Plenty of people have anxiety about money. I, on the other hand, spend money on my anxiety. I’m not just talking about therapy and prescriptions—the costs of which can be a crippling stressor on their own. What’s costing me about $400 a month are the extras: When my anxiety trickles from my mind to my body, I invest in self-care to help, whether it’s herbal aids for my digestion, vitamins that claim to keep my hormones in check, or services like weekly chiropractic adjustments and visits to a naturopath. Paying for this kind of holistic care gives me the illusion of control over my mental health. It presents options when I’m lost in the chaos of an anxiety disorder that can feel like having none.
I wouldn’t call myself woo-woo. And I’m definitely not against the medical establishment—I’ve probably contributed at least as much to Big Pharma as I spend on my supplement splurges. I was only 10 when I was diagnosed with OCD and an anxiety disorder, and I was promptly prescribed an antidepressant. I’m almost 30 now, and I’ve taken that little pill, in various doses and forms, nearly every single day for the past two decades. The intensity of my anxiety fluctuates (for example, a difficult pregnancy and a move across the country were big triggers for me a few years ago) and when it’s bad, I spend money as a salve.
I’ve bought into the culture of wellness—and I mean that literally.
My financial advisor’s face would grow pale if he saw how much I spend on supplements at Whole Foods—from pricy probiotics (a month supply to soothe my gut-mind connection runs me $50) to cheaper staples, like crystallized ginger to settle my stomach when the anxiousness makes me queasy. I also hold stress in my neck, and to stave off nasty, debilitating migraines, I see a chiropractor for weekly adjustments ($50 a pop, probably single-handedly financing his car payments). My medicine cabinet is home to dozens of essential oils (ranging from $10 to $80 apiece) which I huff during panic attacks, and a handful of Chinese herbs (anywhere from $20 to $40 each, replenished monthly), which I cling to for anything from IBS to PMS-related mood swings.
I’ve made some one-off, big-ticket splurges in the name of mental health, too. For a single one-hour appointment with an integrative psychiatrist, for example, I spent $400 (he was great, but I had to decline the follow-up appointment in favor of a mortgage payment). And for several weeks a few years ago, I worked with a holistic health coach over Skype to find natural ways to manage my anxiety during pregnancy, which cost $80 per one-hour session, plus any homeopathic supplements she recommended (there were, as you might guess, a lot).
While I can’t be sure if the herbal tinctures and the soothing confidence of a naturopath actually make any kind of long-term difference, I’m also not convinced that it matters. My self-care regimen, costly as it is, makes me feel better.
Haters will say these supplements are snake oil. And I’ll be the first to admit that maybe they are. But that’s not the point. Maybe the act of getting up and going somewhere to do something for myself, when I otherwise spend most of my time caring for two young kids, is what gives me a much-needed boost in mood—and the substance or service I’m buying doesn’t matter at all. But if getting my spine cracked every week helps me give the best version of myself to my family, my husband and I will sacrifice a cable TV subscription and date nights to make it work.
We don’t have a ton of disposable income—he’s a self-proclaimed expert in getting overdraft fees reversed; we collectively have $80,000 of student loan debt, and my freelance earnings vary month to month—but we are on the same page about investing in my mental health. I want to thrive, and I feel like this helps. Of course, medication and therapy are a necessary part of that help, and I’ve been following those protocols since I was still wearing a training bra from LimitedToo.
Holistic treatments, on the other hand, feel like my decision, something I choose to do as an adult who’s still figuring out what my life looks like with mental illness. I know that self-care isn’t healthcare, but if it—or the idea of it—helps keep me functioning, well, that feels like money well spent.