38. “They Said My Mental Illness Was ‘Too Complicated.’ They Meant Expensive.”

Current Crisis – My hallucinations outlasted their patience.

They called it “treatment-resistant.”
What they meant was reimbursement-resistant.

I didn’t fit neatly into any diagnostic code.
No one could promise a six-session turnaround.
There was no “starter pack” for what I carried.

So they gave up.

But I didn’t.

My thoughts scatter like dropped marbles.
I hear voices that don’t sign consent forms.
My reality reboots at random.

But that doesn’t mean I’m unworthy of care.
It just means I’m inconvenient.

And in this system, inconvenient people get discarded.

One clinician said, “You’re complex.”
Another called me “high risk.”
Then they stamped me “noncompliant” when I questioned the meds that made things worse.

I wasn’t resisting help.
I was resisting harm disguised as help.

But nuance doesn’t get funding.

At one point, they assigned me an intern.
She was kind. Wide-eyed.
She lasted two weeks before I got reassigned.

They told me it was “progress.”
It felt like punishment.

I didn’t need polished optimism.
I needed someone who could stay through the static.

Eventually, they wrote in my chart:

“Unlikely to benefit from continued services.”

As if my brain was a customer service call they’d been on too long.

They hung up.
I stayed on the line—bleeding sanity into silence.

And still, I wake up.
Still, I walk.
Still, I write this.

Not to be inspiring.
But to be undeniable.

Because I exist.

Even if they won’t bill for it.