Another Wornout Cliche!

Over the past years I have read many biased opinions on why people should not medicate mental illness. Here are just some of the comments: “It ruins your body” “you can self-heal” “It’s just the drug companies trying to get money off you” “it’s addictive” And then there’s those who tell me what I should be doing instead: “you need to sleep more” “you need to exercise more” “you need to eat healthy” “you should be in therapy” “try natural therapies” So, what happens though, when you are already doing all those recommendations? When, no matter how much you sleep, how healthy you eat, how many natural therapies you try, how much you exercise, or how much therapy you get, your mental illnesses are still stopping you from living a fulfilling life? I have tried all the above, and I still do all of the above, however without medications, alongside my sleep, exercise, healthy eating, and therapy, I am a danger to myself. I’m not denying that these things help…they help a l...

I am writing what I believe will be my most personal and serious blog entry to date. I know from past poetry and stories you can tell a lot about me, but here I am really going to open up as much as I can without hurting anyone. Since I was about 16 I have suffered on and off depression and general anxiety disorder, but I suppose about five years ago it got extremely severe. Without going into the causes it really was a mixture of nature and nurture that led to this. While I had experienced major depressive bouts previously - one causing me to drop out of a uni course (I would get the train, get halfway there, and turn around and go to a friend's house as I couldn't be around people), it was five years ago that I started experiencing severe panic attacks, disassociative episodes, and began regularly self harming. A few of the worse things that happened were a Xanax overdose, severe cuts, and multiple broken knuckles from hitting walls. I couldn't drive on freeways and ...