TennCare Refuses a Fair Hearing

This is my continuing saga of trying to hold onto my health insurance. I received a letter yesterday which read that my appeal to TennCare’s decision to drop me from their system did not meet their criteria for a fair hearing in front of a judge.  To be allowed a fair hearing, three criteria must [...]

Does TennCare Discriminate Against the Mentally Ill?

People who know me know that I’m very open about my mental illness: Atypical Bipolar Disorder.  It’s caused me to lose relationships, friends, and a decent job. But now does my mental illness prevent me from receiving TennCare Medicaid?  (TennCare is Tennessee’s state-run insurance plan.) I’m currently on disability while my doctors have been sorting [...]

Suriving Mental Illness – Table of Contents

This series of post are about my personal battle with bipolar disorder and abuse.  I am hoping that sharing this information with others could possibly help those who feel alone. Since I posted an overwhelming amount of posts on the subject of mental illness, I thought a table of contents would be useful: Surviving Mental [...]

Surviving Mental Illness – Today

Today I’ve written this series of postings about my mental health well over a year ago. At the time, I felt like Depakote was the answer to my prayers. Sadly, it wasn’t. Neither was Lithium. I’m taking Lexapro, Abilify, and a cocktail of medications to help combat anxiety.  They help, but I still have a [...]

Surviving Mental Illness – Pushed to the Edge

Pushed to the Edge With the exception of the terrorist attacks of 9/11/01, the years of 2000 and 2001 were basically status quo concerning my mental health. Even though father was ill, no one could tell it. He still looked 20 years younger than his age and seemed to be in excellent form. Work became [...]

Surviving Mental Illness – Bad Medicine

Bad Medicine For the sake of brevity, I am only going to highlight certain aspects of my life from 1993 to 1999. Also, I’ve been on so many medications, I don’t remember them all or the complete order in which I tried them. I went to both my family doctor and a state clinic for [...]

Surviving Mental Illness – 1993: Madness

1993: Madness Some Basic Facts Some facts about mental illnesses in general: Usually, mental illness will manifest itself in early adulthood (early 20s). There are several theories as to why that is. One belief is that the brain finishes growing during that age range and something doesn’t “connect” properly. There may or may not be [...]

Surviving Mental Illness – 1993: The Crash

1993: The Crash I was racing along smoothly through January and February, but by the beginning of March things started shifting. The first scary incident was a “field trip” to a newsroom in Knoxville for one of my journalism classes. It was a rainy day, and the bus driver drove horribly fast and recklessly. This [...]

Surviving Mental Illness – 1993: The Crescendo

1993: The Crescendo Shattering Around the Edges By the end of 1992, my emotions seemed unstable, but I didn’t have a clue as to why. My family situation was fine. I had met an absolutely wonderful woman. I had my college degree, even though I still couldn’t find employment. But I decided that whatever was [...]

Surviving Mental Illness – College

College A Natural High My college life was absolutely phenomenal! I never felt freer and more in control of my life as ever before. There were older student that I befriended, and I felt at home in this new environment. 1989 was a stellar year for many reasons. For one, I became aware of spirituality, [...]