“You have to be healthy to have the energy to be ill” is a saying I have heard many times since I was first diagnosed and started therapy. Put simply, it means that everything that comes with sick leave, benefit applications, medical investigations, and so on demands a great deal from the individual, and someone who is already struggling—whether they are ill, disabled, pregnant, elderly, or the like—finds it difficult to meet all the requirements.

When I was first diagnosed and prescribed psychotherapy, the process began of applying for benefits from the Social Insurance Institution (Kela) in Finland, where I lived. I tried to find out how the process worked, so I called Kela. I called three times before I spoke to someone who gave the impression that she knew what she was talking about, so I followed her advice, but it turned out to be incorrect. Because of this, I also incurred additional expenses.

After I had sorted out the application with all the attachments, mind you all in paper form, I then had to track down a psychotherapist. Once again, I had to search on my own. I was lucky enough to find a very good person, but I could just as easily have made the wrong choice.

Applications have to be renewed too, which brings the exact same effort all over again. You have to book an appointment with a psychiatrist, get yourself there, gather paper copies, and fill in application forms, as well as submit the application within the specified deadline. My mother said later that if she had only known how to fill in such application forms, she would of course have helped me. I DIDN’T KNOW HOW TO FILL THEM IN EITHER! You don’t automatically download some kind of supplementary add-on module just because you get a diagnosis; you don’t become an expert in form-filling tasks. I can’t even count how many times I have cried over these forms and everything that goes with them. I started crying when a letter arrived from Kela because I knew they were asking for something else that I would struggle to cope with—additional information that needed to be substantiated with a paper copy of some certificate I had received previously, and things like that.

During this period, when I should have been concentrating on my recovery, I was working but later became unemployed on a very low allowance. I had to navigate the bureaucratic jungle of forms, understand which medical authority I needed a certificate from and which certificate, get myself to and from therapy sessions, and manage my daily life with all its bills and other obligations that I struggled to afford. I also had to behave like everyone else at all times and be positive and grateful for receiving help. That was why I was in such a poor state that I started crying when the rubbish bin got full because it meant I had to take the rubbish out.

In hindsight, I have realised that I became burnt out. The difficulties in Finland were also why I emigrated to Estonia. Not because I knew it was better in Estonia, but because I knew how hard it was in Finland.