I just got home from dinner celebrating a friend’s birthday. Today is the first day in a little more than a week that I’ve felt like myself, so being out with people celebrating my friend’s life felt a little bit like stretching my legs after being stuck in the cramped backseat of a car for hours. Due to insurance changes, a medication that I really need to be on for my mental health stability was denied under my policy even though the same company had been paying for it previously for the past year and a half. Said medication also costs $60 per day, so it was not something I could afford to just buy at out-of-pocket costs, so during the week while I was waiting for my psychiatrist to sort of the prior authorization with my insurance company, my mood tanked as I ran out of medication. To make matters worse, I’ve had a house guest for the past five days, which while she was very nice and easy to get along with added stress on to my overflowing pile to the point that all I wanted to do was curl up in bed and sleep forever. Today, however, I was back on my medication and I had the energy and mental clarity to actually function for the first time since this nightmare began and it felt good to leave my apartment for the evening.* Which is awesome because I got to wish my friend a happy birthday and eat sushi with him and his friends and who doesn’t like that?

(The above image is the birthday card I drew for my friend. It reads “Happy 20th Birthday” and has a drawing of the Crystal Gems from Steven Universe on the right hand side.)

*I want to give a moment of thanks here for my partner who is the reason my medication was actually covered today because she sat on the phone with our insurance company twice yesterday for extended periods of time arguing with them as to why they should be covering my medication and actually got them to pay for it! If it hadn’t been for her I would still be curled up in a ball in bed waiting for the world to end.