Depending on the type of illness, sometimes medication is necessary, sometimes it is not, and sometimes it is a temporary bolstering of the natural healing process and can be discontinued later. Regardless of whether medication is involved, I agree that there is no point in trying to "power through" debilitating emotional difficulties, fears, obsessions, and breaks with reality on one's own,. There are people who devote their lives to learning how to help people with these sorts of problems. I owe my life to one of these professionals and can attest to the fact that what they do is very real and very important.

Very few people would think of trying to handle a broken leg on their own, but a broken mind seems somehow more personal, more tied into our own identity, even though the brain and its chemistry is just another part of us rather than the entirety of us. Our mental health is not our identity, any more than our physical health is. We are not our diagnoses. I hope some day more people can understand that.