I know how aggravating it is when you are stubborn, like me, and someone tells you that you have to take medication. I struggled for a very long time with the fact that I had to take medicine to feel “normal” when other people can just wake up and already be there.
I didn’t understand how people could get out of bed in the mornings without crying or arguing with someone. I didn’t understand how they could make it through an entire day without something triggering a panic attack and sending them into a spiral. I didn’t understand how people could stay up late enjoying life, when sleeping was so much easier.
For years, I didn’t understand this.
My freshmen year in college, I took Communications to go ahead and get it over with. I knew that I was going to be required to memorize speeches and to get up in front of my entire class with nothing but my shaky bones, weak mind, easily triggered eye ducts, and racing heart. The first speech we had to do was one that we were required to research and the only one where we could choose our own topic.
I immediately knew that I wanted to give my speech over mental health.
I know, you didn’t see that one coming, did you?
I wrote notes, practiced in the mirror endless hours, and recorded myself to play in the radio on my car when I couldn’t read my index cards in case I got stuck. I felt confident and sure of myself with this speech.
My last name started with a “W,” so I was the last one to give my speech. I had 30 something other speeches to fucking compare mine to and I was a nervous wreck. Some people did so well I was dreading even attempting mine.
My name was called and everyone in the class turned to me. I stood up from my blue plastic chair and adjusted my dress before standing in the direct center of the front of the classroom.
The opening of my speech was this:
“Put yourself in this scenario and write down exactly how you would feel in this instance. Let’s say that you aren’t feeling well and so you drive yourself to the doctor’s office and are waiting in the lobby when a middle-aged woman comes in with a son who looks to be about 8 or 9. They sit down a few seats from you and you notice the little boy crying, shaking, and talking out loud to himself very quickly. You realize he is talking about how is afraid that the military is coming to get him. His mother notices you watching him and informs you that he has brain cancer.
Now… a new scenario. Keep all of the same details except this time, instead of brain cancer, she tells you that he has just been diagnosed with schizoaffective disorder.
Notice how you feel empathetic in the first scenario and almost scared or at a loss of words in the second.
Why is it that a physical illness is seen as more important than a mental illness? Why is it that whenever you have a headache, people tell you to take Tylenol, but whenever you feel extreme sadness, people tell you to “snap out of it?”
What do we have to do as a society to teach people that it is truly okay to notice whenever you have an imbalance in your brain and to take action on your health without being judged?
Today, I end each night with an alarm reminding me to take 4 different powdery pills. They make me sleepy and usually I cannot stay up past 9, but I have more confidence throughout the day. I feel better about myself and I feel better about the world around me. I no longer care when people find out that I have to take medications. Because it was choice. And I am choosing that I am worth it.