Happy Pills
Even with mental health and mental illness being more openly discussed than ever, something I hear all the time in talking to people about them is the hesitation people feel at taking anti-depressants. There’s a hesitation you don’t see compared to medications for ‘physical illnesses’.
I think a lot of this comes from the remaining stigma around mental health. There’s a feeling that when you get to the point of needing medication to help you with mental health that it means you are weak or that you have failed in some way. It’s not a feeling you get when you have a bacterial infection and need to take antibiotics, for example. It doesn’t feel like a character flaw or a weakness. The pills will help you get better so you take them, simple as that.
When it comes down to it, mental illness is no different to ‘physical illness’ really. It’s an illness of the brain, a chemical imbalance that can be helped with medication. But it FEELS different. Some of that is the stigma there still is to this day in society. Some of it is that when you have depression/anxiety there is often a voice in your head telling you that you are weak or not good enough. That self-doubt can often make you doubt that you are really sick. Perversely, the illness itself makes you doubt you’re really sick.
I’ve been on various SSRIs for around 8–9 years now, and I still find it hard to talk about offline. My friends all know, but it’s something I find it hard to be open about at work especially. There’s a voice in my head that tells me that people will see me differently if they know, that they will think I’m not up to doing my job for example.
It’s not exaggerating to say that going on medication saved my life. I wasn’t suicidal but I was at the point where I just wanted to lie in bed and never get up. For mild depression, things like the usual exercise and yoga and sleep etc. may help, but for me, I needed the medication to get me to a point where I could do these things. It gets me to a baseline where my anxiety won’t sink me into a pit of depression, and where I can do other things like CBT to manage it.
Anti depressants are not a cure. You will likely need other strategies/treatment in combination with them. They have side effects. It may take several painful tries to find the right one. They certainly aren’t something that should be taken lightly, and without consulting with a medical professional. But there is absolutely no shame in taking them. There is no shame in going back to them after having been off them. No more than there is for any other medication. And they really can help.
