I'm on medication for my mental health, should I tell people?

I'm on medication for my mental health, should I tell people?


Now the answer to this question is obviously going to be different for each person. Some will say "I have nothing to hide, I'm happy for people to know" while others may say "I don't want to be judged for it, I'd rather not have people know",

And honestly, when I first went onto my mental health medication, my answer to this question was a mix of both these answers. 

It almost ended up sounding more like this: "I don't want to hide the fact that I'm on medication, but I am quite young so am I going to be judged for it? Is there even a good age to go on medication for mental health? But I don't feel like this is something I can keep to myself so I need to decide who to tell. How many people do I want to know?" and so on and so on...

Many of you may be going through the same thing right now, some may just be interested in what can go through the process of deciding and some of you may be asking yourself how exactly you got to this post in the first place.

(Don't worry if you fall under the last category, you're more than welcome to carry on reading and join in the conversation, all I ask is that you are respectful and pleasant)

If you're still wondering what you're going to do, then I'm going to share with you what my final decision ended up being and a couple of pieces advice I have for those trying to make up their minds on what to do.

So now settle in everyone, it's story time:

For those of you who don't know, in February 2015 I was diagnosed with anxiety disorder and depression after having a bit of a mental breakdown when I was 17-years-old.

I was placed on 50mg sertraline a day (and a year later I was moved up to 100mg a day which I still take to this day at the age of 21).

I had to decide rather quickly who I want to tell and who I didn't want to tell that I was now on medication as I was expected to go back to college the next day and I didn't feel like I could go through the day everything was normal when in fact something rather large happened in my life. 

The first two people to know were obviously my parents seeing as they were the ones that got me to the doctors, picked up my first prescription for me and I live with them, so I couldn't exactly hide it from them could I?

But then there was everyone else I had to consider. 

The first person I told outside of my direct family was my boyfriend and this was the scariest one for me. You see, we were only young (both 17) and we had only been together for 5 months at this point. 

When I next saw him, I asked to talk to him in private without all our friends around, explained to him the whole situation and he took it really well. He didn't pretend to fully understand what I was going through but told me that he would be there for me no matter what happened.

 And low and behold, we're still together now and have now been together for 4.5 years.

The next group of people I decided to tell was my teachers, mainly because I know that the medication was going to make me act a little strange for a few days as my body and mind were getting used to the new chemical balance and seeing as I was going to be in class I wanted them to know why I was acting like that and that my work may not be the best for a short amount of time. 

The final people I told were some of my close friends which at the time seemed to be fine, but honestly, later on, I wished I hadn't told one of them. You see, while everyone else was fine with it at first it turns out this one person was going behind my back and trying (and in the end succeeding) to convince them that I was a bad person for being on medication.

But hey, how was I supposed to know that would happen? Especially when they were so nice and supportive to my face? But at least I ended up knowing who my real friends were and who was going to be there for me in the long run. 

Now the final part of that story may not fill you with much confidence if you're trying to work out who/if you should tell people if you're on medication,  but it does help me give my first bit of advice: after deciding if you do want to tell people, make a list of those people and make sure 100% you can trust them and that you know they will never do anything bad with the information. 

If you're not 100% sure about them, don't tell them, you know, just to be on the safe side. 

The last thing I want is for someone is to go through what I did, so hopefully, this advice can help you in some way. 

Piece of advice number two: if you do decide to tell people, make sure you only got into as much detail as you want to.

For example, you may just want to leave it at "I'm on medication for my mental health but I'm working through it all and that is as much information as I am willing to give" or you may want to go all in and say "I'm on medication for my mental health, this is the issue(s) I have, this is the dosage I'm on, these are the other things I'm doing to help me get through this, do you have any questions?".  

Just make sure that you don't get pressured into giving any information you don't want to. People may think they have the right to know what the medication is or exactly what you have been diagnosed with. 

BUT REMEMBER: that information is private to you and you are not obliged to tell anyone about it unless A: you're filling out a medical form and they ask to list any medication/treatment. or B:  you feel like you want to share it. 

If you have any other questions then you're more than welcome to ask in the comments below, all I ask is that everyone is respectful and polite and remember,

Be happy, be healthy, from Abbie x 

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