Some thoughts on recovery

Today I’m going to get a little more personal than I normally do. I’ve been thinking about where I’m at in my recovery, where I’m heading and what I’ve learned. From this, I have a few things I’d like to say.

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We all know life isn’t fair. Mental illness is one of those unfair things. Whether it’s caused by nature, nurture or something else, mental illness infringes on our lives in a way that is disruptive and even paralyzing. The things we want to experience and accomplish can seem so far out of reach. Hope can be elusive, but it’s important to believe it’s there.

There are times when I’ve spent months in bed. Other times, I only spent long mornings in bed. Now, I can get up just fine most days. What changed? A million little things. I have had a lot of therapy. I got on the right medications. I have done work on trauma I’ve experienced. I regulated my sleep cycle. I make sure to eat enough. I actively seek out things that keep my interest. I slowed down with school. I cut out negative influences in my life. I’ve worked to better my
relationships. I even got cats. 

So is recovery easy? By no means. All that had to happen simply for me to get out of bed before lunch. If that much and more was required to make that one change, how long is it going to take to do other things? 

The truth is, my whole life. Mental illness can and does go into remission, but you still have to work to stay as healthy as you can. I could say that things are “good enough,” but I think that would be selling myself short. To be honest, I’m not happy with myself unless I am working to heal and become a better person. 

And that is one thing I think mental illness can do: It can make you more motivated to grow and become strong. Recovery teaches you the skills to be healthier, which can be applied beyond reaching a baseline “okay.” As much as not having mental illness would have changed my life for the better in many ways, it would also rob me of some of my strengths. I wouldn’t be as resilient. I wouldn’t place such a high value on good relationships. I wouldn’t know how to handle a crisis. I wouldn’t be as grateful. I wouldn’t be able to run this blog and try to make treatment easier for someone else. 

I wish I knew a better way to express how much each and every good choice you make is significant progress. I don’t know that I’d listen to myself a few years ago. But it ended up adding up. It took a long time, but my life is on track to be what I want it to be. Not all my aspirations will come true, but I’ve made new ones that are realistic to me and my condition. 

I’ve been reflecting about why I run this blog at all. I really, really want my readers to believe that recovery is possible. Not only is it possible, but it’s something you can do. There will come a day when you’ll say, “It was worth it to keep trying.” It might even happen when you least expect it. You are meant to live a good and happy life. You have a right to achieve that. If you do ten things wrong today, the one thing you did right still matters. Those “one thing”s add up eventually.

Have you made progress? Do you have hope you will? Give us your thoughts in the comments.