Head Tale

Not really a link and definitely not fun like my usual Friday Fun Link posts.

But a friend posted the below on Facebook in reaction to the suicide of an Alberta man who was about to suffer from changes to that province’s disability support program.

It hit me harder than it might have for a few reasons, not least because I still remember one of the members of the Writers Guild of Alberta telling me horror stories about trying to live on AISH which gave them, I think $600/month twenty years ago to survive in Calgary which was (is?) a very expensive city to live in.

We also just lost a young colleague at the library and though I don’t know the circumstances, I do know that I’ve known too many people who have passed before their time.

Although we’ve had multiple people go off on sick leave and not return (which is also tragic), this the fifth colleague to pass unexpectedly while still at work – James, Tony, a SaskPoly intern named Sarmad, Kim, and now Whitney.)

I think it’s really easy for us to think this is a problem other people face, and that it couldn’t possibly happen to you.

I’m going to share a story. About me.

My mental health had been slowly getting worse and worse for years. First sign? Two years ago, I didn’t plant a garden. But I didn’t recognize it as a sign, because I wasn’t looking.

It kept progressing.

Last Christmas, I was honestly praying I would get cancer so I could just die. Because death was preferable at that point, and I didn’t want my family to have to deal with my killing myself.

No one knew how bad things had gotten. I didn’t want to burden my friends with how bad things were in my head.

In January of this year? I broke.

One day, I started crying at work, and I couldn’t stop. I know it was likely scary for the people who saw me that day!

I went to the doctor. A young man, new to Canada. That doctor saved my life that day. He wrote me off work, said I needed some time to heal. He started me on some medication to help me sleep.

I was off work until a couple weeks ago. Most of you likely didn’t know that. It’s a hard thing to share.

I’ve always been capable. I’ve always been outgoing, friendly, welcoming, accepting. In January? I was none of those things. I was an empty shell.

I laid in bed for months. I cried and cried. I hated myself.

Two weeks in, I get a phone call.

It was my medical insurance, calling to let me know my claim was denied. They weren’t going to cover my medical leave from work.

In the depths of a depression so deep that I couldn’t even bath myself, I now had to fight for the insurance I had paid for through my job for more than 10 years.

[My husband] actually had to read the letter for me. My depression was so bad that as a smart person, I couldn’t even understand a formally worded letter.

What followed was 5 months of us being down an entire income, while fighting red tape AND a depression so deep that I wanted to die. WHILE still getting a bill to KEEP the same insurance that was denying me coverage.

I only survived the past 5 months because I had a husband. If not for him, we would have lost everything. We would have lost the house, the car. We wouldn’t have been able to eat.

If not for him, I would have been worse off than Bruce. Because there are no promises the safety net you paid for is going to catch you.

My point? Most of us are going to be disabled at some point in our lives. It shouldn’t be a death sentence.

I survived because in 2004 a man loved me, and in 2026 he still does. My kids keep a roof over their heads and food in their belly. That’s all. That’s what saved me.

Not the government. Not my insurance. Just love.