Whelp. The 10-minute consultation ended with the psychiatric nurse practitioner firmly refusing to see me because I don’t have insurance. It didn’t matter that I assured her I had a friend who would pay for everything. She doesn’t take Medicaid anyway.

I reached out to the food bank to request consultation regarding my Medicaid application. I did the same thing at the county clinic. First an email, then a voicemail. All I can do now is wait to hear back from them.

My friend keeps referring her psychiatrist to me. I texted her asking for the information. I also called the county clinic and left a voicemail asking to see a psychiatric nurse practitioner there. Again, it’s a waiting game.

No other psychiatrist will see me without insurance, aside from, perhaps, the ones I used to see who would suggested alternatives to ADHD for more than two years while my life fell apart due to, in part, in my opinion, untreated ADHD.

The Medicaid application process is tortuous. I first tried to re-apply a year ago but they said I needed a case number. I never needed one before. I filled out the form (buried deep in the .gov labyrinth) requesting the case number. I provided them my current address as I had recently been evicted and moved in with my siblings after their father (my stepdad) died. I didn’t hear back for the entire year. When I asked the food bank for assistance with my application, I was told that I wasn’t answering my mail. They were still sending information to my old address. I definitely gave them the new one. I was also told the case number is for my protection. I don’t see why they’re going through so much trouble to protect me from someone applying for Medicaid in my name but whatever. Finally, I’ve been rejected for Medicaid without any provided reason, and I can’t find an option to reapply on the state DPHHS website.

ADHD seems like a relatively common condition with a simple treatment plan but the whole world feels angled against providing me the help I need to be a productive, happy, fulfilled part of my society.

I remember two years ago, asking my current psychiatrist for help with ADHD. He shut me down and suggested we try alternatives for the third time. I walked to the transfer station to catch a bus home. I looked across the street at the court house. All of these unhoused people were there. I felt so depressed, sad and angry. I thought, if I can’t get help, how can they? I remember expressing that to my manager at the library where I worked at the time. She was just like: “Yeah, that’s tough.” This was the same manager who called the cops on unhoused people regularly, and when she tried to get me to wake up unhoused people sleeping on our couches more often, she said, “This doesn’t sound good from a compassionate perspective, but our donors don’t like seeing it.” ‘It’ being ‘people napping on our couches’.

I worked in nonprofits for ten years, and I can say that “this doesn’t sound good from a compassionate perspective, but the donors don’t like seeing it,” is the most concise summary of the nonprofit world I ever encountered: “We would do the humane and productive thing, but then we wouldn’t have money.”