Sean’s Fight to Beat Debt and Destigamatize Mental Illness

My Name is Sean McGrath-Martinez and I am finally not too proud to ask for help. I am raising money because I was laid off due to a disability on 6/9/2023, and medical bills, car bills, credit card bills, grocery bills, and child bills have plummeted us into insurmountable debt. I am from Owings, Maryland 20736 in Calvert County.

I wrote all of this myself as I felt it needed to come from me. I did all the editing and photos. So if there are grammar issues you know why

WARNING:

THIS WILL BE LONG

YOU WILL MOST LIKELY LEARN THINGS ABOUT ME THAT YOU DID NOT KNOW

WHEN SENSITIVE TOPICS ARE ABOUT TO COME UP I WILL USE **TW** TO PREPARE YOU

My hope is that people can learn a little bit about mental health and how there are real struggles that have catastrophic impacts on people's lives. Of course there is the icky money part of all this. I am asking for $22k which is about half my debt right now and will likely be 1/4 of my debt by the time I am done with my second disability application. Then the debt I don't want to think about its about 1/8. Do I think think there are enough people that care to help me with $22k...I'll just say I hope you prove me wrong.

Whether you can donate or not, please share. I know I have donated to strangers on gofundme because their story has touched me, and you never know how far a story can go when people keep sharing! You know like Josh Allen or Selena Gomez(She’s rocking BP way better than me ). Like Josh, let’s try hurdle this problem

If you only want to read about what has happened since 2023 then look for the second set of

............................................................................................................................................................................

So this story will start and end with Bipolar Disorder.

While my diagnosis journey began between 2015 and 2017, I can now tell you when my first symptoms started. I have memories of being 10, 14, 16, and 18 having episodes. At 19 I took up heavy drinking to try quell whatever was plaguing me. Many people with mental health issues turn to drugs or alcohol to treat an illness they don't even know they have.

Growing up in my county, we weren't quite ready to accept gay people. Since I was 10 years old I knew I was attracted to both men and women. Though in the environment I was in I developed internalized homophobia. I hated myself for liking men. I struggled with that issue for a very long time until I finally got help and came to terms with my sexuality when I was 24. This will inform my next excerpt.

**TW**

I desperately tried to suppress my true sexuality growing up. Fear of bullying, fear of acceptance, and just not ready myself. Unfortunately Bipolar had already been rearing its ugly head. One symptom of Bipolar is hypersexuality and risky behaviors. While I'd had episodes leading up to 16, this episode would be one I'd never forget. I have worked hard on this trauma in my life and integrated it into my life, so please do not feel that it is an open wound you need to help fix. In this episode, I put myself into a situation with an older man and was raped. This also left me with the lifetime gift of HIV. So when I tell you the dangers of Bipolar, please do not take them lightly. Again, I have worked through this, I am stronger for it, and a survivor. It was 20 years ago and while I don't particularly like talking about it, I am okay now.

So here is the thing, I am not some special case. I have shared my story with people and when you share that type of vulnerability with people you will come to find that everyone has a story, something that they have had to persevere through. Everyone is battling something. So please do not give me your sympathy but lend me your empathy and strength!

Alright enough about Bipolar for now, right? Ten years ago it came as a relief to find that all my pain, being told I am lazy, and wanting to always sit down was not just in my head. As my drinking calmed down, I started seeing doctors again. One finally did an X-ray and boom, we found the problem, a grade 3 spondylolisthesis of the L5 in my spine. This was a have surgery issue, so 10 years ago at 26 I had major back surgery. Essentially a complex L5-S1 fusion, it was a 10 hour surgery! I stayed at VHC for 6 nights. Problem solved right?

Wrong! This surgery was supposed to give me stability and pain free until 50-60 years old. It lasted 3 years. The pain started subtle but then grew into a raging fire of nerve pain. I am/was no longer able to sit at my desk/computer chair for more than an hour without experiencing intense pain. The only relief would come from laying down, ideally with heat, and a numbing agent like lidocaine. Surgery was not an option as it would have been a L4-S1 fusion which would have severely limited mobility. I then started to see pain doctors to manage my pain. I saw about 5, and finally settled on my 5th one. I tried just about every treatment you could think of, and after about 3 years, we finally tried opioids. Most were not to my liking but we tried a new one that focused on nerve pain and it worked. I was on that for 3 years. We will revisit that medicine later. I am no longer on opioids. I did not develop any issues. The office I goto is strict with pill counts and urine tests. So I have been and will be a pain patient for about a third to half of my life.

Work? As someone with Bipolar? Yes, it is very possible. Think of it as a spectrum. We are neurodivergent which means that we have different brain chemistry than you and think differently than you but sometimes that can be a strength. Other times a weakness. There are plenty of BP folks that work, but others that cannot. My position I had worked at from 2015-2020 laid me off in April 2020. In my time there I had been a top performer that eventually had two episodes in 2018 and 2019 and left them in a very difficult position. They were extremely supportive, allowing me to get all the help I needed. I went through a whole year of trying 12 different meds experiencing excruciating side effects such as nervous system issues and feeling like my skin was on fire. I still have nightmares about my behaviors there while I was manic. I "trauma dumped" on anyone that would listen. Trauma dumped means volunteering sensitive and possibly triggering information without the other person's permission. Before I knew it, everyone in the office, my bosses, and their bosses knew all my deepest secrets. When I came down I was so ashamed and spiraled into a depression that lead to a hospitalization and short term disability leave from work, that I would never return from. Many people I had known for years never spoke to me again after I left that job because of my actions.

This is my second example (not 2nd ever) of an episode that left me in shame and then depression. This is in fact the cyclical nature of Bipolar. This is why when someone is treated with bipolar, they are not treated for depression. They are treated to prevent mania and other types of episodes. If these dangerous manic episodes can be prevented or at least watered down, then the shift in poles to depression is not as severe. This is why Bipolar is treated with mood stabilizers and anti-psychotics.

Is it still 2020? The pandemic! I think we all got a taste for how mental health can affect us. I had already been working from home for health reasons for over half a decade at that point so I was doing alright. By now I had already had a couple hospitalizations, partial hospitalizations, and intensive outpatient programs. Despite being laid off, I was feeling alright, I had finally found a medication that worked for me and was somewhat stable. After such a tumultuous ending to my position, my mental health professionals felt that the stress from work was too much and not sustainable for my disorder. I was not ready to apply for disability. I thought it would make me seem weak. I had gotten a degree, how could I even consider wasting that investment. So I immediately jumped back into the job market again. At the same time my health had deteriorated, you know, put on some pandemic pounds. My doctor also warned me about diabetes. I felt shame about the diabetes so I set off on a mission in 07/2020. I started walking to lose weight and improve my health. In the same month I started a new job. The combined stress of the new job and the shame of weighing over 300 pounds set off that special brain chemistry and slammed me into the manic pole once again. This time my poison was walking. Walking you say!? how could that be unhealthy!? I will tell you. I quickly ramped up my walking to 6 miles and 3 hours a day. I had pain in my ankles but to compensate I wore grade 3 ankle braces, and iced them every night. this went on for 4 months until I had lost 80 pounds and my doctors had to ask me to stop because muscle was starting to break off into my blood stream and could quickly become toxic. I would find out 3 years later that I had had an untreated sprained ankle, contusions in multiple places on my foot and ankle, and finally I had irreparably damaged ligaments on the outside and inside of my ankle. Today I cannot walk without an ankle brace. I have little to no stability in my right ankle. I need multiple surgeries on my right ankle if I ever want stability back. That was not the worst part.

**TW**

As I finish writing this section it is about to be the 4 year anniversary of when I crashed from that episode. During the mania I had also been heavily sports betting. Needless to say, nothing went well on that Sunday after Thanksgiving. That night I attempted to take my own life;

;

;

I woke up alive, cause as we all know you cannot wake up dead. My first call was to my therapist and I told her it was time to go away for a while. By now I had been to Shephard Pratt and many other mental health hospitals and they just weren't helping. So I went to a 30 day residential treatment facility in Pennsylvania. I missed Christmas but put in a ton of work. This is where I learned to integrate my trauma from 16 years old. I did daily psycho education, coping skills, and team building. I came back a new man!

I know many people hear stories about Bipolar people going off their meds or doing it on their own. I have always had an overwhelming sense of responsibility to my kids and spouse and have never once gone off my meds. Bipolar is cyclical like a roller coaster but when we take our meds it makes that roller coaster flatter, so the meds do not make the cycles disappear entirely, they just make them much less severe and dangerous. Every now and then, a trigger can be so bad that even your current meds can do nothing to stop a spike in the cycle. I'll circle back to that later

So as far as Bipolar goes, I was stable for nearly 4 years when I came home on 1/1/2021. I think its also important to share that when you are bipolar you have to be very careful what you put in your body. I have not had alcohol since 10/23/2020. I do not use any kind of recreational drug other than caffeine. I drink mostly water and avoid processed foods.

............................................................................................................................................................................

Why hello there! If you are just joining us, I am going to start talking about how and why our debt has amassed. For those that read about my backstory, I appreciate you, and wish you the best in your everyday battle.

I would say things started to go a bit sideways in 2023. We had a 2014 Honda Odyssey that was our main care for our 3 kids. Its a Honda right! It had just over a 100k miles so we have at least another 200k miles if we are lucky right? As you probably guessed, we were not lucky, the engine exploded. We got three opinions who all said the car was not worth what the repair would cost, so I had to accept the junkyard offer. At this point we still had two incomes. Why not invest in a car that is going to last for the rest of our boys childhoods. We have 3 young boys by the way, ages 6,8,10. My wife reminded me how big they would get so being forced to buy in a very seller friendly market we got our new large car. I had budgeted it out and everything, we were going to be just fine, right!?

Wrong! In just over 4 months I start to get told that HR is going to be downsized from 3 to 2 people. I worked from home due to disabilities. My boss had let me know that the CEO would be making his decision based on who comes into the office more. Needless to say it felt as though my disability had made me the odd one out, so after 3 years there, I was laid off on 6/9/2023.

I received a below average severance and began a new job hunt, again against my mental professionals advice. I kept telling myself I was strong enough to do this and that I didn't want to be a failure. Tens of applications, turned into 100s, and then finally 1000s. It started to become obvious that as employers would start to make their push back into the office, they forgot about disabled folks who had to work from home. Every work from home job posted, now had over 1k applicants and would be closed within a couple hours. The odds of even getting a phone screen were 0.001 at best. I did still manage to get a couple interviews. The stress was destroying me. I realized this if looking for a job was causing me stress induced stomach ulcers then maybe my mental health professionals were right and I just was not equipped to handle the every day stressors of the work I used to be able to do. On 2/4/2024 I enlisted the help of Allsup and applied for SSDI benefits. I was warned the average wait time was 1-3 years. My support group comprised of my mother, father, and spouse made the decision together and decided it was for the best.

My spouse lost her option for an HMO in 2024 and essentially took a $20k-$30k paycut based purely on cost of benefit plan and cost of healthcare itself. 2024 was the year of emergencies, broken limbs, and surgeries. This was all before June. In June we had already hit our in network out of pocket of $8k. This would end up being a blessing as the amount of hospital visits to come would be overwhelming had we not hit the OOP.

Of course our other car also hit issues, 101k miles, dealer had the car for 6 months, charged us $3k for engine work and then eventually told us the engine needed to be replaced. It was a real mess. Without the support of my parents and their cars I am not sure we would have survived that period of time.

At the end of June, Oliver need oral surgery that we had to pay up front a couple thousand dollars and still have not been reimbursed a cent.

The Summer went well for the most part. I had started walking again, reading, and eating well. I was losing weight and overall pretty happy. I would say I had hit a high point for my progress with my disease.

Though by the summer a single income had already taken its toll, with costs from the school year, groceries, house supplies, and car repairs had left us in credit card debt. Before we knew it interest had put us in a hole, so I withdrew my remaining retirement money to make us whole again. This of course took away my emergency reserves that I keep on hand in case of an episode. At this point being on single income for 5 had taken us down to our bare minimum.

Meanwhile, we still had the new family car we bought in 2023 when we had two incomes. We no longer had the monthly payments, but needed the car. If we sold the car we would lose $10k+, so my support system decided we would accrue debt in my name in hopes that I could pay it off in back pay from social security. As time goes on this seems less and less likely, but the option to sell the car is just not possible due to the loss of money. Paying the car off is not an option either as that number is too high, the interest rate is already as low as its going to get, so we are just stuck there.

Yes, things had not been great, but that is the thing, I had been going to therapy weekly for 6 years, taking my meds regularly, going to all my specialists. I was doing fine despite everything because of my coping tools and support system. Then came August 31st...

I had been settling into my role as a stay at home day nicely. I loved all the extra time with my boys. On this particular day, nothing seemed off, I got them ready, took them to the bus, and then came back to hang out with my mom. It was then that I noticed some pain in my chest and left arm. Yes, I have also seen medical dramas, I was also on high alert. So I decided to hang out with my mom for a couple hours as the pain was not subsiding, eventually it began to get worse, and finally it got to a point where I said we needed to goto the hospital.

I knew I was having a heart attack, I was scared. I was texting family I loved them. When we got there I told them, "I am having a heart attack". The first couple hours were people telling me I was going to be fine, I am 36, and I am not having a heart attack. after about 3 hours the pain even with morphine had hit a ten, it felt as though my heart was trying to get out of my chest. They still did not believe me, but did admit me for observation, and ordered a stress test for the next morning. I spent the next 4-5 hours in pure agony amplified by the fact that no one believed me. I was crying, rocking back and forth, moaning, and thankfully using my breathing exercises. Finally after I started screaming they moved up my blood test by 2 hours and that test finally confirmed that I was indeed having a heart attack. When that doctor finally came to see me just to tell me that he finally believed my pain because of the blood test, I completely lost it. In hindsight the rage I displayed towards this doctor was a good indicator that I had triggered an episode. I needed to goto Washington Hospital Center to have the procedure, but they did not have a bed so I had to wait another 8 hours until an ambulance finally took me at 3am.

At WHC I ended up contracting MRSA, which was a pain to get rid of. On September 1st, at 36 they discovered a 99% occlusion, removed it, and placed a stent. Since I was a pain patient, and they need patients to be somewhat conscious they gave me too much fentanyl, but since my body is used to opioids, I was fully aware and conscious of the wire in my vein and heart, I could actually feel the stent click into place. So after I got brought back to my room by BP plummeted due to fentanyl and my IVs came out, my nurse was unable to place a line and a rapid response team was called. They attempted close to 10 different veins, collapsed 5, and finally put an IV into my thumb. It was not a great experience.

I guess that ordeal was finally over. With 5 new pills, lifestyle changes, diet change, and a couple new conditions to add to the already long list. Little did I know was that was not even the most dangerous ordeal that would have begun that weekend. I will have begun my first ever mixed episode or rapid cycling.

Remember when I said how well I'd been handling all the adversity since 2023, well the heart attack was the straw that broke camel's back. The question, "why me?" being the theme. I think I had been at my edge with everything that had happen and having a heart attack at 36 just felt like the largest cosmic smackdown possible. I felt like I got knocked down further than ever, and for the first time I did not even want to get up. for the next couple weeks it became a constant theme that I would say things like I wish I'd never survived the heart attack, but then hours later be coming up with ideas to make money through apps and such. This my friends is rapid cycling, depression into mania within hours.

Weeks after the heart attack, I had more and more anger towards people in my life. Lashing out over perceived slights. Ending relationships. Threatening life altering plans. When I became self aware I let my support team know, started a mood stabilizer meant to stop the episode. These mood stabilizers are made to knock people out of their episodes so when I saw it did not do it, it meant very serious things.

My mixed episode lasted from August 31st-October 26th. In that time, I ended multiple friendships, relationships with siblings, had psychotic breaks, withdrew for days, hurt the people I loved the most, spent money well beyond my means, argued and questioned my psychiatrist, refused to check myself into a hospital. I finally admitted to the money and in exchange for closing all my credit cards and paying back the debt at a later date, I was given the chance to pay it and not be ruined by credit card interest for the next decade. Rapid bouts of mania and depression can make ones memory spotty so I know there is more, and I am so sorry to the people I hurt, my actions were inexcusable.

**TW**

In Psycho Education they always told us that mixed episodes and rapid cycling were much more dangerous than a normal mania. I never quite understood why until now. On the weekend of October 24th I felt a complete drop in mania and felt only the dead coldness of depression. So much so that I disassociated for two days. I was home by myself in my room. I remember feeling sense of no one trusting me anymore and that no one would ever trust me again. I fixated on that thought for hours and hours until I felt the need to escape. With 15 types of pills, I carefully researched which ones would be least painful. I settled on my pain medication and my anxiety medication. They were both half full bottles for month long prescriptions. Saturdays went by and I did nothing, Sunday came and the same dreadful thoughts kept drowning me, I finally gave in to the disassociation. Next thing I remember was police and paramedics in my room, in and out of consciousness, pain, the ICU, then finally Tuesday the 28th on the med floor. I realized then I'd tried to kill myself;;;;;;;

;

;

;

;

;

That next week was tough, my body was messed up. I eventually moved up to the psych floor. I was released the following Monday. I then had to face all the people I hurt. It is still hard to face them. I will work hard again to make sure that the last 4 years of stable lasts for 40 years.

When I got out, I spent every morning and evening with my kids. I will never allow something like this to happen again.

I have already been working hard to have plans in place to make sure that even if the big one hits again that I am prepared.

Though no treatment is complete without aftercare, so unfortunately I will be missing Christmas again with my family this year. I leave for 30 day residential treatment on December 7, 2024 and return January 6, 2025. I choose to get the help I need. I will continue to attend weekly therapy. I will be the father my kids deserve!

This was probably longer than most of you cared for and I apologize for that, but I am pretty sure I left out some other rough stuff we have been through. Please let my story resonate more than just a gofundme. Talk to me. I wasn't able to talk about everything I battle with, so here is a quick list, and I am always happy to discuss!

My Diagnosed Diseases:

Coronary Artery Disease

Heart Disease

HIV/AIDS

GERD

TMJ Nerve Pain

Lumbar Post Laminectomy Syndrome - Severe Stenosis - Nerve Pain

Bipolar I

Borderline Personality Disorder

Binge Eating Disorder

Generalized Anxiety Disorder

PTSD

You can reach me on Facebook, Instagram (justseancarlos), or email (message me)

For anyone who donate or shares, you will forever be in my heart. I have a great capacity for love, so please, feel free to show your name, or if you do anonymous and feel comfortable only sharing with me, then please let me know privately.

I’d like to end this with what this is all about Friends, Loved ones, Family, and I guess me . I, now more than ever must remember that I am a Father, Son, Husband, Uncle, Son in Law, Cousin, Grandson, Friend, and Nephew. I love you ❤️

I could keep posting forever, I cry as I look back on these memories of people we’ve lost. People I’ve lost touch with. How my life evolved. If you are still reading thank you and I leave you with these bonus goodie

I spent so much time on this, now I feel like this

Bye now yall