“I think you should consider medication.”
It had taken my mother 13 years to tell me this; it took my girlfriend all of six weeks.
Despite being medicated off and on for ten years, my brain still sent out the same missiles to ricochet off my heart and settle with the debris of my stomach: guilt, anger, shame. Logically, I knew her statement should be the equivalent of telling someone with a broken arm or a questionable mole to go to the hospital. I also knew those people probably didn’t have the same feelings I was fighting.
Medication wasn’t going to be the answer. After being on six different medications previously — at varying doses, with or without seeing a therapist — I knew enough to know that it wasn’t my rescue. It was closer to being able to say I was on the Titanic, but I managed to find a spot in a lifeboat. Now, it would be up to me to row, to wait, to do anything.
“How many of us do you see?”
I’m always tempted to ask my pharmacist this because I know he knows what the medication is for long before he puts the label on the little orange bottle.
“Do I look crazy to you? I graduated college in three years. I’ve been published. I’m not crazy.”
As if he would be interested in any of those facts. As if any of those facts made the last statement true.
Asking me to consider medication was like asking me to become a part of a statistic, part of the few that actually seek treatment for their mental illness. Those little blue and white pills would also come with an extra-large helping of stigma – I was also now one of the known crazies. It was asking me to accept that it took a pill, daily, for me to be able to function on the same level that my peers seemed to effortlessly exist on. It was asking me to be different.
The silence stretched between us, filled only by the dim humming of the highway. Instead of looking at her, I looked out the window. The trees filing past in a green blur, illuminated by the setting sun behind us, were a visual representation of how my mind felt. I could paint that, I thought before I remembered I hadn’t painted since I’d been on medication a year and a half ago.
I think of all the excuses I could tell her: It never works; it only makes things worse. I don’t want to sit helplessly in some chair while my doctor looks at me with pity. I don’t want to have to find time in my day to take a pill without anyone looking. By the time the medication takes hold, you’ll probably decide I’m too crazy and leave anyway. If you don’t, and they decide to change my medication, I’ll go through detox: the shakes, the sweats, all the fun things. Some medications have given me nightmares — do you want to deal with that? Do I?
That’s the thing about medication. It goes beyond simply asking someone to be healthier. Rather, it’s asking them to put their life through a meat grinder while the proverbial mad scientists try to guess which dose and which medication are going to balance your brain chemicals. In other words, which parts of me were from my illness, and which parts were actually me? What was I going to have to give up? It’s asking a lot.
Even in the best-case scenario, the medication will only stabilize your illness, clearing the fog barely enough for you to focus through it. Until your body adjusts to the medication. Hardly. At some point, you’ll either have to change up your medication, or learn to live without it. Either way, it starts the process of detox and adjustment all over again.
I looked across the car’s cabin at her. She was facing forward, both of her hands on the wheel. Her sunglasses were hiding her eyes, but I knew enough to know that even saying that to me had been a huge leap for her. I hadn’t ever been on that side of the conversation, but I knew it was going to take a lot of courage for both of us.
“Okay.” I agreed.
—
That was in May. I had my initial doctor’s meeting in June, where I was prescribed a relatively low dose of medication for anxiety and depression, as well as a sleeping pill. Within three weeks, I had to be changed to a different medication altogether.
At that appointment, the doctor came in with pictures that demonstrated how the brain can be affected by different mental disorders. Anxiety, depression, schizophrenia — they all lit up different areas of the brain. In a way, it helped solidify the idea that I am not my disorder. I didn’t choose this, any more than I chose to stop growing in the seventh grade or chose blonde hair.
I’m not sure if it was those charts, the medication, or simply coming to terms with the fact that I’m ill, but I feel better. I feel the best I have in a very long time.
For more information on mental health, visit the U.S. Department of Health & Human Services. For modern statistics and commentary regarding anxiety, depression and other mental illnesses, read this report from the Pew Charitable Trusts.
