You Are the Expert on You: A Veteran's Guide to Medication Self-Advocacy

Way too frequently, when I ask a client if their psych meds are helpful, these are the types of answers I get:

“I’m not sure what I’m supposed to be feeling.”
“I don’t know. I just take what they give me.”
“I don’t think they’re doing anything, but I’m not the doctor.”

Sometimes, someone will have been taking these meds for years without knowing if they are helping or not.

You may not be a doctor, but you know yourself better than any doctor does.

Medical expertise is relatively worthless if they don’t know what symptoms you are experiencing. I encourage you to speak up; to share your symptoms and concerns; to advocate for your needs. You deserve to have the most effective treatment available.

Speaking up about your Symptoms

There’s a tendency to think that “this is as good as it gets,” especially if you’ve experienced any improvement in your symptoms. It can be so difficult to figure out what you “should” expect from meds. And we tend to feel shame and self-blame about symptoms we are still experiencing:

“I have a good life. I shouldn’t have thoughts about suicide.”

“I must be doing something wrong. This must be my fault that I’m not better.”

So, we end up keeping those things to ourselves.

I know how intimidating it is to share your symptoms with your provider. But that is the only way that they will know what’s going on. You both need to bring your expertise to the table. Theirs is (hopefully) psychiatry. Yours is YOU. Share your symptoms with your providers and ask what reasonable expectations are for how much better they should get. 

Don’t assume that this is as good as it gets.