do with those.
Lucky for you that you can’t get your hands on these drugs. Big Pha,rma makes drugs that are toxic for us.
Just search for “Dr Josef” on YT and he’ll tell you how bad abs toxic these psych drugs are to the body. And he a double board certified psychiatrist. He helps ppl taper off these drugs.
I never took psych meds long term but I wish I knew decades ago, bc the whole medical and psychiatric industry gaslights us into thinking we are “born defective” and is “chronically imbalanced” (that has been debunked) or missing serotonin.
No, the vast majority of us are depressed bc of LIFE issues (bad job, bad boss, bad finances, shitty ppl in our lives or shitty ppl in general, bad living situation, stuck in a shitty city/state/country. have shitty parents, etc.
95% of ppls depression are due to life issues- NOT that there is “something wrong with us.”
If we have shitty friends, no friends, shitty family, lack of money, etc, OFC we’re gonna be depressed. Anyone with those issues and NOT depressed are the ones that aren’t right.
Xanax is very addictive btw. So many ppl are addicted to it and can’t come off, even if they wanted to.
Antidepressants they give us just makes us MORE down.
Funny enough, you’re inability to get your hands on these “meds” actually is much HEALTHIER (well minus the copious amounts of caffeine).
For sleeping- magnesium helps. That you can take daily (you don’t want to take too much at once bc it will cause diarrhea and severe cramps).
Also Passion flower and melatonin. Tho I suspect in your case you’d need a shit load of it.
Wait- if you’re taking a shit ton of caffeine / stimulants – you wonder why you can’t sleep? O_o
Yea the caffeine/insomnia connection is a no brainer. I also drink caffeine the Balzac way (beans ground to a fine powder and dumped directly in hot water) which is probably what killed him, but while he was alive he was insanely productive. Basically a cokehead without the coke.
My depression is so intense that I need that sort of stimulant to keep going, especially since my daily grind is extremely high stress and labor intensive.
Sleep who needs sleep :/
You’re right about prescription drugs. I tried all that stuff after my wreck. Oddly xanax didn’t do a thing, but I probably didn’t take a big enough dose. I just took small maintenence doses til it ran out. Oxy is the good stuff, I could see that becoming a total addiction. Oxy not only makes you feel good, it makes you believe in life again. It makes you feel like you have a purpose, that anything is possible, even your wildest dreams. I guess that’s why it’s so popular with hollywood burnouts. I still have some oxy, but the crash isn’t worth it. Not quite ready to be a burnout yet. Maybe tomorrow.
Thyroid issue, mostly, which mimics depression.
Repeating negative assertions and thoughts which can be challenged with more or less effectiveness.
Trauma based hyper vigilance which makes navigating social situations and relationships challenging at times and frequently confusing and exhausting. (Which is why I am so grateful for this site.)
“Trauma based hyper vigilance”
<- Wow I totally get that. I'm so sorry. Short of a hard tranquilizer, nothing can turn down the volume once that hyper vigilant state is engaged. Do you have a productive way to channel it?
"Repeating negative assertions and thoughts which can be challenged with more or less effectiveness."
Nice. No sarcasm. It's the "can be challenged" part that's really promising. In other words, when you start to spiral, you can still be brought back with a rational discourse.
I guess the problem is finding someone who can rationally challenge those negative thoughts. If you call the suicide hotline for example, these people have good hearts but they aren't necessarily philosophers so they can't always challenge what you're saying. They can only tell you general stuff like "It gets better" (it does, but it also gets worse again) or "Your life has value" (it does, but that doesn't stop the pain), etc.
That's where I've found some help with AI chats. It doesn't get more rational than a AI bot because you can call it out for any mistakes and it will correct itself. So maybe that might provide the voice to challenge those negative feelings? Basically a therapist, but a good one because it actually is a philisopher if you tell it to be one.
“I guess the problem is finding someone who can rationally challenge those negative thoughts.”
Good luck with that. The problem intelligent and depressed people have is that there’s very few people that CAN challenge us. The ONLY people we will take advice or listen to are other intelligent people, especially those who can understand depression/suicide, but haven’t been swallowed up by depression themselves (the few that manage to escape it’s grasps).
To find someone who intelligent, understands us, and can challenge our reasoning/thought process is a tall order.
There’s a reason why no one has been able to pull me out of depression. Firstly, there aren’t may GOOD people who actually care enough to try to begin with. And secondly, out of those few who DO actually care and DO try, most are just not very smart people, or people whom we do not deem sufficient enough to challenge us.
For every “thing” that person says, our intelligent but depressed mind gives a very good and logical “but” our counter right back, as to why this or that won’t work, or this or that is a fallacy, or etc.
Well, that’s how it is in my case. I don’t think I can pull myself out of my deep depression by myself and I don’t think 95% of people who try can either. So I’m pretty screwed.
I would need to find someone really intelligent that cares and understands me for that to work. Well, mainly I can’t find anyone who really “gets me” or fully understands me, let alone the intelligent or caring portion.
Even before that- there aren’t may people IRL we are willing to even open up to. Bc we already know they won’t be able to help in the way we need them to.
My barrier is quite thick. With castle-high walls and a moat.
Yours @dying, is even worse than mine lol.
No one is able to reach us bc we do not allow them to.
Oh- and us hating humans don’t help O_o
I’m sure I’m not wording things properly (damn brain injuries) but I think you get what I mean.
Muddlewarcar- you sound quite intelligent as well.
You’re totally right, with those of us who take the intelligent approach (whether or not we are truly intelligent), it’s easy to out-think the usual bland arguments. So whoever is trying to counsel us almost needs to be smarter than we are, or at least more clever in terms of argument.
That’s where I turn to people who are clearly smarter than me. I’ve been talking a lot about the recent Nobel prize winner Krasznahorkai because he’s leagues above my intelligence level AND he also has an oddly optimistic view of the universe, even though he’s bleak as hell. His “optimism” as far as I can tell, is based on the idea that we’re trapped in an infinite chaos, but there are pockets of order or “beauty” that still exist briefly. The fact that it gets swallowed by chaos doesn’t change the fact that it existed in defiance to the chaos. I suppose that’s as optimistic as it gets?
I know you can’t read books because of vision problems, and afaik his works have never been made into audiobooks so that sucks. But since he won the Nobel Prize and all, maybe soon they’ll make audiobooks and you can check him out. His works are dark af, but there’s always a fleeting acknowledgement of beauty that I find kinda encouraging?
Another genius I turn to, although he’s long dead, is Orson Welles. Seriously, look up some of his interviews with Dick Cavett or other intellectual interviewers. Welles was BLEAK AF. He constantly talks about the crushing, overwhelming nature of evil which he says “humbles” him (no rainbows and unicorns there), but like Krasznahorkai he also highlights the great things in the world and what we’re capable of, if we can pull our shit together.
You and I both despise America so you might find this clip interesting. I prob can’t post it here because it’ll go to spam, but if you’re on youtube lookup “Orson Welles on American Imperialism” where he talks about how violent we (and the British) are, but he also says “I think man is a crazy animal. I think we are also marvelous people, divine in our potentialities.” And the way he says it is a reminder that maybe we’re not all that bad. Like maybe we cycle thru hate & violence but we also can do great things.
Anyway it’s these “arguments” by people way smarter and certainly way more successful than me (who DIDN’T kill themselves) that kinda snap me out of a downward spiral. Sometimes.
“Sometimes.” lol
Also, not all intelligent people have had bad lives (most did, growing up ridiculed by society).
I’m not sure what can be said by whom will work on me. For me, it’s not just words (sure I need words and a change in my thinking) BUT what I need is money to change my fucking life. I can’t be happy being stuck in a shithole -_-
I have the same problem. I am low on thyroid hormones as well. I WAS on thyroid medication and I did better on it- but most drs won’t put me on it bc “the labs say i’m fine!” which is bullocks bc the references ranges we use are bullshit.
i have a whole rant on fake US lab reference ranges- those ranges are assigned by guess who- none other than the medical industrial complex! Those who have an agenda and much to gain the sicker we are. If you go to, say Japan, for example, their labs use different reference ranges, and what # used to delineate “sick,” “deficient” and “healthy” is quite different than the #s used by the US.
anyhow, that’s a whole ‘nother rant. but yes, we have the same problem. we have hypothyroidism- that causes depression, low mood, low energy, etc etc- tons of symptoms. there are actually ways to get thyroid medication, but that requires $$$$. and you seem to be in the same boat as me- if we had the money, then this wouldn’t be an issue.