Finding Self-Love in Lexapro

I was hesitant to start taking anxiety medication for years, but finally starting Lexapro taught me that self-love doesn’t always have to be practiced alone.

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.

This stigma had affected my mindset all throughout high school and the first two years of college, but that summer, something changed. For one thing, the pandemic worsened my anxiety. As I’d later find out, this was a worlwide phenomenon — the World Health Organization reported that during the height of COVID-19, anxiety and depression became 25% more prevalent. Along with this, though, I’d been putting a lot of effort into prioritizing myself, which inevitably forced me to work on communication and getting comfortable asking for what I want and need. I’d been trying to make the necessary changes in my life to better support myself, and figuring out how to best manage my anxiety was a huge part of that. I realized two things: one, that taking medication doesn’t have to be a last resort, and two, I had reached a point where I was in need of a last resort. After almost a decade of suffering, I re-evaluated my views on medication and set up an appointment with my doctor.

My breath was short and my palms were sweaty while I sat in my doctor’s office waiting for her, and part of me regretted even making the appointment in the first place. Despite this, I pushed myself to stay and be completely vulnerable with her about my situation and what I thought I needed to better control it. I walked out of her office with a prescription for an SSRI and immediately felt a weight lifted off my shoulders. I’d finally done something that I was so apprehensive about for so long, and instead of feeling ashamed and weak, I felt empowered and free. I genuinely could have cried out of relief while driving to pick up my new prescription from the pharmacy.

While in the past, my stubbornness prevented me from seeking external help, I now understand that an important part of being there for myself is allowing others to help me. Nobody besides myself was expecting me to solve my problems alone, and even though asking for help is often still uncomfortable for me, I know that it is a necessary part of putting myself first, and it does not make me a burden. I’ve realized that there is absolutely no shame in wanting to struggle less, and that if medication can potentially help me achieve that, there is no reason to not try it out.

Everybody’s circumstances are different, and I’m not trying to say that everyone needs to, or even should, take medication for their mental health — in fact, these medications are likely prescribed too often. Rather, I encourage those who are only hesitant because of stigma to reconsider the option. Over the past year and a half, my anxiety medication has helped me in more ways than I can even describe. I no longer wake up with a lump in my throat; I feel capable of handling anxious thoughts when they do come up; I am cognizant of the important conversations I have had and memorable experiences I’ve lived that I previously would have missed out on due to my anxiety. Medication isn’t the only answer, but it is a good one for me, and I have no shame in saying that.