The Greatest Harm I Caused Myself Was Not Asking for Help

Taking medications are perhaps the worst part of my mental illnesses. It also happens to be the best thing to keep my mind in control.

I have gone more than a decade without therapy and medication, which is probably the biggest self-harm I have done to myself, even more than the suicide attempts and cutting myself.

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Why? Because I have betrayed my own self by not going to a good psychiatrist first, or seeing a therapist who understands my problems. If I did that then perhaps today I wouldn’t be this sick. I would have been able to cope with my 20s.

At least I owed that much to myself.

I wouldn’t say I never went out and tried to get help. Fact is, I did. I went to a lot of psychiatrists and psychologists, but they misdiagnosed me too many times, and I was given the wrong medications.

The medicines made me feel worse instead of better. My movements were robotic, I felt like a zombie. So I stopped my medications and therapy, because I lost hope in it.

This isn’t completely my fault though — the doctors who saw me misdirecting me. But why I blame myself is because I should have tried harder. If I did try harder then I might have met my doctor long back and my current mental situation would not be so hopeless.

I have lost my 20s in agony, self-hatred, guilt, anger, falling forever into the black hole of despair never reaching light.

Now that I’m 32, I realize how silly I was for not taking more chances, asking for help. I was so embarrassed of my disease that I let it grow instead of fighting it. I might have been able to see world a little clearly if I wasn’t struggling so much, I might have had a job, my life could have been a little better, I might have been able to take proper decisions and not regret them now.

I have lost almost 11 years of my life to my mental illnesses, to non-treatment, and things have only gotten worse. I regret that part of my life. It’s like my 20s didn’t even exist. It’s lost time in my entire existence, and I can never get it back.

I know sometimes taking medications can be upsetting, it is to me at least. It bothers me that I have to take so many pills in the morning and so many in the evening to keep my head straight. I feel angry sometimes, like why couldn’t I be just as normal as others, why do I need these medications.

But at the end of the day, these medicines are helping me have an almost normal life. So I’m also grateful, to my doctor, therapist and the medicine that helps me keep my mental illnesses at bay.

The point is to ask for help exactly when you need it. Don’t be afraid or ashamed to ask for help for your mental illness. There is nothing wrong in taking medications for the mind. If you don’t do it on time, it might get worse and you’ll end up blaming yourself.

If you or someone you know needs help, visit our suicide prevention resources page.

If you need support right now, call the Suicide Prevention Lifeline at 1-800-273-8255 or text “START” to 741-741.