*exhausted sigh*

[kuropansaa]

Recently, I was fired from my job. It was an unwarranted, ill-conceived, unethical, strategic move of the company I worked for. It was a great shock to nearly everyone who knows me at and outside of work.

That event led to me losing my health insurance and my apartment. Losing my apartment led to me losing the ability/location to care for my cat and forced me to return to my parent's home. Losing my health insurance led to me not being able to properly treat my Graves disease, ADHD, depression and anxiety.

Even while employed and fully medicated, I still struggled with "maintaining my sanity" (for lack of a better phrase). Now, each day is a jagged, hot, draining uphill climb.

I'm black and while that shouldn't automatically mean this, in my case it means my family (my parents especially) don't take my mental illness seriously.

Each day that passes feels like I'm coming closer and closer to being swallowed whole by my illnesses. The impending doom manifests as a palpable ache inside me. I have lost nearly all of my autonomy as an independent adult. I feel like my life is no longer my own. The loss of control also has me constantly feeling unmoored and misunderstood.

[jimreilly]

I don't know what things are like where you live, but here there are places where you can get counseling for no cost, and other agencies where you can get connected to job re-training programs and or other kind of vocational help. Even if your family won't take your depression seriously, you need to talk with a professional who will. If it makes you feel temporarily worse to "ask for help" (and I know it can be hard to do, especially for some men, especially for some people in a black community, and on and on, really, for many of us) please know that when you get effective help you will start to feel better and start to get back the road you want to be on. I'm not a doc and know almost nothing about Grave's disease, except that it should be treated and that not-treating it has both physical and emotional consequences. There are many things to blame for your current situation that you have had no control over--your loss of your job, your loss of health insurance (our crazy, flawed system), the fact that you have Grave's disease, and maybe that's not all. But you do have control over seeking help. I'm not a counselor, and this is about all the advice I can offer, but I hope you can take whatever wisdom might be in it and run with it, or, if not run, at least take a small step to get help.