This came about when a beloved friend was commenting on so many people seeming to have anxiety and/or depression. He was having a bit of a hard time understanding what made it so different from him being able to cope with difficult situations. After a while of thinking on it, I came up with this explanation:
Imagine, for a moment, that you grew up with an oven that no matter what you did, it over or under cooked everything you made. You would constantly hear friends and other family members talk about how much they loved food, their favorite dishes, and how much they loved to cook. You try everything you possibly can to work with what you’re stuck with and you find a few work around methods, but you’re still not enjoying food because though improved results, it also results in increased time and effort and only to get mildly pallet-able nourishment.
Your friends have all sorts of suggestions. “You just need to take your time! Try this brand of spices! You need to use my recipes! Try these new pots!” But you can still tell that despite all of their suggestions, they just cannot fathom your lack of enthusiasm for food. They don’t seem to understand that no matter what you try…everything tastes bad to you.
You finally call an appliance repair specialist. The response from your friends and family are mixed. Some get angry that instead of just taking their advice you called someone else. Some think it’s a waste of time because your oven looks exactly like theirs so there’s obviously nothing wrong with it. Some make fun of you for trying to find a problem to what they think isn’t real. Despite this, the specialist says that you’ve got an obvious problem with your oven, and he can’t fix it, but he can install one of a variety of regulators to help you out. He just warns you that sometimes it can be hard to find the right one, so there may be some trial and error involved.
This is fantastic news! You finally have an answer to why everyone loves food and you just…don’t. He warns you that it’ll take some getting used to, but you’re just excited for the hope of finally getting to experience decent food that everyone talks about for once!
Your friends and family have, again, a mixed response. “OMG, don’t you know that those regulators contain harmful chemicals! You don’t want that to ruin your food! I’m sure he was just lying to you to get your money. You just are looking for an easy answer instead of putting in the effort of learning to cook better.” You’re not sure if they’re right, or wrong, but you just want to try this because it sounds like your best option.
So off you go, to try out cooking a few meals. The appliance guy was right! It takes you a week or two, but you start getting food that actually tastes GOOD! It’s amazing! You finally get what other people were talking about. You’re so excited that you share your good news, only to get that same mixed review. Some are truly happy for you and celebrate with you. Others just say you’re mistaking finally learn to cook and blaming it all on the regulator. Some just brush it off as you’re trying to push that EVERYONE should get a regulator and they don’t want to hear anything about it.
All of their reactions make it even harder when you start running into some issues. Sometimes food still comes out burned or under-cooked. You know that some of it has to do with the fact that you’re getting used to cooking with something new. Some work arounds that you’ve employed in the past you don’t need, some of them you still do. But you’re also not sure whether the regulator that you have needs adjusted or if you should try a different model and see if that works better. How much is just your cooking and how much is caused by the wrong setting or model. Friends and family all have their opinions and none of it helps much. Some even still want you to ditch the regulator completely because they insist you can just learn to cook better without it.
So while you’ve come leaps and bounds and have found that food is a new joy in your life, it still has a lot of challenges that people with normal ovens just don’t have to deal with or think about.
Coming Back to Mental Health
Now, if this weren’t an metaphor, you could just go out and get a new oven. But the oven is your brain and as much as those of us with depression and/or anxiety would love to trade it in for one that isn’t as flawed…we’re stuck with it. We don’t always make the right neurotransmitters, or if we do our neurons don’t always do what they should with them. It’s so much more than just learning to “be normal”. No matter how much we try, our brains will always have a challenge to deal with.
Our regulators are the mood altering medications that cause so much controversy. We’re often told how we shouldn’t take them for so many reasons that I don’t want to get into right now. Many people are shamed for taking medications for their mental health and told how they should simply “get over it”. I wish, with everything that I have, that those that are suffering didn’t have to face the added stigma of using an important tool to try and help something that needs it.
I used the oven because if an appliance was broken, you’d of course look to fix it. Leaving it broken just seems absurd and (hopefully) imagining friends and family telling you to just learn to cook on a broken appliance seems even more absurd. Yet this is what we face when even considering taking an anti-depressant.
No, medication isn’t going to fix us. It’s silly to think so. But it will help give us a more stable base to work off of. It can help us see the joy in life and allow us the clarity to continue to move forward, despite the slightly faulty equipment that we’ve got to work with. Even if it takes a bit of trial and error to find the best match of medication, and a lot of work to learn what is medication induced and what is personal hurdle to overcome. But don’t you think it’s worth it?
If you would try and fix something external that’s not working instead of trying to pretend it’s fine…doesn’t it make sense to try and approach something internal the same way?
