How Skittles Momentarily Offered Mental Health Relief

Putting a Skittle in my pill bottle was a reaction to failed attempts to medicate me by at least five other psychiatrists.

I’ve always enjoyed Skittles, and they’ve always made me happy. The psychiatrists, on the other hand, had rarely made me feel better, unless they offered false hope that the medication they just prescribed would jumpstart some type of improvement. So, it felt natural to pair my antipsychotics with a colorful and safe alternative to modern medicine.

You’re probably not surprised to hear that my candied solution didn’t make the deep depression go away, and the storm clouds steered me back to the psychiatrists who I still didn’t believe had any answers for me. But it felt like nothing worked. Rather, I was so desperate to get better that I aimlessly sought answers from times when I was once happy — eating Skittles and watching a movie or popping them in my mouth after Little League practice.

I remember standing in my room, wearing the same light brown pullover I had worn for months, thinking I had officially lost my mind. I don’t know if, deep down, I believed I could change my condition, but mixing Skittles in my daily medication regimen gave me a momentary feeling of power and control.

Moments like these probably saved me from giving up entirely. Although sometimes it seemed like I was even more disconnected from everyone else in my life, the Skittles symbolized my desire to return — to relive the moments when stopping at a gas station and picking up Skittles was not part of my medical revolution, and rather a cheap snack that made my teeth squeak when I ate them.

Doing anything to take yourself away from your painful experience makes a difference. My family encouraged me to take walks, my therapist encouraged me to write, and my doctors encouraged me to closely examine my feelings when there was a medication change.

By distracting yourself and focusing on some form of recovery, you open up to the idea that not everything is lost.

Skittles sure as hell did not return me to a feeling of normalcy, but they did force me to remember the world I once lived in and how maybe it was possible to return. I was depressed for more than 200 days in one year, and for some reason, that one moment of a Skittle nestled in with my antipsychotics will always paint a vivid scene in my mind: perhaps one day I would taste the rainbow again, and not just lithium.