When you break your leg they’ll reset it and plaster it while it grows back.

When you are in immense physical pain or need surgery, they’ll give you painkillers/narcotics.

When you mind is off, they’ll give you meds to suppress this so you can become better. There is a conversation to be had about society and if we give too much medication. But the brain is complex and when you are in a depressive spiral, where you contemplate suicide once every 5 seconds, it helps to suppress the fuck out of that so you can heal. speaking from experience there and you can heal

Then there are simply people/disorders which have a changed or disrupted brain chemistry (outside normal variation), if we have medicine to help these people function: we should use it.

My meds are a tool to help make it possible for me to cope with my emotions in a healthy way. For some people, all the friends, family, and social connections in the world can’t fix their mental health struggles. Some people really do NEED medication. A great support system and healthy coping strategies are absolutely vital as well, but it can’t fix everything. Meds cant fix everything either. It’s multifaceted

I had been on citalopram many years ago and eventually went off it because I thought I could deal with my lifelong depression and anxiety by myself. Sure, I had a good multiyear run with no meds but going to therapy, then it all came creeping back. I’ve been on a different medication for almost 2 years now after accepting the fact that it’s a condition that I can’t beat by myself. If I had a heart condition that required medication I wouldn’t bat an eye at that. Sure, the meds aren’t perfect but at the rate I was going I have no idea whether nor not I would be here typing this out right now. Also, I wouldn’t want my mom to be sad if I had offed myself.

If hard to be mentally healthy in todays world full of despair and news constantly bashing you with negatives, some people need medicine to regulate those chemicals.

Not everyone needs medicine but becareful about search bias as you will find someone with terrible advice that has the answer you were already looking for.

I have bipolar disorder and I had taken medication for years. I stopped a couple months ago due to side effects but I know that eventually I will need them again. I am “enjoying” the break though. Good and bad emotions hit harder now but my sex drive is coming back and my emotions towards other are coming back. I was a bit emotionless on the medicine.

But like I said, I am bipolar 1. I will eventually need the meds again. It’s a medical fact that I will experience these highs and lows due to my brain structure. I have been so manic before I literally saw stars. I have been so depressed that I was ready to off myself. I used to have horrible night episodes as an adult that went away after I was medicated. They haven’t come back yet even though I am not any longer medicated.

Fortunately, I have familial support who will let me know when I need to medicate again and a strong moral sense that I never deviate from. Medicine is needed for bipolar people. Some of us can function for a time without it but it really is just a matter of time before we need it again. It’s up to the severity of the current cycle.

I’d tried 3 or 4 SSRIs in the past and quit them for various reasons, mostly side effects. This year my psych prescribed me cymbalta and it made a huge positive difference for me. All those calming exercises people tell you to do to calm down and stop spiraling actually started working. I started being able to more easily differentiate catastrophizing from reasonable concerns. I started being able to make actionable plans to address my anxieties instead of doom spiraling for hours in paralysis. I started being able to try new things and do difficult things that intimidated me because I wasn’t frozen by the anxiety anymore.

After a few months my therapist was telling me that I had done so much work to improve; at first I didn’t feel that was true and that it was mostly the medication that made a difference, until she pointed out that it was the medication that enabled ME to do all the mental/emotional work to deal with my symptoms. It felt easier to do once I was on medication, so I assumed that meant I wasn’t doing anything (or at least that I was slacking). But it was actually that the meds just made managing my emotions and triggers a reasonable task instead of an overwhelming one.

I have PTSD, so my nervous system is constantly on high alert without pharmaceutical intervention. After moving out of the abusive situation I grew up in, I had all the support in the world for over a decade and I was still severely struggling . Sometimes some people just need the medication to course correct their brain.

If someone doesn’t want to be on medication that’s their right, people have the right to not take any medication they don’t want to take and it shouldn’t affect the quality of care they have access to. But for me medication was a life changer and I wouldn’t go off it if I could avoid it.