For over a decade, I contemplated the idea of living on my own. Over seven years that became a reality. But for six of those past seven, I found it challenging to prove my ability to live independently. I had begun to feel like I was failing the mission of what I had intended. I and everyone around me was getting older, but I was acting quite immature. I had to learn to finally wise up and do the right thing once and for all.

Indeed, living independently is a challenge at first. I was heading toward regression. This was causing great concern among those around me. I had done the one thing that many knew what a successful tool to me staying well. That was my psychotropic medication. Even those strongly against it saw it do wonders for me. They lived in fear of what dangerous thing would happen to me.

For years I would not listen, even after making some pretty wreck less decisions that set me back. The damage never appeared until it was too late to fix it. The hardest part for me was understanding that I needed to take the medication as prescribed. This was important despite all the side effects. If it was not, it would lead to pretty severe and drastic consequences.

Those never happened to me. But, I started to realize something important. I did not want my journey to living independently to become a failure. I have seen it happen many times in many others that I have come across. There were many people who looked up to me. This included individuals on the spectrum. They admired me for enduring everything I had gone through. They also respected me for doing what was necessary to live independently. I lost the first apartment. COVID struck, and I had to pick up the pieces and start over in a short amount of time. I was resilient, and I did it.

I was failing inside myself. I was being deceitful by lying about making pointless and destructive decisions repeatedly. I did not realize the consequences. Becoming closer to Jesus Christ showed me that lying and dishonesty were sinful behavior. Such actions would lead to being in an unwanted living situation. I had to start making things right to avoid those consequences.

I realized that I needed to be patient with myself. I had to give myself grace when working on getting back on track. That my mind would only get there if I had wanted to do it and actually did it. I would actually be glad I would have done it in the end. There were other things that I needed to work towards at fighting the side effects. Even though they were unpleasant, I had to learn to blend them into the fabric of my life. I knew that medication was essential. It provides me with the quality of life I need. It’s also the quality I want to have.

I’m in a much better place than were I was even a year ago. I did what was needed to be done because I knew that I needed to. I do not want my journey of living independently to become a failure. I know that I should never have done certain things. What happened in the past happened. We learn from our mistakes. But most importantly we move on becoming a better person because of it.