My experience with mental health meds
My eyes pop open. I check my phone, and it’s 1 a.m. I lay in bed on my back, staring at the ceiling. I’m not anxious. I have no racing thoughts or chest tightness or worry about the future. I feel calm. And yet I can’t go back to sleep. After awhile, I get up and start organizing my linen closet. Before I know it, it’s 3 a.m., and I’ve just spent two hours in the middle of the night organizing towels and shampoo backstock. This insomnia is one of the side effects of my mental health medication.
I’ve always had a personal stigma around taking medication for mental health. If I took medicine for my mental health, then it would mean I was weak and couldn’t cope on my own. I also feared becoming dependent on the medication and that I would lose my edge I have at work due to my anxiety.
A couple of months ago, I hit my breaking point. One Monday, my depression was so bad, I couldn’t stop sobbing. I had been going to therapy regularly for 18 months and had recently started going to a virtual support group, but I knew I needed more help. I took a brave step and set up my first ever psychiatrist appointment.
What made me change my mind about mental health medication? It was a combination of people in my life being open about their medication and my virtual support group. People in my life talking about their mental health medication helped normalize the concept for me and reassured me I wouldn’t be weak for taking medication for my mental health. My friend described it to me this way:
“If you had a heart condition, you would take the heart pill. It shouldn’t be any different when it comes to pills and mental health.”
I was also able to hear about others’ experiences with mental health medication on my virtual support group. The words SSRIs (selective serotonin reuptake inhibitor) and mood stabilizers became a part of my vocabulary as I listened and learned more about mental health medication. I also had my virtual support group to turn to when I was nervous about going to my first psychiatrist appointment.
With the COVID-19 pandemic, I chose a virtual option for my psychiatrist appointment. I got on the video call, explained my symptoms and within 15 minutes had a prescription for an SSRI (selective serotonin reuptake inhibitor). I started taking the SSRI and experienced a number of side effects: nausea, headache and worst of all, insomnia. Luckily, these side effects, including the insomnia, went away after a week or so. I also could feel immediate effects of the medication. It was like an out-of-body experience waking up with no anxiety or depression. I could not remember a day when I wasn’t anxious or depressed, so this was a completely foreign feeling for me.
Although I saw immediate and moderate success with the SSRI I was taking, after awhile it wasn’t as effective as I hoped it would be. I began to experience many days of anxiety and depression in a row, so I talked to my psychiatrist about changing my medication. He prescribed me a mood stabilizer on top of the SSRI, which made me really groggy and unable to function. After stopping taking the mood stabilizer, we are now trying a different SSRI. So far, I’ve seen some success with this medication, as my anxiety and depression have mostly been kept at bay, but I am also experiencing insomnia as a side effect again (I am writing this blog at 3 a.m.). I am hoping the insomnia goes away soon like it did with the other SSRI and that I continue to see positive results with this medication.
I have definitely been on an up and down journey when it comes to mental health medication. I still haven’t found exactly the right meds that work for me, and that’s okay. Unfortunately, there is a lot of trial and error involved when it comes to mental health medication because you can’t really predict how your body and mind will respond to a certain medication.
Even though my journey on mental health medication has been rocky, I am not giving up hope. I have seen some positive results, for example, my anxiety has significantly subsided, and I’m not laying in bed all day due to my depression. I am going to stick with it, be patient and keep working with my psychiatrist and therapist until I find the right medication that works for me. What really gives me hope is the people in my support group who have told me how they had to go through various meds until they found the right combination.
And that’s why I’m telling my story to you today. To normalize taking medication for mental health. It doesn’t make you weak to take mental health meds. You are taking care of yourself and your mental health, and that is something to be applauded. Whether you are on mental health meds, thinking about exploring mental health meds, seeing a therapist, focusing on self-care or any combination of the above, know that you’re not alone. We’re all in this together to fight the stigma around mental health.
