What exactly are we medicating?
As the end of my senior year of high school drew to a close, my life began to change — not because I was starting a new chapter in my life, but because I was beginning a two-year struggle with what I would later find out was undiagnosed depression. During those two years, I suffered daily, endlessly questioning what had changed. Why was I no longer the upbeat, bright, and conscientious child that I had been for most of my life? Concerned for my well-being, my family alternated between the fear that they were losing their oldest daughter and frustration at my obstinate lack of energy and ambition. My relationships with friends and other people I loved suffered.
During my sophomore year of college, my parents set up an appointment with a well-known therapist in the area, desperate to help me begin to feel better. After a year of sessions, I slowly concluded I was suffering from clinical depression.
Boy, did I fight this idea.
For months I denied it, pushing the possibility aside altogether. I had internalized society’s message that depression is scary. I thought it was something only ‘sad’ people experienced, that it was a sign of weakness. I believed being depressed meant being incapable of having meaningful friendships and relationships, that I’d lose the ability to laugh or experience genuine joy. I thought it meant I would be unable to participate in normal daily life.
I didn’t want to be one of ‘those depressed people’ and certainly didn’t want to be a depressed woman. Society emphasized that as a woman I was already considered too emotional — being a depressed woman would mean extreme sensitivity and vulnerability, which I didn’t think I could handle.
I finally voiced these fears one summer afternoon in my therapist’s office. She then explained my symptoms in a way removed from this particularly gendered stigma. Women and men are biologically different, she explained, and women do experience heightened sensitivity — but this sensitivity is actually a biological strength. It allows us to understand the nonverbal needs of our children, sense what our partners may be thinking or feeling, and recognize danger in our surroundings. This biological difference is natural: The stigma surrounding it is a cultural construction.
This stigma is not only sexist, but can actually result in women receiving disparate health care from men. A recent article published by the New York Times poignantly voices this issue, reporting that at least one in four women today takes medication for a psychiatric condition, while only one in seven men do. What’s more, women are almost twice as likely as men to receive a diagnosis of depression or anxiety. Women aged 35-64 are much more likely to be medicated, perhaps because symptoms of perimenopause are very similar to those of depression. A national survey of mental health found that 9% of women and 5% of men had experienced depression in the past year, and 23% of women suffered from an anxiety disorder while just 14% of men did.
Are these consistently higher statistics for women necessary, or are they related to cultural constructions that regulate women’s emotions and label us overly sensitive? Have we turned a biological strength into a personal issue? Many women, such as myself, who have received mental health medication at some point in their lives, internalize their emotions and moods as a problem or weakness. They see themselves as broken rather than a victim of our country’s flawed medical system.
There’s no question that these medications are incredibly beneficial for some women. I know this firsthand: After two years of antidepressants and talk therapy, I began to feel much more in control of my thoughts and emotions. However, I didn’t feel completely liberated from the social stigmas that society had subtly taught me about mental illness. I still believed my heightened sensitivity made me different from everyone else and truly believed that no one else felt anxiety or worry in ways similar to me. I now know that these feelings are part of the human — and female — experience.
To all girls and women concerned about your mental and emotional health: treat yourself with love daily, rather than blaming yourself for your emotions. No matter what, your internal emotional struggle is never your fault. Take it from someone who’s been there. If you ever feel as though your life is slipping out of your control, seek support in family, friends, and trained professionals.
