For me, it took about a year for me to stop threatening to throw my meds away. Then, I gave a promise to my T, who was a mother to me at the time, that over summer break, I would not throw my pills away. It was more important to me to give this gift to my T/Mom than to continue to rebel against having to take the one or two pills every day. Once I got into the mind set that I was doing this for her, and into the habit of taking them, it became a non-issue.

Rewards are good. Set yourself up for something you really want, but otherwise wouldn't be able to get. It takes about three weeks to turns any behavior into a habit. Find something worth the struggle. Check mark yourself on a calendar every day you comply. When you earn your prize, celebrate it!

For me, when I was attending school but hated it, this was a concert I could not afford. I gave myself a dollar for each day I attended classes. I had to earn the concert, the gas money, the extra money for the other things I knew I would want (an album, if the concert songs were good, etc.) and by the time I was done earning all that, I was firmly in the habit of attending the class I hated, along with all my regular classes.

Also, my college roommate put it to me this way: She had to take meds every day for her asthma. I had to take mine for my depression. We were both doing the same thing. If I was asthmatic, would I be denying myself the meds that let me breathe? So why deny myself the meds that let me function normally?