14/10/2022
If you know what these tablets are, then I don't have to describe to you what this post is regarding. But if you don't, then allow me to explain.
This medication allows myself (and many others) to deal with and manage a normal day to day life. Although most days it leaves us feeling tired, spaced out and emotionless. Crazy right? Why would anyone want to feel like that. Well this is why.
You see I suffer from depression and anxiety and in the past I have experienced suicidal thoughts/tendencies. The aforementioned makes simple things such as relationships and friendships and life in general, so trivial, so complicated.
My brain is often a very complicated place where nothing seems right or appears as it is. I overthink and over analyse every little thing. I constantly make up scenarios in my head and worry about problems that don't even exist. I notice little differences that 'normal' people wouldn't notice and I put that much thought into them that they become not so little. For example:
The 'X' at the end of the text message you normally put but haven't this time? How come? Do you hate me? Do you not want to talk to me anymore? Am I a burden to you and wasting your time?
You didn't say I love you on the phone? do you not love me anymore? Do you love someone else instead? Have you ever loved me?
They just made a comment about me. Was it a joke? Was I supposed to laugh? Or do they mean it? Are they being nice? Are they talking about me? Do they talk about me often? I bet they don’t like me really?
And for all those questions I will spend hours thinking of answers and usually pick the worst possible one as the correct one. Then I let it all build up in my mind, until it destroys me. But if you've never experienced this you probably wont understand but this is how mine and 1 in 4 people's brains often work.
On top of this theres the physical battle mental illness brings from lack of sleep. Insomnia, up all night answering questions to situations that don't even exists. or sleep to much and waste half my day still feeling tired. I still smile and I have every excuse for when you ask why, often saying I'm okay when inside I'm falling apart.
But these tablets help me I take one little pill, once a day and it keeps me functioning. It gives me a chance to have the life I deserve to live. I am not ashamed of it, and I am not embarrassed by it. As no one should be.
Mental health medications are often portrayed as scary or “bad.” Many believe these drugs turn you into a zombie — a mindless, emotionless zombie — and many believe medication to be “a last resort.” And, yes, it should be. But why suffer when you don’t have to? Why hurt and hide and miss out on life when you can be a part it? When you can be living it?
The thing is, I have a chronic illness. Yes, it is a chronic mental illness, but like most illnesses, it needs to be managed. It needs to be monitored. And it needs to be treated. Antidepressants are but one way to treat it, but they are certainly a way I choose to treat it, because for me it works.
