I resisted medication for anxiety for two years. Partly because of the stigma — the idea that taking a pill for a mental health condition was somehow a moral failure, an admission that I couldn't manage my own mind. Partly because of fear: of dependence, of side effects, of becoming someone I didn't recognise.
My psychiatrist was patient with my resistance. She explained that anxiety disorders have a neurobiological component — that SSRIs, the most commonly prescribed class of medication for anxiety, work by modulating serotonin in ways that can reduce the baseline level of threat-detection activity in the amygdala.
"You wouldn't resist medication for a thyroid condition," she said. "This isn't different."
I started a low dose. The first few weeks were difficult — the side effects were real, and my anxiety temporarily intensified before it levelled. But by week eight, I noticed something I had almost forgotten was possible: a morning that felt ordinary. Not euphoric. Just ordinary.
Medication is not for everyone. It is not the only answer. But for many people, it is the thing that makes all the other work — the therapy, the grounding, the exposure — possible.
There is no shame in that.