When I was 14 my therapist suggested I go on anti-depressants, so my pediatrician prescribed a low dose of a generic medication.
While continuing therapy, I started the medication but found it difficult to remember to take every day, which made taking it ineffective if I was not getting a steady dose. I didn’t tell any of my friends as I was afraid of judgment, judgment stemming from the need to take anti-depressants at such a young age.
It wasn’t until I was admitted to a psychiatric hospital in November of my sophomore year that I was put on a correct dose of Cymbalta by their lead psychiatrist. I was there for 7 days which allowed me to become used to taking the medication and have a mental reset. While I was there, I was constantly asked what I was doing in this place, I always seemed so happy. I spent the whole time making sure everyone else was okay, inside and outside of the hospital. From that day in November of 2013 I have been on the same anti-depressant, and only recently have I become okay with talking about it.
Even with taking a high dose of an anti-depressant/anti-anxiety medication, I still wasn’t okay. Days were still long, and nights were still hard. Yet, I still couldn’t talk about it with anyone, because even with medication I was having severe depressive episodes. Even with going to therapy, the pressure to be okay was too much. It didn't make sense that I still wouldn’t be able to talk about my problems, even now that everyone knew about them. Suddenly though, I was supposed to be okay after being in the hospital, as if all my problems were to magically disappear. But they didn’t, and there were days when I felt like I couldn’t breath.
During this time, I pretended like things were alright, like the medication was the quick fix everyone thought it was. The truth is my anti-depressants took months to work to their full effect, and every day they didn’t work, they felt like swallowing sandpaper. Every day that was spent pretending like I was all better felt like constant salt on an open wound. After 6 months, my physiatrist prescribed me a mood stabilizer, another medication that was supposed to make me feel better. A week later I was in another psychiatric hospital after a suicide attempt.
Another week-long stay, one where I was put on a different mood stabilizer, given one-on-one and group therapy, doctors watched my every move, and my family made the mental preparations that medication wasn't going to fix me. They still have trouble with that to this very day, over 3 years later. They look at me when I am in the midst of a depressive episode and all they can see is the medication that is supposed to have made me better. All they can ask is why after 5 years I am not better, and when this is supposed to end. As if, when looking at me, they forget what recovery truly means.
They ask me why I can't be better, why I can't just get out of bed, why I can't just be normal. I wish I could answer them, give them a timeline or at least some justification on why I am like this. The truth is though that I have no reason, I have no explanation on why I have a mental illness, or why I can't simply just "get better." I wish I could, I wish I could take away the memories of my mother visiting me in a mental hospital, the memories my sister has of watching me stumble down the stairs after my overdose, I wish I could take it all back. I go back and forth between the idea that this all made me stronger, and how much simpler it would be if I could have just never gone through it at all.
Stigma is attached to every single part of having a mental illness. Having one makes you crazy, taking medication for it means you can't handle it on your own, suicide means you're selfish, medication not making everything better means you aren't doing recovery right, and above all you will forever be considered unstable.
There is however hope, hope that one day being mentally ill won't be so difficult to talk about. One day people will stop viewing it as meaning so many different things, but view it as what it actually is, an illness people can't control. All the medicine in the world can't make someone with depression not feel sad anymore, or someone with anxiety not feel that anymore.
For a very long time I was ashamed of my mental illness and having to take medication for it. It made me feel like less of a person for not being able to deal with problems on my own.
The truth is, having a mental illness doesn't make me weak, it makes me so freaking strong.
I am so lucky to be someone who has survived and continues to live with a mental illness, when so many lose this fight every day. It has taken me a long time to come to term with that fact that I may always be suffering from a mental illness, and that there many never be a finish line. The race might just be life, and the goal must be surviving, not beating something you can’t control. I take my medication every day, I strive to be the best version of myself and to put my depression aside.
For a long time, a specific quote has given me great comfort, and I hope it helps you too.
“Sometimes recovery doesn’t mean
more treatment,
more therapy,
or more medication.
Sometimes you don’t need
to learn more coping skills
or identify emotions.
Sometimes you need
more time in the sunshine,
more hugs that mean something.
Because sometimes you can understand recovery in your head,
but not feel recovery in your heart.
Sometimes your heart needs a little extra time to catch up.”
–I am waiting.
