Good Drugs

This is a follow up post to this one.

I'm really thanking God for modern medicine.  I am feeling so much better.  So freakin' much better, even! (Because when you throw freakin' in there, there's no mistaking just how much better I'm feeling.)  Not only am I working on adjusting the depression medicine, I finally got my ADD medicine refilled....which is a life saver in and of itself.  For me, the two go hand in hand, because when my mind races all day, it's bad news.  When I'm in a funk, my mind replays story after story after story of where I've screwed up, why I'm not good enough, and how I continually mess up.  I'm working on the negative self talk, and it's getting better, but when I'm down, it's just so hard to fight it.  Besides my mind racing and replaying horrible stories from my past, I can't concentrate on anything right in front of me, and then I'm down on myself for that too.  So when the ADD is in check, it's a little easier to allocate the energy to fighting the depression.

I have some definite opinions about depression.  I still feel like many people think it's just an overreaction to some bad days, it's just a negative or pessimistic attitude, or it's just lacking motivation to do things in life.  Let me just tell you:  Depression sucks.  I've battled it for years.  Depression led me to become a cutter and develop an eating disorder, but that's only one small part of the complicated, broken person that I am. I'm fighting it, I'm trusting in God, I'm seeking help, I'm developing new coping strategies all the time, AND I'm taking medication for it. I didn't realize until recent conversations that antidepressants and ADD/ADHD medicine is still viewed by some as not necessary.  It's frustrating.  It's not the 1980s anymore.  Modern technology has come so far in not only proving depression to be a chemical imbalance, but that medication works.  It's so hard to fight the stigma of mental illness when people are close minded. 

On one hand I want to be the voice that helps bring about awareness, because I think with awareness will come less judgement and stereotyping.  On the other hand, I just don't think I'm healthy enough yet for the conversations that would invoke.