Will You Be on Medication Forever? Yes, and That's Okay

“Will you be on medication forever?”

Someone asked me this once, straight out, no cushioning around it. And it stunned me a little — the bluntness of it, the way it just hung there in the air. But it didn’t surprise me. Not really. I’ve been asked some version of this question before, and I know the assumption baked into it: that forever is the scary answer, the sad answer, the answer you’re supposed to want to escape.

My Answer Is Yes

Yes. I will be on my medication forever. And I am more than okay with that — I am happy about it.

I think people expect me to sigh when I say this, or to talk about it like it’s a life sentence I’m serving out. It isn’t. My medication is part of how I get to have a life at all — a good one. I am in a good place right now. I am stable. I am medicated. Those two things are not in spite of each other; they’re connected.

Forever Isn’t the Bad Word People Think It Is

I understand why the question gets asked the way it does. There’s an idea out there that taking medication forever means something has failed — that you’re supposed to eventually graduate off of it, prove you’re healed, prove you don’t need it anymore. I don’t carry that idea around with me. Staying on my medication isn’t a failure to get better. It is what better looks like, for me.

I plan to stay this way. Not because I’m resigned to it, but because I know what it’s given me back.

If you’re asking yourself this same question about your own life, or someone else’s — whether forever is really as heavy as it sounds — I don’t have a tidy answer for you beyond my own. But I can tell you that mine is yes, and it’s a yes I’m at peace with.