Finding S in Lex
I was hesitant to start taking anxiety m Lexapro taught me that self-love does If you know me, you know my anxiety. As someone who has an anxiety disorder, part of my excessive worrying comes from never wanting to be a burden, which often means that I keep my issues to myself and deal with them on my own, no matter how difficult my struggles are. This is the way I handled pretty much every obstacle in my life for the past 22 years, until last summer when I made an appointment with my physician to talk about starting medication to help me better manage my mental health. One of my very first memories of anxiety is preschool-aged me putting herself in a timeout over something that my parents weren’t even upset about. Several years after that, the late-night creaks that my old house makes resulted in a sleepless summer that ended in me experiencing my very first panic attack. The uncontrollable leg shaking, shortness of breath, and fast-paced heartbeat would become all-too-familiar to me, and my anxiety would go on to evolve and manifest itself in different aspects of my life over the next ten years. Throughout the past six or seven years, I’ve tried to manage my anxiety disorder in a number of different ways. I’ve tested multiple homoeopathic remedies, taken yoga classes and meditated, stopped drinking caffeine, and talked to therapists a few different times. While all of these treatments have been somewhat effective — some more than others — none of them had been able to help me to the extent that I wanted and, frankly, needed. As someone who has been dealing with the same struggle for so long, the idea of taking medication for my anxiety has come up multiple times, but for years, it was something I viewed as a very last resort. I was fearful of taking medication for multiple reasons: I worried about becoming dependent and relying too heavily on it, I didn’t want it to change who I am as a person, and I was scared of potential side effects. More than anything, though, my anxiety disorder was something that I wanted to be able to handle on my own. I didn’t want to ask for help, and I viewed medication as an easy way out. My stubbornness and ego had such tight grips on me that no matter how many times I’ve had to excuse myself from class because I felt like my throat was closing up, no matter how many times I’ve gotten physically ill from anxiety, no matter how many times I’ve missed out on living life to the fullest because of illogical fear and nervousness, I did not want to even consider a remedy that has helped so many other people. I was not alone in this mindset. According to the Anxiety & Depression Association of America, only 36.9% of those affected by anxiety disorders receive treatment. The likely explanation? I’d guess stigma. As long as there is stigma surrounding mental health (which there inarguably is), there will be stigma surrounding medicating mental health issues. 10
