Prompt: What’s one thing you wish you knew 10 years ago? Something you might have done differently?
We Shall Not Regret The Past
Ah, ten years ago I was on a path to destruction, and I didn’t realize it. I wasn’t taking my bipolar medication correctly or consistently; I didn’t know to rely on a pill tray to organize things and that really screwed me up. I just had all these pill bottles tossed in a drawer, and I would rely on my husband to remind me to take them. Problem was he was smoking a lot of pot like I was, so some reminders got forgotten. How many? Who knows.
At the time I was on 5 or 6 different medications and it was really important that they were taken correctly. But I hated them, hated the side effects, so I would tinker on my own with dosages, always to disastrous results. Then throw in the abuse of alcohol and weed and it was a real shit show. Back to the psych ward I would go, in and out.
Today I use a pill tray and daily alarms on my phone to keep everything straight with my meds. I’m committed to taking everything as prescribed and that, along with complete sobriety has for the most part kept me stable and out of the hospital. I did have a relatively mild episode in 2022 requiring a brief hospital stay for med adjustment, but that’s the only incident in the past 8 years.
As I sit here reflecting back a decade ago, I’m suddenly filled with sadness. Maybe that’s because 2015 would soon usher in 2016-2017, the worst years of my life where I bottomed out and was separated from my husband for six months. Could something as simple as a pill tray prevented all this heartache? Maybe, maybe not. All I know is I must remember the AA words, “We shall not regret the past, nor wish to shut the door on it.”
No comments:
Post a Comment