I Took the Pill Anyway

"Enough psychiatric prescriptions are written each year to give one to every person in America. If we are treating everyone, what are we really treating? Life? Because life isn't a symptom."

Four years ago, these words were spat at me by a miserable man trying to pass himself off as a psychiatrist employed by the No. 2 hospital system in the world. 

Last Friday, his voice echoed through my head while I stared at my bottle of alprazolam. Brand name: Xanax. 

My anxiety first showed up in grade school and was thought to be a "nervous stomach." The kind of stomach that prevented me from eating out in public because I would become so nervous that I'd vomit. 

By high school I suffered panic attacks that left me sitting on cold tile floors, sweating and shaking and fighting nausea. As an adult, I learned yoga breathing and coping strategies. Still, I occasionally get so upset or anxious that I run back and forth to the bathroom with bowel complaints. 

Thanks to counseling and daily medication, I've learned to manage the common stressors of life fairly well. But there have been a few times I relied on the calm provided by a small white pill to function. 

In 2016 – clearing out the trailer where my dad was found dead by sheriff's deputies and paramedics, who had to scale mounds of trash and moldered clothes to reach him. 

In 2017 – removing my oldest child from a preschool which had prematurely labeled him and, outrageously, scheduled an evaluation appointment without my consent. 

And last week, when facing my first-ever podcast interview to discuss my three most personal essays, published in MUTHA Magazine during the last year.

As the interview drew closer, I felt shaky and weak as though I had skipped several meals. My stomach roiled like a ball of angry bees trying to break free. My hands involuntarily clenched, and I couldn't get warm. So I wrapped myself in two fuzzy blankets and sat on the couch to breathe deeply, and I considered taking a Xanax so I could participate – rather than suffer through – a conversation.

And I heard that doctor's words replaying in my head. 

In 2018, I had a single appointment to inquire about switching from my existing psychiatrist to his practice. Before we met, I had divulged my personal history by phone for an intake interview – childhood poverty, dysfunctional family, foster care, dead parents, infertility, postpartum depression, sensitivity and all. 

Yet he looked me in the eye and told me that because I was prescribed anti-anxiety and antidepressant medication beginning in my teens, I had never "learned to develop coping skills to deal with life."    

He relayed two stories of times his teenage daughters were "bitchy and whiny" or "tired." He explained that could have prescribed them Prozac and Ritalin, respectively, and everyone would have been happier, but he would have been "a bad parent" and "they wouldn't have learned anything." He stopped just short of accusing my parents of the same.

About my dead mother, who also suffered for many years with crippling depression and anxiety, he said, "It sounds like your mom was a real train wreck." 

He suggested that cleaning out my father's trailer – wading through mildewed papers, pushing aside jars of feces and urine, peeling apart shirts dotted with roach and mouse droppings, looking for important documents, and setting fire to the rest – was worthwhile because I discovered a previously unknown bank account. He glibbed, "Should we really need medicine to deal with death? I grew up on a farm, and we knew death was part of life." 

According to him – a licensed, board certified psychologist for multiple decades – I was weak for needing medication.

I heard his words in my head. I recalled sitting uncomfortably in that office chair while he belittled me (and my parents). And I swallowed one-quarter of a 0.25 mg Xanax anyway.

Because not only was that psychiatrist pompous, unforgivably rude, and utterly without empathy, he was also extraordinarily wrong. 

According to the website of the very hospital that employs him: "Anxiety disorders don’t come from personal weakness, character flaws, or problems with upbringing."

Had I been struggling with an asthma attack, a sudden rise in blood pressure, or an allergic reaction, no doctor, nurse, or layperson would have begrudged me medication. 

I took the pill because I needed it. 

That is not weakness, but strength in knowing when to seek help. 

Something a doctor who pursued a specialty in helping people with mental illness should have recognized. 

Instead, he judged me. He made me feel ashamed for not being unbreakable, and then asked if I wanted to schedule a future appointment. 

I said no. And I followed up by filing a complaint against him for egregiously offensive and deeply unprofessional behavior. 

As for the podcast interview to discuss my raw and honest writing, I rocked it despite still feeling a tad bit nervous. How's that for coping skills?

Do the things that help you, no matter what anybody else thinks.