Trying​‍​‌‍​‍‌​‍​‌‍​‍‌ to Mend Even When You Have No Money

Breaking down emotionally can be costly. When the situation becomes so dire that the walls seem to close in on you and the weight of it all becomes too much to bear, the urge to ask for help is strong and almost overwhelming, like an emergency. However, when you look at your bank account, the numbers seem to answer back, and it is not the answer you were expecting. One therapy session costs what used to be two days of buying groceries. A gym subscription that could help you sleep is now something that only a few can afford. Even if the thing you want to do is simply meet a friend for coffee and talk over your problems, you still have to think it over, and negotiate with yourself whether you can afford that small comfort.

Being without a job is not only the thing that takes away your income but also the one that dismantles the system that supports you to be together and in one piece. When you have a job, the taking care of yourself thing is something that is done in between or at the end of the busy week, like a massage after a hard week, a weekend trip to recharge, a therapist to talk to and who helps you to understand the stress before you get more and it turns into something dark. These are not luxury expenses when you have a paycheck. They are the basics just like changing the oil keeps a car going, but when the money disappears so does the access to almost everything that was there to help you deal with the kind of crisis that you are living right ​‍​‌‍​‍‌​‍​‌‍​‍‌now.

The​‍​‌‍​‍‌​‍​‌‍​‍‌ timing of the cruelty is what makes it so hard to bear. When you can afford it the least, that is when you need support the most. The sleepless nights accumulate because you cannot justify the expense of a doctor who may just give you a prescription for something to help. The very thing that makes job searching to be a daunting task is your anxiety and it goes untreated as mental health services are costly and the free options have waiting lists that are weeks and months long and you live in the unknown future. You end up in a cycle that feeds back into itself: too stressed to present yourself well in interviews, too broke to manage the stress, and too aware of both issues to ignore either of them.

What you come to know is that getting well in America, Lagos, London, or at any other point on the planet, costs and when you don’t have a job, you are suddenly a customer in a store where nothing on the shelves is within your reach. The apps and websites are affordable alternatives that also serve their purpose, including intercession programs, online support groups, and workout videos that you can do from the comfort of your living room. A few of them do help. Most of them seem like temporary coverings for a wound that needs to be stitched. You make do with what you have, but the distance between what you need and what you can get grows each week.

Friends and family are well-meaning. They advise you to take a walk in the woods, write in your diary, do yoga from a video on YouTube, and all the free remedies which have a grain of truth in them but are oblivious to the enormity of your burden. Yes, sunlight is helpful, and yes, exercising is also essential. However, these suggestions, albeit kind, are from people who still have the cushion of expert help if their situation gets beyond control. They do not see that you are not opting for holistic wellness instead of traditional care; you are just making do because that is the only choice you have left.

The shame that comes with it magnifies everything. Admitting that you cannot afford to feel better brings with it a sense of guilt. It doesn’t take long before you start questioning yourself whether you are a weak person for needing help in the first place. Society has done the job of making us see mental health care as something imperative, but it has not made it easy to get, and this paradox throws everything right at you when you are the one who can’t afford it. You take the difference between what you need and what you can get deep down inside, and hence, turning the failure of a system into your personal one.

If there is something that can save you, it would be the grace that comes unexpectedly in pockets. The friend who is persistent that he is the one who should pay for the lunch and really means it, the community center that provides free counselling, it does not matter if the sessions are spaced too far apart, and a neighbor who, before, was a therapist and now talks to you without giving it a name. These times do not do the whole fixing, but they let you know that recovery is not always through the market, and if you are willing to take it in imperfect forms, support can be found outside it.

You discover skills of being resourceful, which you probably never thought of before. The books on psychology at the library become a substitute for therapy sessions, and the long conversations on the phone with one friend who truly listens become your weekly appointment. Every free trial, every sliding-scale service, and every community resource that you can access are what you use to put together a temporary support system with the little bits that are left. It is a very tiring process of putting together wellness from the leftovers, but at the same time, it is an indication of how much you really want to come out of this ​‍​‌‍​‍‌​‍​‌‍​‍‌unscathed.

The​‍​‌‍​‍‌​‍​‌‍​‍‌ most difficult truth is that some wounds stay open for a longer time than they should just because you are not able to treat them properly. You carry such things inside you that, with a bit of help, would have been solved, but now they have become so deeply ingrained in you that it will take years to undo them. The person who has come out of unemployment is not only influenced by the shortage of work, but also by the lack of resources to cope with the impact of that shortage on them. You come out changed, but not all those changes were necessary. Some were just costly to prevent.

Still, from such deprivation, a somewhat different and unusual resilience also grows. When you patch yourself up with empty pockets, you understand that recovery doesn't always need money. You figure out which methods of coping are genuinely effective and which ones you only use because they happen to be there. You develop a relationship with your own mind that is more personal, more of a struggle than anything a paid professional could have facilitated. In other words, you find out what you are made of when all the standard ways are blocked.

The job will come at some point, and when it does, the very first thing you will think of will be to restore what unemployment took away. The therapy session you have been postponing, the dental work you have been neglecting, or the visit to the optometrist for the headaches that keep coming. You will admit to barely managing to hold things together with duct tape and willpower, and having money again for the first time will be like a miracle. However, until that time, you keep on going. You heal with what you have, make do, and somehow, despite everything, you ​‍​‌‍​‍‌​‍​‌‍​‍‌survive.