About a year ago I posted about seeing myself being on medication for the foreseeable future, and how I need to not let that define me. Things have changed a lot more in a year than I could've ever expected, so here's a little update.



This time last year I was taking 20mg of fluoxetine every day, and I honestly thought that I would be taking that at the very least for the next 10+ years. Although my life was pretty good, I'd just finished my first year of uni and I had a wonderful bunch of people around me, I still needed that little boost daily to help me along. Taking the medication meant that I was able to go out to lectures and not have the horrible feeling of anxiety in the pit of my stomach. I was able to function pretty 'normally' for want of a better word, and I have to admit I liked it. I was feeling good, and the medication was there to back how I was feeling up.

Several months went by and all was okay, but I was beginning to feel like I was well enough to come off my medication, or at least reduce it. Now, I take one 20 mg pill of fluoxetine a week and it feels great.  I can do everything that I was able to do before, but without the need for the boost every day.



Of course I still have blips, I still have days where I feel like utter rubbish, where I barely want to get up and do anything remotely productive, or I get really nervous about something. But even without taking the medication on a daily basis, I still feel better equipped mentally to deal with it. I'm able to organise myself into plans that mean I can actually deal with the days where depression and anxiety creep in.

I fully understand that not everyone has the same success with medication, after all it's not for everyone, but for me it's worked the best. I tried various forms of talking therapy before starting to use medication, and I was a bit skeptical at first about how I'd get it on with it on a more long term basis, but it's worked really well. I never thought that I'd be writing this saying that I've got things under so much control I only need  a little boost once a week.

I really like using my blog as a platform to share my experiences with mental health so that hopefully I can help others, and how could I not share this. I just feel so excited almost that I'm at this stage. Obviously the goal is to eventually not require medication at all, but for now I'm so proud of myself for being where I am.