Small Thoughts Big Feelings: The $14,000 Question

 In this mini episode, Kari shares a funny moment about an HSA statement that turns into a reflection on invisible labor, chronic illness, and why some parts of life are hard to explain even to the people who love us. 

For information on health savings accounts, check out these links:

https://www.healthcare.gov/glossary/health-savings-account-hsa/

https://www.healthcare.gov/high-deductible-health-plan/

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This is a small thoughts, big feelings mini from both sides of the couch. I'm Carrie, and today's thought is small, but the feeling definitely isn't. So I was working on my taxes and I was having a conversation with my partner about our HSA account. If you're not familiar, HSA stands for a health savings account. Definitely something you should look into if you're chronically ill, but I'm not gonna spend too much time saying what that is, but I'm showing him. How much we spent in our HSA account, and his eyes got really wide and he said, how did we spend $14,000 last year? And I just looked at him like, hello, have you met me? I spend a lot of money on medical expenses. I was explaining to him this isn't just our deductible and max out of pocket from our insurance because yeah, our insurance isn't great, but. The max out of pocket is less than $14,000, but this also includes a lot of healthcare expenses that aren't directly related to things that I charge my insurance for. A lot of things that I get done medically are not covered by my insurance, so I'm spending out of pocket for those things. I also don't carry vision insurance, but this year, I ended up getting diagnosed with a disorder that needed weekly vision therapy. So that was a big expense too. But there's also a lot of stuff for managing my. Chronic illness that isn't prescribed from the pharmacy, so insurance doesn't cover that. Obviously I'm spending a lot of money. My body definitely treats healthcare like a subscription service. I forgot to cancel. It's constantly deducting from our account and we don't think about it because this is a separate account. So it's not something we're looking at when we're doing our budget. So. Maybe this was a brief, funny moment to me, or a shocking surprise to my partner, but what it really wasn't was about the money. We have this health savings account for a reason. The money was in there, obviously I was able to spend it. We've been saving for a really long time, prior to me being diagnosed as chronically ill and being at the doctor on a weekly basis. But for me, it was more about visibility. Like I've talked about in previous episodes, all of this chronic stuff doesn't show up as one big dramatic event. It's literally a thousand tiny line items. And that doesn't get seen by other people. I see it. I'm the one experiencing it. I'm swiping my card or typing it in, or reading it over the phone to pay off all these medical expenses. I'm very aware of how much money I'm spending, but even the person that is closest to me and sees me in my day-to-day life has no idea how many tiny moments there are. Like this for me. So I will call it the mental load of managing a body. This isn't necessarily a relationship problem for me, but like, just the fact that even when someone that you share your mental load with on a daily basis, like has no idea that it's happening behind the scenes. But if we wanna look at it from a therapist side too, people might, in my position, might have felt like their partner was accusing them or like upset for spending $14,000 on healthcare expenses. And maybe your reaction would've been to be defensive, like, hello, I'm doing all this health stuff. Do you think I want to be spending this money? Do you think I want to be spending $14,000 on health expenses? Look at, you know, poor me. And that could have caused a conflict between us. I think. Having a discussion with your partner and using that as a point to connect on and not a point to get defensive about, would've been helpful if that were the case? My partner just really doesn't know because I don't alert my partner every time I make a purchase. Maybe some people do, and my partner is not chronically ill, so he does not understand. Even though I tell him, the amount of work it goes into managing my chronic illness, and that's okay, but that was a point for me to say, Hey, yeah, that's part of my experience. Like, see me and what I'm doing and hey, I feel super grateful that. I was able to spend $14,000 on my medical expenses this year. 'cause for a lot of people that would've caused a big financial hardship. So I'm grateful that I am able to make those purchases without having to think super deeply about them. Again, another encouragement to look into a health savings account. If you've ever had to explain your body to someone you love. You're not alone. Sometimes a spreadsheet is the least interesting part of the story here. And anyways, that's how we spent $14,000 last year. Romance isn't dead. If this mini episode resonated with you, share it with a friend or drop a comment. Thanks for listening to both sides of the couch.