For lack of a better place to begin, I will start at what happened when my meds just stopped working. I suffer from major depression disorder and psychosis which means I hear voices, even when the medication worked my life didn’t. The side effects were extreme. My hair thinned, my waistline expanded, my personality disappeared, I had no motivation to do anything. I dreaded walking three blocks to the store.

Then the voices came back sometime at the beginning of the pandemic, I was med compliant so I didn’t realise what was happening at first. I got worse and worse. Left my hotel room to sleep on the street, was hospitalized but always returned to this dimly lit filthy little room with a sink that was a personal hell.  I was practically a shut in terrified of everything and everyone. At one point I didn’t do laundry for a year. I was just trapped in this endless cycle of threatening voices. I didn’t sleep. I ate these flavorless frozen meals that were delivered to my room. I was completely isolated from the world.

I stopped taking my meds. The only tool I had to deal with the voices was trying to distract myself with television which didn’t work. Sounds pretty damn hopeless right?

Then I bought a Mr. Coffee coffee pot and things started to change. I started cleaning up my life, starting with that tiny dark little room. I cleaned it, organized it, I  started better hygiene practices, eating better.

Once I ran out of cleaning projects I started taking morning walks which I think act as a natural mood stabilizer.  This amazing two hour walk that I take daily, someone who dreaded walking three blocks! This led to other changes in my life like leaving that tiny dim room behind. Don’t get me wrong, still in the same building in a room with a sink, but it’s bright, clean, and large enough to breathe. I started taking care of things like renewing my identification card and buying new shoes.

Things that used to paralyze me with fear no longer bother me. With each day my life is getting better and better and it all started with a coffee pot.