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candybear said:
Debbie, I'm sorry you have to suffer so much without meds. I think what underlies my feelings about needing them is that I don't like being "abnormal." My pdoc tells me all the time that if I had bronchitis or something, I wouldn't think twice about taking meds, and this is no different -- but it is. Everybody gets bronchitis, but not everybody gets depression and PTSD and anxiety. It sets me apart, and I don't like that.

I suppose I should probably get over it. Thank you for the perspective. You too, Sky.

Candy

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I thought this might help too Candy.

You say "Everybody gets bronchitis, but not everybody gets depression and PTSD and anxiety. It sets me apart, and I don't like that."

Just for fun, I googled statistics on how many people get bronchitis in the run of a year.

I came up with this :

Prevalance Rate for Chronic Bronchitis: approx 1 in 22 or 4.45% or 12.1 million people in USA

In any given year, about seven percent - between 13 million and 14 million people - will experience a depressive disorder.

so, really, it seems that depression is more common than bronchitis!

I don't know if this is your DX, but I just thought it would be neat to compare.

I do think I get what your saying though. There is a stigma attached to mental illness that we either "should have been able to just get over it/do something about it/are just lazy/are just dramatic(etc etc etc)whereas, most times if you get a physical illness this doesn't happen.