This past week, I was scrolling through Facebook, procrastinating as usual. I stopped and read a long status update shared onto my feed, mostly because the words "mental illness magically disappeared" caught my eye. I sighed, clicking to expand it to witness for myself yet another article claiming that medicine to treat mental illnesses is the devil and natural remedies are completely going to cure everyone suffering immediately.

Of course, the status was exactly that- some girl didn't want to have to take medicine for ANYTHING, not even her headaches or back pains and also dealt with depression. She instead turned to acupuncture, which cured her pains, and I think that is totally great. The thing that bothered me was when she said that it totally changed her state of mind, and that she realized that praying and jabbing herself with needles has completely cured her, even mentally. While I don't think that's completely impossible, she goes on to state that medicine used to treat mental illnesses are fake and don't work, or that people get addicted to them. And, of course, those who suffer should just get over it, because it's all just in our heads... you know, almost like it literally is. Interesting.

It's this bashing that makes people who need help afraid to get it. It's this bashing that makes those who already have been diagnosed feel like monsters, whose methods of stabilizing themselves is wrong because it doesn't fit someone else's opinion. It makes people afraid that doing literally what is the best for them is bad.

I don't like to talk about my own mental health publicly much because of this very stigma. I want to be more open about it, so people like me know they're not alone, but I feel so isolated and weird even telling my close friends that, hey, I suffer from terrible anxiety and bipolar II disorder, please don't think of me any differently. Usually they don't, but it's hard for them to help because they don't experience it themselves, which is understandable.

I was put on mood stabilizing medicine early 2015 after being diagnosed with my bipolar disorder, and the result has been phenomenal. I still have mood swings, and I don't know if those will ever go away, but I don't suffer from such extreme highs and lows anymore.

I'm telling you all my experience because I know that it works. MEDICINE WORKS. I haven't suddenly mutated into some slime monster, and I definitely haven't suffered from any other weird side effects besides being happier and healthier.

Imagine that.

The thing I don't understand is how people can say that medicine for mental illnesses don't work and are unhealthy, and yet medicines for other illnesses such as colds, headaches, and pains are just fine-- nobody ever questions those. The only difference is that one is a mental pain while the other is a physical. So why can't I and others with these mental illnesses get the same assistance getting better as everyone else does with their illnesses? That makes zero sense to me. I simply want to be healthy, just like you do.

I don't go around telling people with broken limbs to just try and use them like a "normal person." I don't tell those who are throwing up and coughing to just get over it, and I certainly don't tell people that have other physical ailments to just... you know, STOP having it.

No, yoga, praying, and positive thinking is not going to magically cure my bipolar disorder and my anxiety. Even my mood stabilizers won't cure it-- it's something I'm going to live with the rest of my life, but with the assistance of my stabilizers and with support from my friends and family, it will be easier to manage.

Please stop making people who choose to medicate out to be monsters. Stop pretending like it's something we can just think away. Stop telling us that it's just all in our heads, something we quite obviously know. Just because you can't see our pain doesn't mean it doesn't exist. Let us choose to do what is best for us.