I take psychiatric meds. I’ll probably continue doing so for the rest of my life. My neurochemistry doesn’t work well without outside help.

It never bothered me to admit that I take antidepressants, and it didn’t make me ashamed. I embraced my membership in Prozac Nation. I didn’t worry much about the diagnoses either. Maybe it’s because they kept people’s attention off the elephant in the room that was my eating disorder? The good thing about psychiatric medications is that inspire strong opinions. Toss them into conversational gaps and watch the room light up. *

My dosing schedule has me popping pills four times a day. I don’t set up a week’s doses in advance because the box I’d have to use is a plastic slab of ugly. The pill box I fill every morning instead is retro and adorable. Drugs are a requirement. Ugly is not.

I take my antidepressants with breakfast, lunch, and dinner. The meds for arthritis are consumed at lunch, dinner and bed. The gabapentin wrecks the pattern by requiring only two doses, lunchtime and bed. My new sleep supplement (melatonin with L-theanine) is one and done. The vitamins, probiotics and fantastically effective cal-mag I take as the mood and memory strikes.

It’s a system that works well until it doesn’t. It’s currently paralyzed by procrastination. Getting the pills down has become a challenge. Taking them out and putting them on the counter is as easy as pie. When it comes time for down the hatch, however, I suddenly need to do anything but.

Task left happily undone become imperative at pill time. The present suddenly becomes about cleaning the sink, feeding the cat, dusting the furniture, reorganizing the library, folding the laundry, and taking selfies with my freshly-polished shoe collection. Anything but down the hatch.

The procrastinating is a problem. There are time constraints involved in the dosing cycle: I need food in the stomach when the meds hit, or unfortunate results will ensue. I need meds in the stomach when the depression hits, or ditto.

A little voice in the back of my head is muttering something about parental lung cancer, dementia, and denial.

I miss the single-digit years, when cares were simple and happiness was a bike ride or coconut-covered marshmallow away.

*Since I sometimes struggle to take my meds, there’s also the possibility that my acceptance is surface-level only. It’s interesting to me that even when I’m honest with myself, I prevaricate.

Do you take permanent medications? How accepting are you? If there’s acceptance, is it “one and done” or does it wax and wane?

Photo credit (header): DG Home Goods 14 day pill and vitamin organizer