Should I take medication?
Whether you are currently knee deep in something awful, wading around and kicking the water, or still recovering from a bad experience, swimming and wrapped in bedsheets, my guess is if you are considering therapy, you are also thinking about whether you should take meds.
It’s a big question. With a personal answer.
It’s hard to have this conversation without first noting the evidence base. The depression research shows that the combination of medication and psychotherapy leads to better results than just taking meds or just seeing a therapist (Kamenov et al., 2017). But, this doesn’t mean that you have to do both.
I have worked with people who decide to try therapy first, and, if it doesn’t work, they decide to see a psychiatrist (or psych nurse practitioner, psych physician assistant, or their primary care doctor). Of course, with this option, starting your mental health journey with counseling only, you need patience. It takes time to unravel shit, deconstruct unhealthy habits, and investigate whose voice is really in your head when you tell yourself you’re not good enough. And then again, therapy might not “work” at all—maybe the therapist isn’t the right fit, maybe the approach isn’t clicking, or maybe your current situation is so overwhelming that you don’t even have capacity to focus on self-development.
So should you try a selective serotonin reuptake inhibitor (SSRI)? Should you see someone who can prescribe you something to address your depression, anxiety, mood issues, and general feeling of shittiness? Some mental health practitioners use the analogy of the lifebuoy, which is the circle floaty thing that lifeguards toss out to you to keep you from drowning. Psychotropic medication, particularly in times of crisis, can keep you afloat so you can then swim to land aka figure out how you started drowning in the first place—with or a without a mental health counselor.
And now let’s consider the remaining option: taking meds alone. In this case, you might want to consider how you are addressing the issue internally or emotionally. I hear from many people that they don’t want to rely on medication and want to simultaneously work on themselves and explore their negative thought patterns or behaviors that are keeping them stuck.
No matter what you decide, for YOUR situation, I think it’s important to consider both the short- and long-term outcomes (how you feel currently and how you will feel in the future). Also, it’s probably worth noting that the people around you will have opinions. Even close supports might discourage you from one option or the other. If it is not something they have been through personally, it can be hard for them to relate.
Stick to your guns. Do what’s best for yourself. The most important thing is that you get help and feel better.
Jackie <3
