In January of last year, I was diagnosed with depression and anxiety. This is the story of my experience of pill shaming
The story of my diagnosis was not the most complicated. It didn’t take years like it does for most other people. I was at work one fine day and I started feeling rather uneasy. When the uneasiness refused to go away, my colleagues rushed me to the ER. There they found that my BP was fluctuating from 50/70 to 140/90. The wonderful GP took my history and realized that it could have been generalized anxiety disorder (GAD). With that provisional diagnosis, off I went to the psychiatrist. They prescribed medication. I don’t say this lightly but medication saved my life.
At the same time, I joined a group of people with mental health issues on WhatsApp. My experience in the group was marred by comments – sexist as well as pill shaming. When I raised an issue with something someone said, pat came the reply, “Why don’t you take a pill for that?” Mister, don’t I wish a pill could solve all of the world’s problems! I realized that I had become the latest victim of pill shaming.
Pill shaming can be defined as the negative reactions and responses that one receives when they share that they are taking medication.
Most often, people who experience pill shaming do so due to taking medication for mental health and/or menstrual issues. I am going to focus on the former for the sake of the brevity of this article.
An article in Mad in America references two kinds of pill shaming:
i) From outside the mental health community
This kind of pill shaming generally stems from ignorance. Someone who has never experienced any form of mental health concerns tries to talk one out taking medication for their issues. In a nutshell, it believes that the distress the person is facing is not that bad to warrant taking medication.
ii) From within the community
People with mental health issues engage in pill shaming too. They believe that since medication did not work for them or something worked better that medication is not the right path for anyone.
While both of these are misguided and can be detrimental to the person being pill shamed, there is a difference in the power held by both these groups and it is important to acknowledge that. The former group – of people who have never been mentally ill – does have more power in matters of policy, funding, etc, and might withhold important resources from reaching the communities that need it. The latter’s disdain can feel like a betrayal of someone who is supposed to understand us the most or worse, confirm the notion that we are weak/wrong if we take medication.
When I experienced pill shaming in the group of my peers, I had to reevaluate if what I was getting from the group – support and a feeling of camaraderie; was worth the negative experiences of pill shaming. In the end, it was not. I quit the group, I lost support, I felt isolated.
Nisha (name changed), a journalist by profession notes that when she was pill shamed by her family, she started taking her medication in secrecy. She would then would skip them because she started questioning whether she really needed them. Adherence to medication suffered. It was only when her symptoms started getting worse that she decided to be regular and never miss a dose.
Shruti too had a similar experience when she started her new job at a preschool. She was honest about her having to take medication for her mental health. She remembers her boss constantly trying to convince her to join a prayer group for “her problems”. Having had enough of the hostile work environment, she quit within 4 months of joining there. When a student’s parent at the preschool asked where she was, her boss reportedly told the parent that Shruti was “mentally disturbed”.
It is easy to see why visiting a psychiatrist, being on medication, and being regular with your medication takes effort. Stigma, dogma, and straight-up discrimination are common obstacles on this path of recovery.
I would like to believe that most people who are pill shaming are ignorant about what medication does. Even without knowing the exact details of why people who are diabetic need insulin, we do know that medication is an important part of the management. People view physical and mental health as inherently different. The truth is that the management of many psychiatric illnesses follow the same pattern as physical illnesses.
Like diabetes is due to the issues of the hormone insulin, depression is due to the issues of the neurotransmitters – serotonin and dopamine. One can manage diabetes with the help of a good diet, regular exercise including yoga, meditation. One can manage depression too with the help of a good diet, regular exercise including yoga and meditation. Stress can make both diabetes and depression worse.
Both the medication for diabetes and depression can affect one’s kidneys. One can develop a dependence on both. You don’t see people advising to take up art or go for a run when someone has high blood sugar. It’s almost as the only difference between the two disorders is that of the stigma attached to having a mental illness.
We don’t like conversations about mental health. Except when there is a celebrity death by suicide like in the case of Sushant Singh, or Robin Williams. We wish we could have seen the signs, put up statements asking people to reach out if they need anything. I don’t want to be the voice of every person who struggles with their mental health. But can I just say that get off your high horses and listen!
By Rashi, our co-founder
