Therapy, Getting Medicated, and Other Beasts

Four months ago, I started going back to therapy. My first time in 5 years. There wasn’t anything bothering me, nothing at all really. I just decided to give it another go.

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I logged onto my student health portal and requested an appointment. My roommates searched through the names with me to see which “gave off the best vibe” and then the appointment was booked. We decided the hyphenated last name sounded spunky and cool. 

I entered her office and we went through all the onboarding questions. Why I had decided to start therapy, what my scores were on the pre-assessment, the likes of that. I told her that in all honesty, I was really happy at the moment and have felt happy for quite a long time. In fact, my mental health state was at its healthiest in years. I thought of coming back to therapy as more of a “self-maintenance” practice and habit-building exercise. My counselor understood and we proceeded to set up our first appointment. She was so nice. I felt good walking out of her office.

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You may think, if I had such a lovely experience, why did I stop going for so long? Truthfully, I don’t know. I started therapy when I was 15 and had just been diagnosed with major depressive disorder and generalized anxiety disorder. There had been signs before, but I never felt comfortable talking to my parents about it. Those kinds of things are hard when you’re 15. My biggest fear was not that I would have depression and anxiety, but that I would walk into the counselor’s office and they would tell me I was perfectly normal. That nothing was wrong with me and it was all in my head. That fear stayed with me until I received my diagnosis. While I can imagine for most that any sort of diagnosis is likely not responded to positively, for me this diagnosis felt liberating. I finally had some validation that the way I was feeling wasn’t right. I could finally get help.

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My school had a partnership program with a counseling service that operated in the administrative offices. I was dismissed from my 3rd period class to have my consultation. Theresa was nice enough, seemed to know what she was talking about, but didn’t ever really click with me. I kept going each week, not feeling like I was really cracking anything. Every time I would go into my appointment with Theresa I was coming off of a great day/week, so when it came time to talk about how I was feeling, I was always in a pretty good mood. Then as soon as I left her office, chaos would ensue. Now repeat.

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Sometimes I felt like I was too self-aware for therapy. It’s funny, even at 15, knowing a lot less about myself than I know now, I knew myself much more than any sane person. I had thought through everything–why I am the way I am, where my values come from, the main sources of conflict in my life–what else was there to find out? I would tell Theresa how I was feeling and she would just regurgitate it in a slightly different form. Therapy wasn’t working for me.

So I went at it alone. For five years.

Somewhere in those five years, I added another beast to the mix. I got medicated. I had been feeling off for quite a while. Like something was missing. My depression and anxiety were at manageable levels, but there was another thing bothering me that I couldn’t place. While I was working, it felt impossible to maintain my focus and productivity the whole day, let alone a couple hours. I was growing more self conscious of my lack of a filter and pattern of interrupting people or taking over conversations. My mind felt like it always had three different records playing and 50,000 thoughts racing through. 

At the age of 20, I was diagnosed with attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder. I called myself a “triple threat”.

And so I began the magical journey of getting medicated. It was terrible. I started on my first prescription of adderall 10mg and felt a whole lot of nothing. I tried something stronger and it just made me hangry. We switched prescriptions. Another dosage. Another. Different prescription. Talking with the pharmacy. Talking with the insurance. Now back to pharmacy. It was a torturous cycle. At points I felt like I would never find something I liked, but eventually there was one that seemed to do the job. We had a wonderful three months together until I received a letter from CVS pharmacy saying that medication would no longer be covered by my insurance. The cycle reset.

Just when I was about to give up, we found another medication that worked. Finally, I was done. And as exhausting and frustrating as the journey had been, I felt grateful to have something that helped.

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I’m back in her office. It’s our second appointment. This time I got to sit on the couch. I rambled on for the whole hour, giving her the entire rundown from high school mean girls to my college decision process. I probably let her get in about 15 words and watched as the clock behind her counted down the minutes until our time was up. I spoke until the final minute. I guess a lot had happened in five years.

I left her office again feeling good. 

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Going to therapy and getting medicated changed my life. I think back to my 15 year old self, scared to get help and unsure of where to start, and I wish I could tell her how good life has gotten. How therapy isn’t a waste of time and vulnerability is now one of the traits you love most about yourself. How your parents will understand and just want what’s best for you above all.

I hope to anyone out there reading this that it serves as a reminder to check in with your mental health and allow yourself to get better. I can’t imagine how my life would be now if I had continued to struggle silently and didn’t push through the process of finding the right counselor or the right medication. We all deserve to live a life that we love and have access to the tools that help make that a reality. I love you all and I wish you well.

Xoxo,

Morgan