I began to experience depression and anxiety in middle school. Fast-forward nine years, I am a senior in college and both are still daily realities for me.
For most of that time, I haven't taken medication. At first, medication wasn't an option because we couldn’t find doctors willing to take a depressed, anxious self-mutilating 11-year-old. However, I made the conscious choice not to take it in my teens.
Most of the time, I didn’t think I had real issues. I attributed my moods to hormones or spiritual laziness. When it got bad enough to admit something wasn’t normal, I preferred to learn how to deal with my disorders without the use of chemicals.
My experience began with bullying and sexual harassment in middle school. Feelings of loneliness and dread were constant. My heart felt cold and beat too fast. Half-way through my first year, I began to self-harm and thoughts of suicide soon pre-occupied my mind.
I came close to it after my freshmen year of high school, but God intervened in my life in a powerful way. He began a healing process in the depressed, anxious areas of my life—among many others. Chief of those: my spiritual state with Him.
The depression and anxiety became more manageable. I experienced real joy and progress in confronting it, though realized in college that always labeling my feelings as moodiness or spiritual laziness was not true or healthy.
College came with intense depression, little motivation and a renewed struggle with self-mutilation. I drew on my skin just to do something that wasn’t ripping it open and stared lifelessly at walls for hours each week. Eventually, I realized I needed help and went to counseling.
I continued counseling over the next two years. It helped a lot but was limited. In October of 2014, I went to a psych ward following a binge of self-harm because I couldn’t promise I wouldn’t kill myself before the next meeting.
I still refused medication in the hospital. I was committed to learning how to deal with my disorders without putting chemicals in my body.
The time there was really good, as was the counseling after, but both were ultimately limited. A year later, tired of repeated backsliding in my progress, I began researching the most effective forms of suicide. I was done.
Somehow, I’m still here. And I realized that I need more than just talking it out.
My psychiatrist diagnosed me with depression severe enough to require both therapy and medication. After a month, my anxiety and depression are noticeably less.
Perhaps it comes as some surprise, but the experience with medication has brought me closer to God. It's amazing that I can get help and have the access to medicine that can heal my body, even as others are born without access to adequate food. It's so undeserved.
As much as I am thankful for my medicine, I know it isn't ideal. The side effects and interactions are many and I hope to be off it one day. If that isn't possible, the medicine is far better than the depression and anxiety.
Recently, my psychiatrist was asking questions about the nature of my depressive episodes. She then informed me that if this was my first episode, I could take my medicine for a year, and then see if I could do without it. Since I have experienced near constant depression and significant anxiety for nine years, I will likely have to be on it for at least five.
That was when I realized how important getting help is.
Help is a good thing. When we reject it, we will do one of three things: postpone it until a time when things are much worse, live a limited and largely miserable life or die.
I rejected help until I almost chose the third option. I now realize that if I had taken it, I probably wouldn’t need all of the extra help I do now and would have a avoided a lot of suffering.
For many of us with mental illness, getting help is hard. It's associated with a lot of stigmas and isn't always easily available. I feel that stigma myself every day, even in places like my church community—where I know I am accepted as I am.
However, I’ve come to realize that help is still worth it. Healing is worth it. Life is worth it. All of us are worth it. You are worth it.
I encourage anyone with mental illness to get the help they need—even if it means medication. There is nothing wrong with seeking treatment when you are sick. Whatever that treatment includes, be it counseling, therapy, support groups, or medication, it is better than the alternative. That I can promise.
