I’d tried 3 or 4 SSRIs in the past and quit them for various reasons, mostly side effects. This year my psych prescribed me cymbalta and it made a huge positive difference for me. All those calming exercises people tell you to do to calm down and stop spiraling actually started working. I started being able to more easily differentiate catastrophizing from reasonable concerns. I started being able to make actionable plans to address my anxieties instead of doom spiraling for hours in paralysis. I started being able to try new things and do difficult things that intimidated me because I wasn’t frozen by the anxiety anymore.

After a few months my therapist was telling me that I had done so much work to improve; at first I didn’t feel that was true and that it was mostly the medication that made a difference, until she pointed out that it was the medication that enabled ME to do all the mental/emotional work to deal with my symptoms. It felt easier to do once I was on medication, so I assumed that meant I wasn’t doing anything (or at least that I was slacking). But it was actually that the meds just made managing my emotions and triggers a reasonable task instead of an overwhelming one.

I have PTSD, so my nervous system is constantly on high alert without pharmaceutical intervention. After moving out of the abusive situation I grew up in, I had all the support in the world for over a decade and I was still severely struggling . Sometimes some people just need the medication to course correct their brain.

If someone doesn’t want to be on medication that’s their right, people have the right to not take any medication they don’t want to take and it shouldn’t affect the quality of care they have access to. But for me medication was a life changer and I wouldn’t go off it if I could avoid it.