I’ve been taking an SSRI for anxiety for three weeks.

The experience has been largely uneventful, and, while it’s taken some getting used to, I think I’m doing well to adopt a new medication schedule.

I’ve been noticing some potential improvements in my mental health, but I think those are more circumstantial. Things that usually cause me stress are settling down for a few weeks, so I’m less on edge than usual. And given it’s only been three weeks, it feels overly optimistic to say I’m already noticing long-lasting benefits.

Maybe this is evidence of one of my fundamental problems with medication and why it had taken so long for me to give it a try: I feel like I swing back and forth between having some modicum of an idea of what I expect out of it and having nothing at my foundation. I think where I’ve currently settled is that I hope it reduces the physical symptoms of my anxiety when they’re at their peak so that I feel better prepared to tackle the psychological symptoms myself when things get hard and when the real work needs to be done.

Honestly, that feels somewhat idealistic and phony. I’m not proud of my outlook on this, but it feels like the kind of idealism I would hear from someone who would have a really hard time convincing me medication has helped them at all. Part of me is worried there’s an underlying magical thinking that medication will “fix” all of the nebulous things I don’t like about myself. And I know that won’t happen. It wasn’t promised and there’s nothing that should convince me to expect it.

But framing myself in this way, as a disingenuous, mediocre, lazy, incurious, and broadly incompetent, is all too common for me. And through therapy I’m trying to internalize that it’s not helpful. More to the point, therapy is pushing me to to internalize that it’s not even accurate. It’s just easy. It’s easy to assume the worst and sit paralyzed waiting for a better alternative. It’s easy to say “I suck and I deserve this” because it closes the door on getting better and the often long and discouraging road to that “better.”

I guess that’s where I’ll close things for today. Things are uneventful, and I’m trying to encourage kindness and patience within myself. I hope to see growth with time.