When I sat down to finalize my thoughts I honestly didn’t know where to begin. There is so much to be said around medication and the stigma against mental health.

Let us just start there, the medication.

The medication I am on keeps me alive, keeps me sane, keeps me well adjusted. I wish everyone felt the way I do when it came to this concept. Medication is never something to fear! Especially when it comes to your mental health. I look at it this way, if you had diabetes you wouldn’t deny yourself something that would be so beneficial for you such as insulin. If the medication I am on will help me feel better then why is there such a stigma against mental health drugs? My medication journey started out like many with the diagnosis.

Sitting in a cold ER room getting told I have anxiety and here are my treatment options. This was eight years ago. There was a massive stigma then and even within my own family about being on anti-depressant medication. I myself didn’t want to be stuck on pills for the rest of my life. I tried everything that was suggest to help control my anxiety without medication, (which none of them worked) more sleep, meditation, cutting caffeine (I’m from Seattle and cutting out coffee with blasphemous.)

Nothing worked, I got suicidal, I wasn’t sleeping, and my school work was slipping. My parents finally sat me down and said they loved me and couldn’t sit by watching me be like this. They forced me to see a doctor and get on medication. There is nothing worse than seeing a loved one struggle. I have seen it many times throughout my mental health journey.

I’m sure glad my parents did what they did. At first I hated it, but now I’m in such a good place mentally. Why did I ever deny myself being mentally healthy? The stigma around mental health and its medication needs to be stopped, like right now! There is nothing wrong with making yourself feel well. I learned that lesson the hard way and had the hardest time accepting it! To all those people who judge the people on medication who say my least favorite phrase “meditate don’t medicate”!

Please put yourself in the other people’s shoes. I understand if you don’t have any mental health challenges it can be difficult to understand but it is not that hard to learn. Ask questions and be open to new ways of thinking. If we do this we can break the stigma around mental health together.

Check out @veevloot on Instagram!