by Lisa Latronica
If you’re like most people, you have a picture in your head of what treatment for mental illness looks like. Maybe that image is a counter full of pills. Maybe it’s lying on a couch talking to a doctor with a clipboard. Maybe you think of stark white walls and people in hospital beds. And successful treatment means you don’t need medication or a therapist any longer.
There’s a whole list of stereotypes when we think of mental health treatments, and just because we’re in higher education doesn’t mean that we don’t have assumptions, too. I’ve been in treatment for anxiety and depression for four years and for an eating disorder for almost a year, and even I fall victim to jumping to conclusions about my own treatment. Like a lot of people, I thought that once I started medication and talked to a therapist a few times, I would be magically better and back to “normal.”