i was thinking back, way back, to the day that i decided to take a tiny little pill for the first time. it was an agonizing moment for me: like i had to dip my head in shame while i swallowed the pill so that all my generations of ancestors wouldn’t see me “give up,” as it were. i was afraid my parents would be disappointed, that my siblings would find me weak, that my friends would shy away. some of it seems ridiculous now. some of it. not all of it.

my midwife first gave me a prescription for the lowest dose of zoloft possible at my six week post partum after v was born. i was a mess. double mastitis. all sorts of unseen wounds, open and oozing. i remember asking said midwife, “is it not this hard for everyone?” and her putting her arm around me and saying, “no, dear. it isn’t.”

it still took me six months before i swallowed the pill. and even then, dear little me, i cut the thing in half. although my experiences with medication since have not been so positive, that first little pill was a miracle. in something short of an hour i felt like a human being again. (and for those of you who have known the crush of post partum depression, you know what a miracle that is.)

even now, three years past that point, i’m not sure how i feel about brain meds. i’m disturbed by how little is actually known about brains and the medications we use on them. i’m frustrated by how many side effects i’ve lived through. frustrated by how many symptoms of my disorder i still have both on and off medications.

but i guess this post is to say, if there’s even a little part of you that thinks, hey, that might help me. give medication a try. because it isn’t a crime. and it isn’t a weakness. and it isn’t the end of a road. and it isn’t surrender. it’s just a pill. and sometimes they really really help. and there’s nothing wrong with that.