Finding Your Marbles
A Mental Health Survival Guide

It happens to everyone. At some point in our lives there comes a time when we just run out of money. Whether it is through no fault of our own, or because of bad financial decisions, there are very few feelings as hopeless as getting that “Insufficient Funds” message from a bank machine. (It’s even more fun when you get it when you are using a debit machine at the grocery store, just after buying a cartload of groceries)

Add mental illness to the mix, and you have a recipe for a full-blown meltdown. Running out of money really sucks, and it can make already bad problems like anxiety so much worse.

In this article, I will share a few tricks that have worked for me in the past when the moths have taken over my wallet.

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Therapy is expensive. Really expensive. I used to joke with my therapist that for the amount of money that I spent on therapy I could have gone on a cruise, or at least had a great weekend in Vegas.

One thing to keep in mind when you are trying to figure out how to pay for therapy is that therapy is very important. Your mental health should be one of your top priorities. Therefore, when you are trying to balance your budget, or when you are looking for a way to pay for your therapy, try to keep things in perspective. Think of any money that you spend on therapy not as an expense, but as a necessary and positive investment in your future well-being and good mental health.

Continue reading “What to do When You Can’t Afford Therapy” »

Medication can be very expensive, especially medication for mental illness. Lots of expensive research goes into those drugs, and the drug companies charge very high prices to recover their costs.

Since costs can run upwards of $75/month for some medications, this can be a major problem if you are out of money or if you’ve got to take a lot of different medications together. Even worse is when you run out of money in the middle of a medication cycle and you might start missing doses. With some medication, such as SSRIs, missing doses can be very serious so there are some major health implications if you can’t afford meds.

There are a couple of things that you can do to get your medication if you can’t afford to pay for it. Some of them take a bit of work and patience, so it is a good idea to plan ahead and make sure that you always have a good supply. The last thing you want is to be on your last pill when an unexpected bill comes in.

Continue reading “What to do When You Can’t Afford Medication” »