Article December 30, 2013 Issue

Mental health—on whose terms?

Iain Napier

It was the third night since I’d received my prescription for tranquilizers and sleeping pills, which were to be taken both daily and nightly. I was not a student of Christian Science at the time. I was 17 years old, at boarding school, and increasingly unable to function normally.

“I’ve been diagnosed with depression,” I thought to myself. “Can I seriously think of anything more depressing than taking pills for depression?”

I searched for a while. The answer was a very firm “No.” If the problem was depression, I reasoned, it was a state of mind. What could drugs and more sleep do? The disturbing thoughts and troubling existential and moral questions would still be there. I would simply be numbing myself to them by taking drugs. Ultimately, I believed I would be giving up any notion that I could actually think out anything at all for myself by taking the pills. Would freedom of thought still mean anything? I decided not to take the medication again.

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Mental health—on whose terms?

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