Medicated

Yesterday was my annual physical and during my meeting with my doctor I told her my concerns and feelings of depression lately. I was amazed at how hard it was for me to bring it up. I have never thought twice about people needing to be treated for depression and I think it's great that there are drugs out there that can help people. There is no shame in asking for help and yet I almost didn't say anything because I didn't want to feel like "a failure". The only reason I actually forced myself to do it was because the night before my appointment Mom had reminded me to ask and I knew she'd be calling me the minute I left the doctors office to find out what she said and I didn't want to let Mom down. I'm glad that I did talk to the doctor (thanks Mom!) and she put me on some medication for depression and anxiety. After talking to the doctor for a bit she said that it sounds less like "sad" depression and more like "anxiety" depression. She said that sometimes apparently minor - but stressful - things can build up and cause so much anxiety that the person starts to develop feelings of depression. That actually made a lot of sense and if you figure in the year-end stress at work, Nate's death and wondering what I can do to help Lincoln though that, the flood at the office, the layoffs at the office, my intense dislike of some parts of my job, my commitments to the PTO, the stress of paying bills, and the overwhelming confusion on how to help Link build his business and it's no wonder the anxiety was piling up.

So now I'm one of millions of medicated Americans for depression. I have a follow up appointment with the doctor in a few months and we'll see how this helps. I really hope it does.