Medication and mental illness

For a long time, I refused medication. I didn’t feel like some chemicals could fix an emotional problem; I thought it was weak to let a drug fight the battle for me.
It wasn’t until I was self harming and thinking of dying all the time that I finally felt desperate enough for anything that might make any difference at all.
I suffer from depression, but only as a consequence of my eating disorder. Since taking medication, my sleep is better, and all the obsessional thoughts I have (food, body, suicide etc) have reduced- at least sometimes, anyways.
I feel like my medicine allows my brain to register thoughts more slowly than it used to, which gives me time to be a little calmer.
For me, negative self talk, body worries and perfectionism have been with me since I was very young, so I feel it would be unreasonable to expect a full recovery. The thoughts and actions I have that mean I am “sick” will always be within my mind somewhere. I hope that as time passes that part of my mind will get closer and closer to the back corner of my brain where I don’t have to worry constantly about it.
Having an illness makes me feel validated, but it is a part of my life I would not wish upon anyone else. You have to be super under confident to feel like clinging to an illness is the only worth you have. Most people don’t understand what the phrase “being mental” means: it’s like you are perpetually fighting yourself, and you are out of control of yourself. It is not about attention, it is not a choice, but sometimes the extreme circumstances an illness creates do demand attention. I know that in my case, such events were my way of expressing inexplicable hurt and fear.