jadedwench [they/them]

This is the argument I get in with people in my life. Even my significant other is starting to fall into this trap that “they can’t hold up cabinet selection” due to some misguided notion that holding your nose and being respectful is necessary. I blame coworkers and not wanting to think about something that stresses them out. It is maddening.

Thank you for linking the paper.

That was the basic Aetna scam university health insurance if you didn’t have any. It was “required” to have something. The health center was great for the most part, but it was basically one psychiatrist for the entire school. He prescribed meds, that was it. If you wanted to see him for more than 5 minutes, you had to go to his private practice. If you wanted to talk to someone, you had to go to the counseling center next door. That visit really didn’t go well. I wanted to see the male counselor, but he was overbooked. Strangely enough, he ended up being my best friend’s father in law.

The next year, they doubled the price of the “insurance” and I couldn’t afford it. Thankfully, it wasn’t enforced. Health wise, they were more worried about vaccinations and international students. Today, I have corpo insurance provided by the American machine.

Same! That one did not end well for me at all. I got hallucinations and random blackouts too. Told the crazy lady that was a no go. These days I am on low dose mirtazapine to help me sleep. Low dose propranolol for anxiety, which also kind of evens out the BP spike from the Adderall. Throw in some lamotrigine to make the bipolar disorder bearable…

It could be worse. Like the time they gave me celexa at university, which pushed me into a constant state of mania, for months. Nobody explained what mania was and nobody bothered to check in with me. Just prescribe meds, see you never. I didn’t learn until many years later that things like celexa and bipolar do not mix.

This hits a little too close to home. Still working on the anxiety and depression as an adult, but burnout has been a something I have done my best to put my foot down on, especially after my last job gave me panic attacks.

I almost failed 1st grade because I didn’t understand the concept of homework. I had a huge pile of it stuffed in my desk. Eventually, they called my dad and I was given a chance to do the weeks of assignments and catch up. I didn’t do them because I was bored and spent most of the time in my own mental world. I finished the whole stack in a weekend. I got the dreaded “GT” designation in elementary and was accepted in this “pre-AP” program in middle school. Most people would view this as a mistake, but due to my specific circumstances, the alternative would have been worse.

The burnout bordered on abuse. I had less homework in the actual Highschool AP classes. Hell, I had less homework in University. Apparently, the parents threw a big fit as their kids were staying up until midnight finishing homework several nights a week. The solution was to the lower the requirements to stay in the program. We were fucking 12! My hair was falling out by the end of the year. The first 2-3 weeks of summer I did nothing but sleep as I was exhausted. I have no idea how I managed to force myself through that for 3 years straight, while going through puberty, rapidly declining mental health, and still failing to find the right kind of stimulation.

When I got the diagnosis as an adult, I went through a mourning period at all of the things I could have done better. Once the plastic in your brain settles, doing things as an adult is significantly harder. It is what it is though, and I still have done amazing things with my life.