To my Prozac,
You’ve been in my life for almost half of it, and I spent a lot of that time despising you.
I started taking you in fifth grade, way before anybody else had even heard of what depression and anxiety were. I was told not to mention that I took two of you every night because kids were mean, and if the quiet girl who read while walking to school every morning became even more different, life would get worse for me. You were the reason I was different from everybody else. I saw myself as somebody who couldn’t be happy without the help of some medicine, and I wanted to hate myself for it. When I cried because I just wanted to be “normal,” my mom would tell me about the other people in my family who took medication. I know she said it to make me feel better, but it only made me feel worse. I was already the student with divorced parents, and now I was also the girl whose family had to take medication for mental health, too.
Lucky for me, the rest of elementary school and middle school passed by without incident. I took you every night, and I had weekly therapy sessions I attended to get everything off my mind that you couldn’t help with. But then came high school.
I was so over you by then. It felt like a bad relationship in some stereotypical teen movie: I felt better when I took you, but I hated every moment I felt like I didn’t have my own true feelings. I stopped taking you, pretended to have taken it when my mom would check up on me before bed. Nothing bothered me right away, but after a few weeks, my panic attacks became more frequent, and I felt a heavy weight on my shoulders at all times. I didn’t want to get out of bed, I didn’t want to eat, and I didn’t feel like doing anything. I’d heard of people going off their medication and doing just fine without it, so I didn’t understand why it wouldn’t work for me.
I eventually had to tell my mom, and she freaked out. She’d seen too many cousins, aunts and uncles decide to go off their medication before, and she’d hoped I wouldn’t do it without consulting my psychiatrist first. We sat down and spoke, and I finally got back into the habit of taking you every night. I noticed a difference in myself immediately, and I haven’t stopped taking you since then.
Looking back, it was a stupid mistake to stop using you. I thought I knew everything already, but I was so wrong. Over the past few years, I’ve spent a lot of my time thinking about and learning about mental health. Taking a medication for my depression and anxiety is the same as somebody with diabetes taking insulin; we’re both just trying to do what’s best for our bodies and our health.
I suppose I want to end this letter by saying thank you to you. So, thank you for helping me get past the worst of my mental illness, for helping me to control my panic attacks and for controlling the symptoms of my depression. Despite our rocky start, I’m grateful that you’re one of the things that helps me stay mentally healthy.
Sincerely,
Rachel