Head Trauma

I should have taken up wearing a helmet like the above for the past year.

I was in a car accident last…..November? December? That left me with a concussion. It wasn't that serious, but it was a head injury none the less.

This July I had another one. Life is just so funny, so STUPID sometimes. Life has a way of literally knocking you in the ass if you are too stupid to listen to your own inner self. I learned that the hard way with a broken hip, this time with a broken head. I was living at an untenable pace this summer. Because of Nate's job, there is a lot of huge upside, and a lot of huge downside. He was traveling a lot (a lot) this summer. He was also with us at the pool or the golf course a lot (a lot) more than "normal" Dad's in the afternoons when he was home. Some good, some bad. However, the bulk of the staging and 100% of swim team mornings fell to me. In the summer it feels wrong to me to drag my kids off to the Y, so my workouts suffered. That is one way that I manage my stress. That just had to fall by the wayside. I couldn't get in early morning runs very often, or at least not on a consistent basis. My 40th birthday seemed to turn into a month of partying, so that was June. And then came July. Worn down from running around to swim team and meets, excessive celebrating, and the relentless house perfection, I was simply trying to do too much.

Lots of explanation to say that my own car knocked me out as I rushed from one place to another. Mmm Hmm. Pure grace in motion, aren't I?

Bad part of herding three kids from the pool to the golf course with bags on your arms, hitting the auto trunk lift and then forgetting you hit it, a bag slipping off of your arm, you lurching down to get it RIGHT at the precise moment as the very sharp corner of your trunk comes up and WHAMMO, you are knocked out cold in front of your three kids. 

It's funny, really. Except it isn't. Because when you come to and some strange man is trying to help you and three little faces are staring at you with some combination of horror and curiosity and you suddenly have a unicorn horn growing out of your forehead and searing pain in your head, it just isn't funny. Then when you try to speak and aren't making any sense? It gets serious. 

So, that is my July, "slow down, asshole" story. It ends with me having to take 6 weeks off of teaching due to the severity of the concussion, being off of all screens, and having to really, really take it easy. 

That's right around when I started really feeling low. You know what another symptom of concussions is? Depression. So what came first? The egg on my head or the depression? Was one the cause of the other? Was I depressed because I couldn't do much? Or was the concussion simply the inevitable ending to what had been 3 frantic months of stress: are we building? Buying? Renting while we build? Rushing to list in July? Rushing to stage? Living through showings? Solo parenting much of the week? Was it just life? Or was it all unrelated? See, for people like me, who struggle with anxiety anyway, when you take away one of our coping mechanisms, (yoga, exercise, autonomy) we sit and we stew. WHY am I depressed? And then you start to feel shame. You bash yourself over the head with all of the good things in your life and you make yourself feel guilty for feeling bad. Which of course, makes you feel worse. It's a horrible cycle of shame. 

Enter psychologist and psycopharmacologist. Stage right. If there is one thing that I am deeply convicted of, it is that the mental care system in our country is incredibly broken. The rate that my psychologist charges/hour is $140.00 (I've seen this same Dr, on and off, since I was 19. I trust her completely). She accepts no credit cards, so even my flex spending healthcare account isn't accepted. I CAN pay her weekly, then submit her invoice monthly, but even then I have to hit a deductible, and then, eventually, started to be reimbursed 70%. Luckily the psycopharmacologist I see accepts my Flex card, so I can pay him with pre tax dollars, but he is $160/hour. ROBBERY! And then the drugs. To find the right combination of medication/s, it is often trial and error. Here I am thankful for excellent coverage, but without it the copays could be horrific. It's no wonder people simply give up, and just try to white knuckle through dark times. When white knuckling doesn't work, we see bad outcomes. 

I don't understand why drug companies are allowed to get away with the prices they charge. I don't understand why there aren't more low cost options for GOOD therapists out there. Even my Dr, who I love, offers a sliding scale, but I've had friends in tight places go to her, and that "scale" still precludes most people on an actual tight budget. I tried going 100% through insurance once, right after Julia was born, and it was a hot mess. They sent me to what felt like a chop shop. I saw a different Dr. each time (and I was in a PPA crisis) and was told I was going to have to wait about 4-6 weeks to see a Dr who could prescribe me meds! Insanity! Instead I went to my OB, who knew nothing about my history, who prescribed me medication. NOT GOOD, in my opinion. So the options seem to be, go through insurance and get sub standard care, or go the private route, and pay thousands of dollars in a single month for specialized mental health care. Where is the in-between? What do we do for people who are truly in crisis? 

That's my rant for today. Be wary of your car, folks. It can attack.