Questions

You may remember that I used to be a music therapy major. That didn't work out for me since I really shouldn't study music academically, so I went back to my books as an English major. But there's one question from the interview for the music therapy program that I've been thinking about in the last week.

That question was whether I'd be willing to seek treatment myself. As I recall, I saw the question as being less about going in for something like the flu and more about whether I could seek treatment for ADHD, depression, anxiety...you know, mental health stuff.

My answer at the time was an immediate yes. It was almost a "Well duh," and I went on to clarify that I had gone to a doctor for help managing my ADHD.

At the time I genuinely had no problem talking about my problems, or going to a doctor for help.

Somehow that changed.

I used to be on Prozac for an anxiety disorder, but decided to try coming off of it a couple years ago. The anxiety crept up on me again, and I didn't ask for help. I thought I needed to deal with it quietly by myself, and it wasn't until last week that I started getting help for it. But I'm not getting help because I asked for it. I'm getting help because I somehow said something to my doctor that gave it away, and after a bit of talking about medications we picked a new one for me to try.

In the last week I've struggled with (new) panic attacks, and more anxiety in general. (It seems that having the issue being addressed before I was prepared just worsened things temporarily.) But I've also been thinking back to that interview when I was able to say "Well, yes, of course I would seek treatment," and wondering how that changed.