5 Little Pills and Bitter, Bitter Regret

Did you know that I take 5 pills a day?

Four of them are Lithium, 300mg apiece; I take two in the morning when I get to work and two at night before I go to bed.  The fifth is Paxil, 10mg, and I take it in the morning with my first Lithium dose.  The Lithium pills are a little bigger than a 200mg ibuprofen tablet, and the Paxil is tiny.  None of them are hard to swallow.  None of them taste bad.  None of them make me sick or sleepy or anything like that.

Taking them is easy.

Five little pills.  That's all it takes for me to be normal.  To be well.  To be healthy.  To be functional.  Just five little pills.

It is amazing to think that's all that was standing between me and mental health.  Well, that and a little willpower on my part, but the medicine took the edge off the sickness enough that I was able to find that willpower, if that makes sense.  At any rate, I feel like medication has been the foundation of my treatment.

I am glad to know that.  I am.  I am happy to know that I do need this for treatment, and that it really does work when I do what I'm supposed to.  I am happy to know that getting better was possible.

But at the same time knowing that fills me with a bitter, bitter regret, because if I'd done it sooner, things probably would have worked out between Ex-Fiance and me.  And I feel so incredibly stupid for not being able to get my shit together then.  I look at it now and I think, five little pills to save a relationship with a wonderful man I love (and yes, the present tense is intentional), five little pills for someone to come home to every night and wake up to every morning, for a marriage and a happily ever after.  Taking five pills a day seems like an absurdly small sacrifice in comparison to what I gave up.  It kills me to know that if I'd just done this from the beginning, if I'd just done something this simple when I first had the opportunity, I might be somewhere completely different now.  It just kills me.

There are no words for how badly I want a second chance.  No words for how incredibly sorry I am for throwing away what I had.  I would give anything for the opportunity to see what love feels like now because there is no doubt in my mind that it would work the way we wanted it to in the beginning.