Take Your Meds

“Take your freaking pill. (Your anti depressant. Your SSRI. Your anti anxiety med.)

Take it, please.

You deserve to be healthy.
You deserve to feel sunshine.
You deserve joy.

You deserve a brain that doesn’t beat you up.

…

Sometimes God’s biggest miracles come in little orange bottles.

Sometimes your very salvation is written on a prescription pad, and there is absolutely nothing wrong with that.

Fight the good fight with me. Stay in the sunshine. Vulnerability is courageous as hell, and it takes so much courage to admit you need this.

Warrior on, my friend. You aren’t alone.

Take your freaking pill.”

- Mary Katherine Backstrom, Blogger with Holy Hot Mess (Excerpt from her Facebook post, read the whole thing here.)

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Y’all I struggle with this daily. In 2015, I had the hardest re-entry into college. I was an incoming college sophomore. I had just had one of the most amazing and hardest summer internships ever, but I had to miss the first two weeks of classes to finish the job. I felt like I was so far behind my classmates, my friends, my whole world. A strong case of FOMO. When I got back to school, I struggled to go to class, my club meetings, and even getting out of bed. As an achiever, this was not like me at all. I was always go, go, going. I didn’t know what to do.

I reached ended up reaching out to my mom and scheduling an appointment with the campus health department. I spoke with a counselor who referred me to someone else to get me on some medication for depression and anxiety. I cringed. I felt like only “crazy” people were on medicine, but I started to take it.

It helped, I slowly returned to my ‘normal’ routine. Granted, it was not the same life I was living before. I took my pills almost every day for the rest of the school year. Then I started feeling good, better even. So I stopped.

Then I regressed. I started to feel dumb and weak that I was not able to be happy unless I had my magic pill. My friends and family know when I stop taking my pills. My brain is so off when I am not taking my pills.

5 years later, and I struggle daily to take my meds. Society tells us that you are weak for asking for help, but I think that makes you strong. So unbelievably strong!

You are not alone.

“Each year millions of Americans face the reality of living with a mental illness.” - National Alliance on Mental Illness (NAMI)

If you or someone you care about may be struggling, please reach out. Check out NAMI’s resources.