living with it

Published June 11, 2026 | By solarbluseth

Mental Health & Pride Month 2026

Staying Alive Is Harder Than It Seems Sometimes

A Mental Health Day, FMLA, Pride Month, and What It Really Means to Still Be Here

✍️ SolarBluSeth
📅 June 2026
🏳️‍🌈 Pride Month

You Need a Hero — hero image for the campaign

I Put It Out There Today

This morning I posted something on LinkedIn that I’ve been sitting with for a while.

I told people I have AIDS.

I told them I haven’t had my medications in almost a week. That I lost my job, my benefits, and some of my stability all at once. And that today — right now — I’m taking an FMLA day to cut through the red tape and get things back on track.

I didn’t post it for sympathy. I posted it because sometimes the bravest thing you can do is say this is hard out loud — and then show people what you do next.

Close-up of hands working through paperwork

What a Mental Health Day Actually Looks Like

Pop culture wants you to believe a mental health day means bubble baths and scented candles and journaling in a sunlit room.

For a lot of us, it looks like two hours of filling out Social Security paperwork. It looks like printing documentation and calling your doctor’s office to ask them to contact the manufacturer directly because you can’t wait for insurance to get its act together. It looks like navigating systems that were not designed with sick people in mind.

That’s not glamorous. But it’s real. And doing that work — finishing that work — is an act of self-care just as much as any spa day.

“I love finishing tasks. I love looking back at the things I’ve done. There’s a quiet power in checking something off a list that used to feel impossible.”

Close-up of hands — the work of staying alive

Today I checked off a lot.

Checklist with items checked off

Pride Month and the Weight of Still Being Here

It’s June. It’s Pride Month. And this year, Pride hits differently for me.

Living with HIV — living with AIDS — in 2026 is not a death sentence the way it once was. The medications work. The science has come so far. And yet, there are still days when staying alive feels like a part-time job. When the bureaucracy of survival — the insurance calls, the paperwork, the benefits gaps, the advocacy you have to do just to access your own healthcare — takes more out of you than the diagnosis itself.

Pride was born from people who were told they were too sick, too broken, too much. People who showed up anyway. Who marched anyway. Who loved anyway.

I’m showing up today. In my own way. At my own desk. With my stack of papers and my cold coffee and my determination to get it done.

That counts.

Pride themed imagery — resilience not performance

You Don’t Have to Share Everything — But It Helps Someone When You Do

I know not everyone can or should be as open as I was today. There’s risk in disclosure. There’s stigma that’s still very real. I’ve felt it. I’m not naive about it.

But here’s what I know: when I was first diagnosed, I needed to see people living. Not just surviving — living. Talking about it. Being loud about it. Refusing to be ashamed of something that happened to their body.

If this post is that for even one person, it was worth it.

If you’re reading this and you’re in a coverage gap, a benefits nightmare, or a health crisis that feels like it’s drowning out everything else — I see you. It’s a lot. The red tape is real and it’s exhausting and you shouldn’t have to fight this hard just to stay healthy.

But you can do it. One form at a time.

A window with sunlight — forward motion and hope

What’s Next

Today I filed paperwork. I made calls. I got my ducks in a row.

Tomorrow I get back to building — my business, my music, my content, my life.

That’s the thing about hard days. They’re not the end of the story. They’re just the part where you do the work nobody sees, so you can show up for the part everybody does.

Happy Pride. Stay alive. Do the hard thing first.

— SolarBluSeth

SolarBluSeth is a web developer, entrepreneur, content creator, and streamer based in central Illinois. He runs SolarBlu.net LLC and creates across YouTube, Twitch, Kick, and TikTok.

If you or someone you know needs HIV care resources, the Ryan White HIV/AIDS Program can help connect you with local services: hrsa.gov/ryan-white-hiv-aids-program

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