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Hello beautiful human beings at the internet i’m laura elizabeth and i’m here to talk to you about something important for once just kidding it’s always somewhat important this just happens to be extra important so this video was inspired by i posted on my instagram story probably about a week ago now posted five facts about me on instagram in those five facts i
Decided to share a fact randomly i don’t know what caused me to just in that moment talk about it it’s something that is normal to me and i thought you know what is stuff that people really don’t know about me one of the first things that popped in my head was i take medicine every day i mean taking a prescription medication every day is not like a low-key thing
Usually it means that there’s something wrong and you’re taking steps to fix it so i decided to share that i take antidepressants every single day because i think there’s a big stigma out there about mental illness in general and especially about prescription drugs and when it comes to mental illness and mental health and i just wanted my audience to know i’m
Always someone who’s super transparent and super open and honest because that’s just how i am as a person i just decided to share that piece of information with everyone so that you can see although everything might look perfect especially on instagram that’s somewhere where you only share things that look good and look pretty and look nice and look enjoyable i
Thought you know what just so you know by the way something that i never instagram is that i wake up and take two pills every morning posting that actually cause a big outpouring of support in my instagram gm’s a lot of people were saying things like they had no idea that i took that kind of medicine that they were too afraid to go on medicine because they didn’t
Know anyone else i did they didn’t want to admit that they were sick they didn’t know how to get medicine they didn’t know what medicine to take and so i just wanted to start an open conversation of just moreso support of anyone that’s dealing with mental illness and kind of answering it answering your guys’s questions about why i take medicine and how it affects
My life some of the messages sounded a little something like this lauren it’s comforting to know that you struggle or have struggled with anxiety you’ve gotten through and i’ve been very successful it’s made me realize that there is hope i’ve missed so many opportunities but i’m too scared to take medication now i’m definitely reconsidering i’ve gotten homeschooled
Because of how bad my anxiety got in the classroom i now know that it’s okay to take it if you need it i can’t hold back thank you so much for sharing hey lauren 6c your story about anxiety meds literally made my day i struggle with anxiety forever but just started taking meds for it sometimes it gets me down to think about having to take it forever but it’s good
To know that people stay on it what medicine are you on thanks so much love you i would love to hear more about your story with anxiety if you were willing to share i got so many messages like that and even girls that i know just saying i’m so glad you opened up about this or what are what medicine are you on the first thing i immediately said was listen this
Is the medicine i’m on but i’m not your doctor i don’t know what you’re struggling with you don’t even know what i’m struggling with so use my story or just the statement of me being on an antidepressant anti-anxiety medication every single day use that as something that opens a conversation to talk about your own mental health don’t use that as something that
Makes you think oh cuz lauren does it i do it if it’s something that you need to be doing and me being on medicine inspires you to take the next step with your doctor that’s amazing what i taked in no means does it mean it’s like the best of the best this isn’t a haul or a product test or something where i’m like go buy this mascara it’s the best that’s not the
Way i’m talking about it anxiety medication i don’t know how much i’ve told about this story before but the reason i went on anxiety medication is because when i say anxiety medication i don’t mean xanax or something that in the moment makes you calm down from having a panic attack that’s something i’ve always had at my disposal since i was very young because not
Very young but since i was in high school because i would have panic attacks at school and i just needed it sometimes when i was having a bad day to be able to actually calm down because sometimes suniye bad anxiety a bad day is really bad in the grand scheme of things i was on a bunch of different medicines in high school when i was trying to figure out my mental
Health and nothing made me feel good and i remember and i’ve talked about before flushing everything down the toilet and just being done i was on so many different types of things and just it wasn’t really developed as a person yet and medicine just wasn’t for me i struggled with anxiety and depression all throughout my teens and in my early 20s and it got better
For a while especially when i moved to california and was finally in an environment where i was doing things that fulfilled my my life and what i want my purpose in life and stuff that i wanted to be doing whereas at school at the time wasn’t that but then i you know i started to go through my twenties in your 20s are hard and part of you says you know i want to be
So strong that i don’t have to take medicine and i want to be that at a point where i my depression is so low or my anxiety is so low that i don’t have to take medicine but but sometimes you can’t heal yourself just how you don’t want to have a cold or you don’t want to have the flu so you take all these vitamins and you do all the right things sometimes your body
Still gets sick i always used an example of when there’s something wrong with your car if the brakes stopped working or something start squeaking you immediately freak out and you take it to the mechanic because you want your car to be perfect but when something’s wrong with our bodies or something feels off or something doesn’t feel okay we don’t tell anyone we
Bury it inside of us and we just keep moving and pretending to be perfect and i got in the habit of kind of going on a roller coaster and being good for a few months and then getting really really low and i’ve been good for a few months and getting really really low it wasn’t until i was dating my ex-boyfriend that i saw this pattern a lot more because when you’re
In a relationship with someone you see a lot more about yourself because you affect someone else and you’re doing life with someone else so it’s not as easy to shove everything down and to pretend like everything’s okay when you’re sharing a life with someone i’ve mentioned it before and at the tail end of my last relationship i knew that i wasn’t my best self
And i knew i didn’t love myself and i started seeing a therapist and while seeing a therapist saying everything that was going on in my life and basically getting read iagnosed with just chronic anxiety i told her as someone who’s dealt with depression which is just you know a horrible horrible state to be in it’s not being sad it’s something so much more than
That a lot of the times it’s the chemical imbalance in your brain you can’t help it you know you don’t want to be sad you know you you want to have a good day but you just you you physically cannot my anxiety had gotten so bad and i’d never experienced this before not even in high school or anything where my anxiety was so bad that i didn’t see a life without it
And because of that i was going into a state of depression and as someone who’s been there before it scared the out of me and i was like this this no way this is not happening and i remember telling my therapist at the time i was like i can’t go back down this road i need to do whatever it takes because i was waking up at 7 a.m. every morning not being able to
Breathe just being scared of everything just living in complete and utter fear i had this voice in my head that i didn’t understand i felt like literal crazy person and i’m already someone who’s so hard on myself and such a perfectionist i want everything to be okay but this was just so much different this was a different voice and this this anxiety monster had
Literally taken over my life to a point where it was about to cause me to go into a depression because i was so sick and tired of it that i was literally about to surrender and just go into a deeper hole of anxiety and depression so knowing that and realizing that and asking for help and telling someone in confiding in someone that was when i was recommended to
Go see a doctor and i always thought you know if i’m not on medicine i’m winning if i’m not on medicine i’m stronger than that i don’t really i’m not really sick and so i didn’t want to go on medicine because i didn’t want to change who i am and i’m someone who talks through a camera for a living or is on set pretending to be a character and i didn’t want to be
Numbed out i didn’t want to not be my best self and i just had all these different segments in my head about what a medicine would do to me and i made all my concerns clear and i made all of my symptoms clear to my doctor and i was prescribed something i’m not gonna say what i’m prescribed just because i don’t think you guys need to know that and i don’t want it
To get in anyone elses head but i was prescribed an antidepressant that works really well for people with anxiety and i started on you know a dose of small milligrams doubled that and then tripled that and that’s what i’ve been on for about two years now i take two pills every single morning for two whole years and after a few months i was feeling amazing it was
Just like that boys got so much quieter in conjunction with the therapist because i actually knew what was going on in my head i hated myself about how my mind was working so it made me feel less crazy and it made me feel more educated and i was able to stop the cycle in conjunction with the medicine that actually balanced the chemicals in my brain back to a normal
State because if you’re sick you’re sick if you’re diagnosed with anxiety you’re not stressed you have a chemical imbalance in your brain there’s something off within you mind is set sure there different types of sicknesses but that doesn’t mean you’re not allowed to feel what you feel and that it shouldn’t be taken seriously and treated with medical care i’m not
Saying medicines for everyone but i’m saying after going on medicine for three months in feeling the best i’d ever felt i thought i didn’t use anymore i said yeah it worked we’re done but anxiety is not a cold depressions not a cold it doesn’t just go away after you finished your antibiotics and then you’re fine for a few months until maybe you catch another cold
Maybe but not for me i stopped taking the medicine i started forgetting i started getting lazier and that’s when the roller coaster began again so for the next probably nine months i struggle with going on and off my medicine becoming lazy with it thinking i didn’t need it as much and then i realized in the big scheme of things when i was trying to figure out what
Was wrong again i figured out that every time i the medicine got so far out of my system that’s when i started going down into a dark place again and so i went to my doctor and i was kind of explaining these things to her and she looked at me and she said so you figured it out you realize you need the medicine and that helps you so you’re gonna keep taking it and
I remember just sitting there like yep now it’s just a part of my daily routine honestly i learned the hard way that met the medicine who’s working for a reason and that i needed it for a reason i don’t know if i’m gonna be on it for the rest of my life i don’t know i don’t know i mean i hope i don’t have to be just cause it’s kind of annoying to take pills every
Day but also it’s more annoying to be anxious every day and i’d rather take the pills it’s a learning process like i said when i was in high school i took anxiety depression medication that i didn’t like but it was also in conjunctions with a few other things there’s so many different medicines out there there’s so many different doctors out there it’s definitely
A journey it’s not just an overnight solution but i just wanted to open up a conversation and share part of my story because a obviously people just want to assume that no one else is struggling with what they are and that no one understands that i’m telling you right now i don’t know what you’re going through but i’ve gone through some too and i know it’s not
Easy and i know it sounds easier than it is i promise you even though it might be harder to figure it all out it’s worth it for your future self and a lot of people are saying they’re just scared to take medicine and i’m not over here just encouraging medicine for everyone i’m just telling you guys my story because it’s truly the thing that saved my life i think i
Could have gone just insane like i don’t know what would have happened to me if i didn’t start taking medicine when i did it’s truly what saved me and it just goes to show that after taking and trying to get off it and going back on it it just it’s i was so imbalanced and it’s such an internal thing that you had to take care of yourself just how if you have another
Type of sickness it wasn’t like i popped one pill and i instantly felt better it’s definitely a process in a learning process and something you have to go through with the help of your family and your doctors but i think it’s a conversation that me that needs to not have a stereotype around it because it truly can save someone’s life and obviously you don’t want
To have kids start being sad and just going to the doctor and getting medicine that’s why i always recommend seeing a therapist and then doing a few sessions before seeing if they recommend you to go to a psychiatrist and get prescribed medicine i’m by no means a doctor that’s why i’m just talking about my story not giving out free prescriptions to anything i just
Thought it was really interesting the amount of people that messaged me after i opened up about taking anxiety medication every day about how many people just that i didn’t have any of those issues at all and that made them want to care more about their state of mental health and i just think it’s so important to take care of your mental health just as much as your
Physical health because at the end of the day people with anxiety and depression know it takes a toll a toll on you physically if you don’t address it in the beginning and when my anxiety is the worst is when it’s physically affecting me and there’s so many different solutions and there’s so many different medicines and doctors like i said i just want to keep the
Conversation going on my channel i’ve always talked about mental illness and mental health on my channel and it’s something i’m so so so passionate about because i truly think there’s hope for every single person out there even the most hopeless person in the world i wish i could just grab and help and tell them it’s going to be okay and we can get through this
Together and although i can’t grab each and every one of you through the camera and give you a hug just know that you are not alone there are so many people out there that want to help you obviously me and me uploading this video is hopefully something that can help you and you’re not alone in this even no matter how lonely it feels trust me i know i know i know i
Know but there’s nothing more rewarding than taking care of yourself saving yourself and coming out of the other side better than you were before and by no means am i now perfect i still struggle with anxiety i still forget to take my medicine i still have breakdowns i still feel a little crazy sometimes but it’s like night and day to where i was 2 years ago when
I wasn’t taking medicine it’s what’s kept me leveled it’s what’s kept me sane it’s what’s really helped me live an everyday life of normalcy if someone who doesn’t live with mental illness i encourage you if you’re feeling hopeless if you’re feeling anything in the realm that you need help with mental health i encourage you to reach out and find someone you trust
And you know they’re not your therapist they’re not your doctor but you can at least feel like you’re not alone and if you don’t have anyone like that there are places you can call there are people you can call and there are more than enough therapists and doctors in this world that want to help so i hope you guys enjoyed hearing a little one-on-one about kind
Of the update of where my mental health is it’s weird that i have an update because i just have talked about it on my channel for so long the only person that can save you is you and no one can help you unless you want help so i just encourage you to really look within yourself and decide what your next step towards a healthy better life is because we all deserve
It even if you don’t have mental illness issues there’s still always a way to better your health and there’s just always steps you can take to create an incredible lifestyle for yourself that just feels so good from the inside and radiates out into all the people around you i probably should have taken like questions to answer throughout this video because i feel
Like there’s gonna be questions but i just kind of blurted it all out and let you guys know my story and my opinions and just wanted to start a conversation so leave a comment down below with your thoughts hopefully they’re positive because if you’re on a video about spreading positive mental health awareness leaving negative comments that should be a wake-up call
For yourself the internet is crazy i just want you all to know i love you very very much and i am so appreciative of your support and i love talking to you guys more than anything in the world make sure you’re following me on everything else for my daily tips and just daily insights into my life and just five random facts about me that might be about exactly make
Sure you subscribe and give this video a thumbs up if you want me to do more sit-down videos and more videos where we talk about life so i’ll talk to you guys later i love you very much and i’m out
Transcribed from video
WHY I TAKE ANXIETY MEDICATION EVERYDAY | Lauren Elizabeth By Lauren Elizabeth
