Recovery is not a “one-and-done” deal. Healing is a lifelong process. Some of us will take pills. Others won’t have to.

When you’re not managing your condition as a full-time job it can free up your energy to focus on other things. I will refer followers to buy the summer issue of Magnolia Journal. To read the Chip Gaines Last Word essay. He wrote that choosing to wear the same outfit (the same brand of tee shirt, jeans, and boots) every day freed up his energy to devote time to the things that were more important to him than choosing what to wear.

Gaines knew our emotional energy is finite. The theme of the summer issue of Magnolia was boundless. The editors list the dictionary definition of this word: They contrast this to their definition of boundless:

Traditional Definition:

• Having no boundaries; vast, unlimited, or immense.
• Abundant; limitless. 

Magnolia’s Definition:

• To see ourselves and the world around us through a lens of unlimited potential. 

Illness is not a dead-end. It offers us yes the chance for a boundless life. The fact is that if taking medication gives a person the potential to have a better life I say: Go For It.

Define unlimited: Not succumbing to internalizing that we’re hopeless. Not comparing ourselves to what other people can do and have. Expanding our limits and shifting our mindset to think: “What if?” and “Why not?” when it comes to dreaming.

What I’m against: In the evening TV news commercials sell drugs and state that a side effect can be fatal. You could die taking those pills. There’s a cost-benefit analysis to calculate: is this risk worth it to find relief from an illness?

The goal is to get rid of the shame that surrounds getting a diagnosis. A woman told me that when she was told she had breast cancer she didn’t want to tell other people. The woman thought they’d look at her with pity.

Shame lives in secrecy silence and judgment. Everyone should be proud of who we are and what we stand for. Our lives aren’t easy having an illness. Yet they can be better.

I know that if I didn’t have a disability I wouldn’t be the person I am today: championing that people living in recovery can have our version of a full and robust life.

We can have this life not despite our condition. Because of it.