Whenever Australians ask me about the American experience, I am always sure to make sure they know my life has just been one experience of many. I grew up in the country, went to school in a small down and spent a lot of my childhood with hand me downs and canned soup for dinner because we did it tough for quite a few years. I am always hesitant to make any generalizations unless I truly believe it applies to most of the US population.

But the one thing I will fight for with all my heart is how bad the medical system is in the US. It’s horrible, disgusting and favoured toward those who can afford to be sick. The documentary ‘Sicko’ made me cry not because I didn’t know but rather because I do know what it’s like. I know what it’s like to be afraid to get sick, to know – as a child – that I was putting financial strain on the family by requesting to go to the doctor. Yes, part of that is my parents, but more if it is the system that causes parents to have to weigh whether they want to take their child to the doctor or put food on the table.

Insurance? Insurance is for the birds. It’s a heaping pile of bull manure that touts itself as the saviour of all the poor unfortunate souls. I wouldn’t let insurance kiss my rear end lest I be corrupted by the contact. “Insurance” let the hospital charge me $25 just to have a nurse insert an IV into my arm (that’s the needle, not the contents of the IV bag. That was, of course, a separate cost my “insurance” didn’t cover.) “Insurance” didn’t cover my prescriptions, my emergency room visits, and decided three months after an emergency room visit had been signed off on, that I wasn’t really covered after all. They posted me a bill for thousands of dollars I couldn’t pay. Why? Well, that’s because nearly all of my pay went to paying for medications that, gasp, insurance didn’t cover.

It is a crap system that needs adjusting, if not a complete overhaul, and no one will ever be able to convince me otherwise.

Today something beautiful happened. Something that puts another layer of concreted on the conclusion that socialized health care, while still having its problems, is an amazing and wonderful thing.

Something I don’t share a lot is that I have mental health issues. Most people probably wouldn’t guess because I try very hard not to let my mental health issues get in the way. But they are there and have been there a long time. After having a bad reaction to a medication I should never have been given, I went off all drugs and instead navigated my issues with natural remedies including St. John’s Wort, Valerian Root and a supportive husband who handled things better than I ever could have asked.

But due to recent events, my abilities (and disabilities) have come into light, and I have chosen to cautiously move forward once again into the world of medication (that I have been assured is gentle) and therapy. I am nervous, but the prospect of living a better life has proven to be enough to give me the confidence.

The beautiful thing? Today I went to pick up my meds. I mentioned how nearly all of my pay went towards my meds when I was in the US. That’s because I was paying $300 per prescription. The meds I picked up today? $5.60.

If that’s not enough to show that Australia genuinely helps take care of their people, I was told that, when I’m ready, there is an employment agency that works with people who have problems like I do. I never would have dreamed that something like that existed. Now, I don’t know if something like that exists in the States, but no one ever bothered to tell me about it in years I spent trying to find help.

No person, system or country is perfect, but damn if I don’t feel like I have come to an amazing country when I need help – and get it.

Without throwing me into near poverty.

One of the things I’ve had to acknowledge is that a big cause of my weight is because I don’t know how to process emotions properly. I’m a very empathetic person – to the point that some people call me a S/sensitive. Emotions that don’t even belong to me can make me cry or angry. When The Bloke has had a bad day at work or one of my friends is hurting, it’s a process for me to detach and remind myself that it’s not my stress, not my sadness.

This sort of empathy and difficulty establishing walls is the reason behind a lot of my ‘issues’. As you can imagine, if I’m dealing with other people’s emotions, I don’t take a lot of time with my own. When I was a little girl, my parents decided I made a great marriage counselor. When I was older, I ran into some ‘friends’ who had very little give and a lot of take. As an adult, I’m now quite an introvert, but my emotions are still something rather foreign to me. After dealing with other people’s feelings for so many years, you’d think I’d picked up a few coping mechanisms…

No such luck.

Last night, I decided to open the can of emotional worms and see what I got from it. I’ve been experiencing a very deep depression for a while now, so obviously there were some things I needed to get out, right? I went to the back verandah, looked up at the stars and just relaxed.

And wouldn’t you know it, I started crying almost straight away.

Letting go of holding all that crap I was holding in was letting go of half the battle. Feeling what I’m feeling, crying and truly acknowledging that I’m miserable right now – and telling myself there is no reason to be ashamed of that – let me feel vulnerable. It gave me the strength to tell The Bloke that I’m in trouble and I need help.

Right now, it’s not psychiatric help and I doubt it will ever be. I know what I need and it’s not rehashing the past. Part of it is letting myself feel instead of ‘eating’ emotion. Part of it is working hard toward my goals. And another part is accepting that I am at a vulnerable point in my life. But being vulnerable isn’t such a bad thing if it helps me learn to build the barriers I need to protect myself from others’ emotions as well as from the self-sabotaging habits I have.

Onward and upward.