The Doctor Who Needed Help

I am a psychiatrist. I have spent my entire career treating depression, anxiety, PTSD, and the full spectrum of mental health conditions that bring people into my office. I have prescribed thousands of prescriptions for SSRIs, SNRIs, and mood stabilizers. I have sat with patients through their darkest moments and helped them find their way back. I am good at my job, and I am proud of the work I do.

And from 2017 to 2019, I was severely depressed.

It started gradually — the way depression often does. I was sleeping more but feeling less rested. I was losing interest in things that had always brought me joy: cooking, reading, spending time with my nieces. I was irritable with my patients in ways I had never been before, and I caught myself counting the minutes until each session ended. In the evenings, I would sit on my couch and stare at the wall, unable to summon the energy to do anything else.

I knew what was happening. I had diagnosed depression hundreds of times. But I could not bring myself to seek help. The stigma was internal, but it was powerful: psychiatrists are supposed to have their mental health under control. We're supposed to be the ones helping, not the ones needing help. If I admitted I was depressed, what would my colleagues think? What would my patients think? What would the medical board think when I renewed my license and had to answer the question about "mental health conditions that impair your ability to practice"?

I hid it for two years. I functioned — barely. I saw my patients, wrote my notes, attended my meetings. And then one day, a patient asked me a question that broke through everything. We were talking about her own reluctance to seek treatment, and she said: "Would you judge me if I told you I needed medication?" I said, of course not. And she said: "Then why are you judging yourself?"

I didn't have an answer. I went home that night and called a colleague — a psychiatrist I trusted — and told her everything. She prescribed me an SSRI and recommended a therapist. I started both within a week. It took about six months before I felt like myself again.

I still practice psychiatry. I still prescribe antidepressants. But now I tell my patients something I never said before: I have been where you are. I know what it feels like to need help and be afraid to ask for it. And here is what I learned: the stigma is a lie. Depression is an illness, not a failure, and treating it is an act of courage, not weakness.