Over at Defeating the Dragons, Samantha Field is wading through How to Win Over Depression by hack writer and Armageddon profiteer Tim LaHaye. Reading along, I can’t help but be reminded of things people have said over the years.
I first suspected I had depression when I was 14. I saw a doctor about it when I was 30. In the intervening years, I was told that I had nothing to be depressed about, that it was teenage mood swings, that I was lazy, and that demons were oppressing me. I’ve grown up hearing “Prozac” as a punchline. Despite the fact that in the last six months, I’ve felt better than I have in my entire life, I still wonder if medicine was the wrong course of action and if I should just suck it up and make myself better.
We’ve come a long way, but there is still a huge stigma around mental illness. I hope that sharing my story has a net positive effect on that.