Why I'm Not a "Med-Pushing" Therapist

by Bridget Nash

Before you read any farther, let me quote my friend Joel Gorveatte: “don’t hear what I’m not saying.”

I am not saying that all medication is bad, and I am not saying all doctors are bad. This is simply sharing my story.

In 2013, I had moved to a new city, was starting classes at a college where no one else I knew attended. Shortly after I moved in to my new dorm, I started experiencing a ton of crazy physical symptoms that were making it nearly impossible for me to leave my dorm room and make it through class. I was in so much pain and I couldn’t figure out what was wrong.

Because I was a recent transplant to the area, I didn’t have a local doctor so I went to the nearest urgent care. They told me I probably had food poisoning and my symptoms should resolve in a few days.

In the words of Dwight Schrute, “false,” my symptoms did not ‘resolve in a few days.’ In fact, they continued to worsen and I became increasingly freaked out. I frantically searched for a doctor who accepted my insurance and asked for an appointment as soon as possible.

After the usual rigmarole, the doctor told me that my symptoms were probably—like the urgent care said—either food poisoning, my menstrual cycle being more aggressive than usual, a myriad of other ridiculous explanations that did not fit the situation, or it was all in my head and I should go home and forget about it. So I went home and tried to forget about it, but nothing changed.

I made several return visits, only for her to tell me that I was fine. At this point, I had had enough and I plainly told her (which is not generally in my nature to be so direct) that I was not leaving her office until she gave me a test or some real answers. This couldn’t all be nothing—I literally felt like I was dying, telling me I’m “fine” is not going to cut it.

I gave some samples, they were sent off to a lab, and a few days later I received a call from the doctor. “Oh, Bridget! I had no idea how bad it was! This is really serious!”

ARE YOU KIDDING ME?! YOU DIDN’T KNOW HOW BAD IT WAS?

I was incredulous—shocked that this doctor whom I had seen numerous times, telling her how much pain I was in shot down my concerns like they were completely invalid until she had physical proof in the form of lab results that there was, INDEED, something wrong.

I was referred to a specialist who agreed that the situation was urgent and prescribed me an arm-full of medication. It was insanely expensive, I had to take so many capsules in a day that I nearly threw up each time I tried to swallow, and they only put a flimsy bandaid on the problem. I stuck with it for several months, downing pill after pill, resigning myself to thinking “I guess this is just my life now,” after all, 66% of all Americans are on prescription drugs (https://hpi.georgetown.edu/rxdrugs).

In addition to my gag reflex being tested, I was having horrible side-effects brought on my the medication.

I remember the first time someone ever called me “woke”

…which depending on where you line up could be a compliment or a curse, but that’s completely beside the point. I was in my senior year of college, taking my only just-for-fun class in my entire college career—Intro to Painting (I know, I know, very impressive and prestigious). Our final project was to create some kind of collection of paintings that followed a cohesive theme. I decided to take ‘snapshots’ of my medication side effects so others could see what I was experiencing. On 4”x6” tiles of wood I painted “It’s Just Hair”—a glob of honey-brown strands swirled up on a shower wall, which was a typical occurrence as I lost about 1/3 of my hair, “Race Heart”— a depiction of an anatomically correct heart with the legs of a racehorse, “Moon Face”—a moon, as you can imagine—wearing my glasses, and three others that I have since forgotten the names of. I can’t recall if I painted them, but I also couldn’t focus on a single thing (which is not like me at all), I couldn’t sleep, my hands constantly shook to the point that I literally had to sit on them in class to keep others from noticing, I was CONSTANTLY hungry, I would dissociate or kind of ‘black-out’ from time to time where I was still awake and moving around but would have zero memory of what just happened.

All of these side effects were written off by the doctor who prescribed these medications, and once again I was told it was ‘all in my head.’ When I told him I had been looking into alternative ways of managing my symptoms—through diet and lifestyle changes—he responded by reminding me that I’m not a doctor and, therefore, not qualified to make those kinds of decisions.

This is just some of the medication I was on at a single time.

I read something once to the effect "‘symptoms are great at getting your attention’ (I think it was Jeffrey Kottler or Bessel van der Kolk, one of those really smart guys, but I can’t find the scrap of paper I scrawled that quote on in my pile of notes). And oh baby, did my symptoms get my attention! They alerted me to the fact that I had been trudging through one crisis, one panic attack, one difficult transition after another without taking time to address how it was impacting me—physically and mentally.

Fortunately, I was directed to The Born Clinic by a friend of mine and was quickly introduced to a whole new way of thinking about my health. It confirmed my curiosity into diet and lifestyle changes, and although I was resistant at first, believing that "gluten intolerance" is something rich people just made up, once I ditched it, my symptoms dramatically improved.

A few years later, I was really struggling with my mental health while working through my Master’s degree in counseling (I know, my life is full of irony). I started seeing a counselor, and it was powerful to put words to my pain and let someone else into the flood of worrying thoughts and not-yet-healed wounds. But it wasn’t enough to get me through that season. I still felt overwhelmed by small things: the sense of dread I felt driving to work, afraid I was going to mess something up and ruin everyone’s day, the amount of pressure I was putting on myself to get A’s in all of my grad school classes, the guilt I heaped on my own heart that I wasn’t a ‘good enough’ wife because I didn’t make homemade dinners every night and keep our apartment spotless.

I would go into these downward spirals that often brought on an onslaught of physical symptoms. My counselor suggested I try going on a low dose of an anti-anxiety medication and gave me a few product names to discuss with my doctor (yes, the same doctor I saw when I was in college who told me that my incredibly severe abdominal pain that hadn’t subsided in weeks was probably just a bad period). This time, I had more confidence in myself and wouldn’t be brushed off again. I took the medication for about 6-8 months, and it helped me settle myself down just enough to be able to use coping skills like deep breathing, distinguishing physical sensations from emotions from thoughts from reality (Cognitive Behavioral Therapy) and not giving what I was experiencing in the moment have the power to dictate the narrative of my life.

I’m not anti-medication—I’m anti-slapping-a-bandaid-on-symptoms-and-acting-like-there-isn’t-anything-underneath-that-needs-our-attention.

There might be a season when you find that you need medication to help get you over the hump of a particularly difficult time. The trick is finding the right doctor, the right medication, the right dose, and use the medication as just another tool in your tool belt as you continue working on yourself!