I was pissed. I didn’t say it aloud – that wouldn’t be supportive – but inside I wanted to scream.  

My friend Sheila (not her real name) had just told me she’d started anti-anxiety medication: this in addition to the anti-depressants she’d been on for years.

“Couldn’t you just work out… see a therapist…  change your thoughts… change your life?”  I peppered rapid-fire questions at her.  

“It doesn’t work… it’s not for me… that’s not the issue… you’re not understanding me,” she retorted.

I wasn’t understanding her.

“Pills!” I thought. “Ugh!”

“Why can’t you just be happy I’m taking steps to improve the quality of my life?”

Why couldn’t I?

I didn’t have an aversion to all medications – I have no problems taking Tylenol for headaches, Tums for heartburn, and the occasional prescription.

But the idea of mood-altering pharmaceuticals irked me. I considered them a band-aid that masked the root cause. Sure, some people needed them temporarily to get to the underlying cause, but, if you take care of the problem, don’t the symptoms disappear?

My friend’s refusal to consider holistic interventions seemed to me a refusal to deal with the problem.

She saw it differently. “I don’t have a root cause,” she insisted. “I’ve always been this way. It’s just my brain chemistry.”

My mind raced. “Yeah but don’t these meds block people from the full spectrum of the human experience?”  

Years ago, I tried Zyban, an antidepressant, to quit smoking. It made me feel like a zombie – like all but the mildest of emotions were buried far beneath the silt at the bottom of a murky pond. I’d take sorrow and anxiety over that lack of feeling any day.    

But Sheila insisted that her medications made her feel more, not less like herself. She still felt a range of emotions but was better able to deal with the darker of them.

All of this made sense, logically. 

I love Sheila. I want her to be happy. Knowing her struggles and given her news, I should have been. But still I was angry. Why?

We all have beliefs that cause us to be irrationally hard on others.

In Jungian psychology, these often point back to our shadow self – the unconscious parts of our personality that we reject or repress because we’ve been taught that they are socially unacceptable or associated with a negative trait.

For example, one person might see a group of expensively dressed people on a yacht and think, “Those people are so smug.”  Where another person could see those same people and think “Those people know how to enjoy their success.”

The first person has learned that being rich is a bad thing. The second that is a good thing.

If you ever want to know how you really feel about something, ask your self what quality or qualities describes that thing.

Pills! Ugh! They are so… lazy.

Lazy. There it was: the aspect of my shadow self that that this situation was forcing me to reckon with.  

Growing up, laziness wasn’t tolerated in my family. I come from a long line of Protestants: hard work is the only way to get into Heaven.

And so, I work hard.  To keep my mood from dipping, I wake up early to exercise multiple times a week. I see a counsellor. I read self-help books. I try (usually unsuccessfully) to eat healthy. I’m constantly trying to improve.

I do the work.

And yet, here was Sheila – who doesn’t work out, eats what she wants and isn’t remotely interested in self-analysis – getting a quick fix without even trying.

My inner four-year old was having a hissy fit. “It’s not fair!!!”

Of course, it’s also not fair that exercise regulates my moods but not Sheila’s. It’s not fair that where I suffer occasionally, she suffers often. It’s not’s fair that she’s felt this way for longer than she can remember.  

Life isn’t fair.

And perhaps that is deliberate. Because if it was – if everyone experienced the same things – we would never be able to develop compassion.

And this whole situation with Sheila and the pills made me realize that is exactly what I need: compassion for Sheila – who is doing the best she can – and compassion for myself who is often far harder on herself than she needs to be.

Anger is a mask for fear. Fear when turned to compassion points the way to love.  

It took me days to unpack this.

Now that I have, I am no longer angry.

Sheila needs pills – I accept this and support her on her journey. If she needs anything else from me, I’ll be here for her.

And as for me? My inner four-year old needs a nap.

I think it’s time I let her have one.