This week, I  attended my statewide conference for my day services, commonly known as Clubhouse. While I have been mentally unwell since living independently nearly six years ago, in the past few weeks I have been getting the signs that I have been heading in the wrong direction for far too long.

One of the biggest things that caused a great deal of uncertainty within my support system is the fact that I wanted to leave the Clubhouse. A few weeks ago,  I was notified that my goal plan was up and that I would need to have an assessment to decide what to work  on next.

Next month will be two decades since I have walked into the Clubhouse for my first day as a member, and while many things have changed, one thing was the fact that I have been accepted for who I am, my faults, my challenges, my quirks, everything about me. The Clubhouse has done so much for me and even through the challenging times, I still stuck through it.

Since moving on my own, I have not been my best self. What has been the culprit of this happening is the fact that I was not adhering to my medication regimen. Time and time again, I would get so unwell that someone would raise concern when something wasn’t right about me.  Many times, I would ignore the fact that I was hiding this secret about my life because I wanted to experience things that I felt cheated out of or that I wanted to experience. And in those nearly six years of being on my own, I had experienced so many things that I thought  was authentic about me, the result was never had a positive outcome.

What got me to my a-ha moment was the fact that no matter how much I wanted to “play” around with my medicine, there was never a good result. Eventually, what was experiencing would crash down and result in making things severe. I have experienced everything that I have needed to experience that I now realize that there is no other way than doing what I know works.

I remember over twenty years ago when I had first got out of a residential placement to find the best medication cocktail that was best for me. I remember shortly after returning home to my parents and we went to a follow up appointment with the same psychiatrist that I had in placement, and we were discussing the medication. One thing that still sticks out today is that he said that it is “best to not rock the boat”  And now I have finally realized that.

As I close this long and egregious experience in my mental health recovery, I am now the same person that I was when I started this journey before moving out of my parents house almost six years ago. As for identity, I am a man, plain as that. Sex is something that will never discuss because, quite frankly it disgusts me, and I will not volunteer to share my pronouns unless I required to do so. This is my true, honest, authentic self and this is who I am. Nothing is ever going to change that because that is who I am when I am well and that is what I need to be.