What is this resistance to medication, supplemented hypocritically by self-medication? Why do we feel the need to scrape bottom, to suffer, to try to do it without anyone’s help, to hurt ourselves? Do we think we deserve it? Do we think that the mental anguish will suddenly vanish, we just need to find the right key? We’re not Harry Potter. We’re humans living in a real, ugly world that gave us bad genes and even worse environments to grow up in. We’re little girls and boys committing ourselves to wars we can’t win on our own. Why do you think I write all this to you? Why do you think I transport my tears and fears from my mind to yours? Megalomania? Exhibitionism? No, you sad girl, you desperate boy: I don’t want you to feel alone!

I know several people may suspect I’m talking directly to them. I’m not. I don’t criticize any of you for your decisions, and I aim my thoughts at the community of the abused, neglected, and ill as a whole: I merely ask that you reconsider your position against medication.

Consider this condensed version of what you will probably go through if you have a serious mental illness. This has a college setting, but I’m sure you post-grads will get the point:

You are twenty years old. You’re not flunking out of college yet, but you haven’t been to your classes all week. Why? Because you couldn’t get out of bed. Maybe you were drinking the night before, or doing a line of coke, or you were helping a friend, or you just couldn’t get your mind to shut off until the sun came up. There’s so much to do and think about, school is the least of your worries. You keep putting off emailing your professors, too. You don’t know what to tell them. Hi, prof, I’m lazy and stupid and, I promise, I’ll be there next class, prepped, pumped, all caught up? No, they’ll laugh at you. Better to not call attention to yourself. Maybe they haven’t noticed you haven’t been there.

Maybe you make it to the next class. But then you oversleep for the class after that. And shit, did you just miss the midterm? No. Big exhalation. Or yes. Fuck. How am I going to get away with this?! There’s so much work. You’re so stressed out. You’re such a loser. You’re not worth the air you breathe. God, fuck, why am I like this?!

All this, and you’ve only been awake five minutes.

But you keep trying. You tell your professor a bullshit excuse, he’s a nice guy so he gives you an extension, you do the paper the night before anyway, and you hand it in just in time–or a little after. And maybe you even get a decent grade.

You’re all pumped up after you got a decent grade on that paper. You’re ready to tackle these bullshit classes. You’re not a loser. You just need to get yourself organized. You’re going to do that this weekend.

The weekend comes, and some friend needs your help moving, or she doesn’t want to go out to this party by herself, or your boyfriend and you fight, or your mood simply just tanks. You figure, you worked hard this week, you’ll catch up tomorrow, Sunday, even Monday morning, if you have to. Organizing is easy. In reality, you’re not even all that behind, you think.

Before you know it, you realize you have to struggle for a decent grade in two of your five classes. You barely eked a C out of the third class. You Aced the fourth class. But the fifth class, the professor won’t let you make up the work. He won’t forgive your absences. He won’t accept your medical note. He’s an asshole.

Or even worse. Mid-way through the semester, your body and mind turn on you completely. You can’t take it anymore. Your heart won’t stop beating out of your chest. It hurts to exist. Your mind is screaming at you the same ugly thoughts, day in, day out. You just want to die, but you don’t have it in you to kill yourself.

So you drink more, do more coke, smoke more weed, eat less because you’re nauseous all the time, sleep less because your mind just won’t shut off.

You make it through the semester. Next semester, you won’t let this happen. You’ll be better. You can make up those bad grades over the summer, and you do.

So new semester, new you. Everything going to be better.

Except, mid-way through this semester, you collapse. No, not emotionally. Physically. One minute you’re standing, the next, you’re barely sitting. You don’t know what just hit you. But now, now you’re in the hospital, or at least trying to convince some nice paramedics that you’re blood sugar’s just a little low.

And maybe it was low, you think.

You get up and go again. You have to make it through the semester. At least, because you went to the hospital, your professors have to forgive your short absence.

A day, a week, a month later, it happens again. You faint, collapse, or you can’t get up one day because your heart, your mind, they just want to crawl out of you. All this is preceded by a lot of forgetfulness, a lot of struggling to focus during class, a lot of anxiety. Reluctantly, you go to a doctor.

You go to a doctor because it’s not your mind. Something must be seriously wrong.

No. Nothing. All the blood work shows you’re a healthy twenty-something. They send you home. If they really care, they might see the signs and send you to a therapist. Or maybe you were already going to a therapist. Either way, the word medication starts floating around a lot more. And because you can’t get out of bed anymore, because you’ve lost too much weight for your own good, because you need to not be a loser who can’t make it through school, you take the medication.

Maybe it’s a year while you feel like a human guinea pig. During that time—I won’t lie to you—life might suck. Unless you get really lucky with a therapist who listens or you have a friend—me? good family? good friends?—who will tell you how to talk to a psychiatrist to get on the right meds, you probably won’t be okay for that first year.

But I can tell you this: after those initial months of adjusting to whatever they prescribe, things start to feel—manageable. Everyday is still a war, but you have a gun now, a bullet-proof vest, and some training from professionals. Why would you deny yourself those things as you march forward into the field?

Because medication is bad, psychiatrists are evil, and chemical x, y, and z make me feel so much better.

Yeah, I bet they do. And then you bottom out with a hangover or, worse, regrets. The girls I know who were raped in frat houses and bar bathrooms! The people I’ve known who are now in mental institutions because they trusted their dealers more than their doctors!

Look around you. Who is your friend? Who is your enemy? Now, ask yourself the same questions. Is fear really worth what you’ve already suffered? And do you really think you will beat the odds and battle bipolar disorder or depression or addiction by yourself? Do you think I say these things for my own good?

If you truly believe you can do it alone, go ahead. Good luck. I wish you the best. I’ll be here if you need me.