The medications bestowed upon me and the associated psychiatric problems they treat have been a poignant, expensive, and misunderstood part of my life since early teenagehood. My relationship with myself, medication, and mental health is one that constantly changes. I try to chiefly view my experience with mental health in a positive light, an experience that has shaped my perceptions. However, it is often something I find myself resenting on a deep and fiery level. Why should I alter my brain to establish a more respectable place in society?

While skimming a self-help blog in another midnight attempt at pulling my life together, (realistically, I needed to get a good night’s sleep, not read Tumblr blogs) I came across the phrase: “Medication is like getting a new pair of glasses and finally being able to see.” While I cannot find the source of this quote, it has since rang around my head and wormed through my ears a few too many times, so here I’ve tried to make sense of its salience in my life. In poetry format, obviously.

Visual Appeal
by Sam Tujague

“You’ll probably need stronger lenses every year”

Right eye, left eye list the letters you can read
Mom says I’m lying and can see just fine

Red wire frames to outline my world
The clarity of clouds in the sky, all the leaves on the trees, road signs passing by

Maybe vanity took hold of me too young
I spent hours in front of the bathroom mirror
Unsure of how my new look would be received by the first grade
Unsure if I recognized the little face peering back at me

They say it’s progressive, worse with age

On and off I swallow a concoction of other prescription aids
Never off by recommendation and never on for very long

Clarity illustrates my experiences
Emotions can be trusted, cited, sourced from reason

A simple solution to a sightful bother
There’s no need to fear what may or may not be true
The monster on my chair is just piles of jackets
The monster, purchased with money I don’t have

Glasses off, I cannot look on and worry if my face is mine

No gaps in my vision to be filled with exuberant jokes
Reckless actions, tales of glory

Staring through the clouded bit in my left eye
a colorful world, bright and isolated, only existing for me

I love the way colors swirl
The blindness is my vision
I am a perfect mesh of unidentifiable shapes
I am nothing that matters

The simplicity of barely existing
Interrupted by the need to see one’s path
And so I’m formed into something else
“More visually appealing”