Everyone has their ways of coping with whatever they’re going through; sometimes it’s not all that healthy, though. There are a lot of people who are against taking medication for a mental illness, but I am not one of them. The depression and anxiety that I feel so often are VERY real, and I treat it just like I would if I had a broken arm or a cut.

I have been taking Fluoxetine, which is a form of Prozac, since April to help with my depression and anxiety. It helped so much at the beginning, but recently things started to change. All these thoughts were running through my mind that I didn’t feel like or want to take my medication, I was still feeling really anxious even with the medication.

What’s the point of having to take something every single day if it isn’t even helping what it was first intended to help? So, I started taking my medication sporadically and I experienced some really weird things.

There were a few times I felt really delirious. I would see things that weren’t there and hear things that weren’t there. It really scared me, so I talked to my boyfriend about it when we were driving a long ways, and then I told my counselor about it at my next counseling appointment.

We made an appointment to see the nurse practitioner at the school, which is where I went to get my medication in the first place. I went there Friday morning and the nurse practitioner completely understood why I wasn’t taking my medication – it wasn’t doing anything! She is prescribing me a medication that is more for depression and generalized anxiety, which is what I deal with every day. I am going to taper off with taking the medication I am on now, and eventually start taking Zoloft in the upcoming week.

I feel much better knowing that I wasn’t some crazy person who didn’t want to take their medication just because. My thinking was rational.

There’s so much stigma around taking medication for this type of illness. I really hate it and wish there wasn’t, and I want to try to get rid of that stigma. There’s nothing wrong with taking medication for anxiety, just like there isn’t anything wrong with taking insulin for diabetes or taking pills for high blood pressure. And there certainly isn’t anything wrong with trying a few medications before you find the right one for you, and even that one might not work forever.

I am still the same person, regardless of whether I am on an anti-depressant or not, and that is what I want people to know. I am NOT weak, I am NOT too sensitive. I am taking charge of my health and trying to develop healthy coping mechanisms for dealing with situations where I feel anxious, rather than unhealthy ones and unhealthy thoughts.

Medication may not work for everyone, and that’s OK. If medication isn’t your thing, that’s perfectly alright too! Not everyone responds well to medication and many people are able to find different ways to treat their mental illness, but it’s ok to have that little extra push that medication has given me. You’re not alone.