When it comes to treating mental illness, a lot of people disagree on how to do so. Most of these people who disagree have never experienced any kind of mental health issues themselves, so it's easy for them to comment on what they believe would be a proper form of treatment. While I've been dealing with my depression and my anxiety, I've had numerous people tell me to just 'shake it off' and 'go get a hobby.'

Wow, I'm cured! I smelt fresh air! Everything is well in the world! WOW! Thank you!

Just like a physical illness, mental illness can restrain you from everyday activities. Imagine being in a constant battle with yourself. You're fighting these urges and temptations while trying to talk yourself into staying calm in a situation that your mind made 1000x more complex. You can't help but be scared of every little thing, because you have this mindset that no good can come from the world. You can't handle somebody being the least bit upset with you, or else you believe you're this god awful person who doesn't deserve to have anything good in their life. You can't cope with stress in a healthy way because you're prepared to be a failure. You know all of this isn't true, but you can't control it.

A major way that people treat their mental illness is with medication. You see, some of the issues we face within ourselves can, in fact, be a cause of a hormone imbalance or something along those lines. This can cause the ups and down, the extreme lows, and in fact a lot of other health issues that add onto the illness you already have. My hormone levels are extremely disoriented and uneven, which causes me to go from feeling 100% to -500%. Due to the levels, I wasn't only just diagnosed with depression and heightened anxiety, but also with someone called PCOS. PCOS has to do with your hormone imbalance, but also has various mental illnesses as side effects.

In order to treat my PCOS and my mental health issues, I've been prescribed different forms of medication. One for anxiety, one for depression, and one for sleep deprivation (which I need because it's factored into my lack of sleep due to my job and my depression.) When you have an internal issue which causes you to struggle with a mental illness, medication DOES help. Just like if you have a headache.. are you going to take an Advil or just down a cup of water?

I understand why people don't agree with taking medication, but it does not give you the right to bash people who do. Until you are living with this everyday hassle, please do not put us down for choosing how we would like to treat ourselves. Since I've started taking my medication, I'm able to calm myself and control my emotions much easier. I'm able to get a healthy and decent amount of sleep (when I'm able to) and my mood has been much more maintainable.

There is nothing wrong with taking medication for this, and I refuse to let anybody tell me there is. You can tell me until you're blue in the face why medication for mental illness is wrong, but my only response will be 'I don't care.' So please, stop tearing me down because I think I need more than fresh air to help me get to where I want to be.