In my desire to be authentic as a plus-sized person with a chronic illness living with depression, PTSD, anxiety, and OCD, I occasionally talk about those issues here. Seeing so many people in my social feeds dealing with some of the same issues I do, I wanted to take a minute and talk about my must do list when mental illness starts to take over.

As you may have noticed, I haven’t been blogging as much lately. I have been doing quite a bit of microblogging and story telling over on my Instagram, which is easier to do sometimes. I have been growing there so much that I started doing sponsored posts with brands, and it is super exciting. However, sometimes I use my Instagram stories to hide some of the real issues at hand. This weekend was a bad weekend dealing with those issues.

Recently, I lost my insurance. Well…let me back up for a second. I should have insurance, but at this moment, I do not. I got a letter last month saying that I no longer qualified, and something about a previous letter. However, there was no previous letter. This letter didn’t even explain why I was losing my insurance, but it did say that I could make an appeal and that if I sent the appeal before the end of the month that I would still have insurance. Well, I went to a doctor’s appointment, and I had the embarrassing mishap of being denied service because my card came up as expired. The mister helped me make calls to the state, and I was told it was fixed. I found out Friday that it actually was not fixed.

While I am having lots of good days with my health issues lately, I still need injections. I have a few more tests that need done. Back in December, I had a seizure, and while it sucked, one of my doctors tried things differently with the injections I get for my nerve damage. It worked really well. Actually, it worked better than anything she or the other physiologist did in the past year. Also, I fired my other physiologist as she completely ignored me at my last visit with her which was right before I had the seizure. I had complained to her of a nasty headache that was causing me to vomit and see spots. I am not playing with the fat-phobic doctors anymore.

This weekend, all the frustration caught up with me. While I am making money again as a blogger (with my other blog) and social media influencer, I am still not where I was before all of this started in 2015. I started looking at the options if I have to get another insurance, and I feel like I would end up being a big financial burden on my family if I  have any type of relapse. I was getting ready to see a therapist again, and well that is off the table for now. (I had this issue with insurance a little over a year ago, and the place where I was going refused to see me or return my calls even after I got reinstated). When I feel like this, sometimes just getting the energy to get out of bed is hard.

My two coping mechanisms for rough patches

However, in these times, I do two things: I get showered, and I get dressed. I know this sounds super simple. If getting out of bed is hard, sometimes the energy to get a shower is even harder. These two things though make all the difference in how I deal with my day. Now I will admit, these two things sometimes don’t happen until the afternoon, but when I do them, it makes me feel a little more in the present again. It gives me the energy to do the other things I need to do, like nourish my body and hydrate. Sometimes this is what helps me get out the door when I want to hide from the world.

Having a mental illness is hard. The stigma placed on those who suffer from mental illnesses sucks! The fact that so many people in our country go without proper mental healthcare is appalling. That is why I find it important to speak out on these things. While I know my tips aren’t revolutionary. However, sometimes it is just taking things one step at a time and simply to just get through the day.

If you feel like discussing, how do you handle the bad days?