For 25 years this month, I have been taking psychotropic medication. I had not always been educated on the purpose of why I was taking my medication. It was just something that because I lived with my parents for the longest time that was what I needed to do to be well.

While in the beginning it was quite the learning curve. There were some relationships that I had to one medication that I could always relate to my ability to sleep. This was evidenced years ago by the necessity of it needing to be prescribed following the difficulty of waking up in the morning. Then came the weight gain without the regard for being cognizant of tracking my nutrients that got me to the size that I am now.

So, while I had a little background and hatred when I moved out on my own over five and a half years ago, I at one interval forgotten to take my medication and as such got to experience the things that I thought that I wanted to experience. While they were not always appropriate or healthy for me, they made me feel good and as such, it was hard to get to taking the medication regularly.

This in conjunction with not being as adherent with my medication caused quite a concern in those that I shared my daily life with. They became concerned and let my treatment team know of things. I was reminded of the necessity of taking all medications, but as much as I wanted to try, at the time there was a great deal of other factors that made that being hard until I had to leave my first apartment suddenly and be under my parents’ roof and I eventually broke down the first time when the COVID lockdowns occurred and we were all under the same roof for an extended period of time.

However, with the aid of my therapist, I was able to get back on track for a great deal of time until I once again moved out on my own. The relationship had become strained with the medication that aided me with getting to sleep. It was because I had seen sleep as a dreadful thing and not as something that was needed and quite healthy to do.

Last summer, I had made the drastic decision to not only stop taking that select medication but cut out one dose of another medication. While this had seemed good to many, those close to me had noticed that something just was not right about me, and they even changed their plans to be at the ready in case something happened to me. Eventually, I did break down and realized to never do anything like that ever again.

Yet, eventually, while getting back on track, I eventually got off the course again with the medication that I battled with and at times those close to me again saw things happening to me that I did not see. Eventually I did start to see them in myself and started taking note in my head of the points where things were not what was normal for me.

As of the past few weeks, I realized the importance of the medication that I was having the strained relationship with and had gradually brought my thoughts back to where they needed to be. When doing something to get back on track, it can be hard to see that there is progress even if it may not seem so in your mind, but I have been visually keeping track of the progress of this medication with a calendar and I am seeing more progress every day with this past weekend being the first full weekend in many months that I have been completely adherent.

So, things can happen if you want to. For me it has been a long road of mending the relationship that I have had with this medication that I have been battling with for far too long. But my mood is more regulated, and I am working more on myself every day. That is what anyone would want in their lives and that is what I want too. I want to get and stay adherent with my medication so I can move on from some things in my life and do more things in my life that I both need and want to do to find my why and purpose.