I feel like I'm in a similar situation with mental health issues, but I accidentally drew a good lottery ticket at birth that keeps me off the streets. My mental health and ability to deal with it has deteriorated over a period of about 20 years.
When I was in middle school, the signs of depression began to show. I had always been a highly intelligent child tested at a 152-159 IQ on several different occasions and did extremely well in school, but I began not to care at some point between 7th and 8th grade. In 9th grade, I was struggling to get by and I was put on various medications.
That was the year my parents moved me across the country. I graduated last in class in high school, but scored a record high on the ACT that year. I ended up on academic discipline at a satellite campus of a major university solely for that ACT score. I went on to graduate with a double major in Political Science and Molecular Genetics. By this point I had been through more psychiatrists and prescription cocktails on and off at various costs and effectiveness.
After working the legal field in New York City and San Francisco for three years, I ended up going to law school, graduating, and passing the California Bar Exam on the first try. I started my own successful law firm upon graduation.
So what's the problem? Remember those medications? They didn't work not matter how much money my parents and I threw at them, so I turned to alcohol. It makes everything feel normal, and I know there are new treatments out there now I need to explore, but given my background, it's incredibly expensive.
In the end, I'm in my mid-30s living at home with my parents. If they didn't have the means to support me, I'd be on the street. We keep working for a solution, but nothing seems to work. In all honesty, I have enough coming my way through inheritance to survive very well for life, but I want more than that and it's absolutely infuriating when nothing seems to work no matter how much money and time is thrown at it.
I've felt like shit for 20+ years and I'm getting pretty damn sick of it.