Normalize mental health self-care time

Once a month, I refill my pills’ dispenser with all the medication and vitamins I started taking through the years. Necessary steps toward a better health in general, and specifically my mental health. As you can see, I take a lot of medication now: 2022 brought a huge disbalance in my body after my covid episode, and it left me scrambling to fix my old prescription that wasn’t working anymore. I had to change my prescription, and I wasn’t keen on experiencing new side effects. But I did it, I changed my medication, and 2 months in, I feel an overall improvement on my general mental state. Which is good, because I didn’t want to relapse into addictive, destructive old patterns again. I must credit my medical team for being so reactive and fast, helping me find new alternatives and make me feel better. My doctor is a saint, as she endured my rapid emotional ups and downs while trying to figure out how to help me. I really do love her a lot! Now, if only I can stop being gaslighted over my weight, that would be a welcome respite!

I’ve decided to share this picture to help normalize medication in a mental health matter: it’s ok if you need medication to function on a daily basis. There is no shame in needing medication to function as a human being. For a long time, I had difficulties accepting it, thinking of myself as feeble and weak, but…no, I ain’t weak: I’ve accepted the tools necessary for my survival! That’s how I had to rephrase it in my head, and it helped me accept my fate: I will probably need this medication until I die, or at least until I hit menopause (so I’ll recalibrate my medication at that moment). So yeah… sharing this picture, hoping it helps some of you normalize medication for mental health purposes.