Recovery and Mental Illness

Remember you are not define by your mental illness. Your hope becomes your recovery. Your strengths and positive coping strategies empower your destiny to recover.

Recovery is possible if you believe that you are not your diagnosis. The road to recovery is not easy. Hope, strength, support, determination, and education on mental illness can help an individual with a mental illness recover so that they can live a productive and gratifying life in their community. Some individuals with mental illness can work, attend and graduate from college, buy a home, and have families.

Hope equals maintaining a mentally, emotionally, and physically healthy lifestyle!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

                                                                  Written By: Tracy Goudeau, MS

Remember you are not define by your mental illness. Your hope becomes your recovery. Your strengths and positive coping strategies empower your destiny to recover.

Recovery is possible if you believe that you are not your diagnosis. The road to recovery is not easy. Hope, strength, support, determination, and education on mental illness can help an individual with a mental illness recover so that they can live a productive and gratifying life in their community. Some individuals with mental illness can work, attend and graduate from college, buy a home, and have families.

Hope equals maintaining a mentally, emotionally, and physically healthy lifestyle!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Why do people have so much trouble staying in recovery, they ask?

Their theories of why are often unflattering at best and cruel at the worst.

Recovery is progress is rationed out as single sips of water to someone who is desperately thirsty.  It’s a slow drip and impatience doesn’t get your thirst quenched. Waiting isn’t just hard. It is desperate. Time stretches out into eternity. You feel like you could die before your thirst is quenched.

That’s why it is so tempting to wander off into the desert and drink from an alkali hole (resort to maladaptive coping skills). You want to drink your fill now, but if you try to do so it will make you sick. And sometimes you don’t care if it is good and bad for you as long as it relieves the feeling that feels like it is trying to kill you.”

This is a story I wrote for the peer support group newsletter for September National Recovery Month. I wanted to submit it the article here to share my voice as a Wisconsin Nami Member, and a peer just like you. Here is part of my story…

Coming Out of the Closet
About My Recovery

By Deb Thompson

September is “National Recovery Month” in fact it is SAMHSA’s 25^th National Recovery Month. For those of you that may not know SAMHSA stands for Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration. This year’s theme is “Join the Voices for Recovery: Speak Up, Reach Out.”  So I would like to Speak Up while Reaching Out, to the reality of my recovery and recovery experiences with you.

Many of you do not know who I am; I tend to stand back in the shadows whenever possible. But for many reasons I want to “Come Out of the Closet” about my mental illness, which is depression.

Keep reading

As 2018 is approaching, I’m thinking of the word “recovery”. “Recovery” doesn’t mean cured or perfect, it just means being mindful of your struggles and having more control over the outcome. It doesn’t mean the “fight” is over, it just means you have better weaponry and more combat training.

My Recovery from Self-injury

 Recovery means many different things to many different people.  It’s a very difficult and personal journey. Not everyone is strong enough to realize they need help, let alone know what to do once they get it.  You often hear people speaking about a place called “Rock Bottom.” The consensus is that to help yourself, you have to realize when you’ve hit the bottom.  Some people take years to get to that point.  Some people never get there.  I’m grateful to say that I am one of those that beat the odds.  I hit that bottom, and I hit it hard.  The most difficult thing I’ve ever had to do was make my way back up.

I was diagnosed with bipolar disorder at the age of 19. I started taking medication at that time and still do at 43.  I’ve always been realistic about my condition.  Having attempted to exist without medications, I know that they are a necessary evil.  If I stop taking them, it doesn’t take long for me to fall into a deep, dark depression; if the physical symptoms of withdrawal don’t kill me first. 

I’m logical enough to understand that I will never fully recover from bipolar disorder, and I’m OK with that.  Some people have to take medication for the rest of their lives for diabetes or heart disease.  So, I don’t burden myself with the thought of getting better.  Don’t get me wrong, I am always trying to improve myself and the way that I feel, but I know that there is no cure for bipolar disorder.

Keep reading

By: Kaleigh Peery

What does recovery mean? Well the dictionary says it’s a return to a normal state of health, mind, or strength and/or the action or process of regaining possession or control of something stolen or lost.

When it comes to mental illness, “recovery“ to me means to be able to not run from the chaos of  your own mind but to embrace and accept it. There are some who of us who are not just addicts to drugs and alcohol but addicted to the worse thing of all: their own minds. Nothing compares to a battle with your own mind. For as long as I can remember, I did everything I could to hide the inner battle stirring around inside me. Yet, through all years of madness I could never justify labeling myself as an addict even though I did spend years self-medicating and trying to numb the chaos in my mind.

December of 2015, I finally broke down and realized I needed some serious help.  Every part of me was shattering into a million pieces like broken glass and I was feeling as if any one who could help me pick up the pieces would be afraid to get cut on shards of glass that were chaotically placed around me. I sunk deeper into my addiction to my mind. The anxiety I had was unbearable. I was fearful of any emotional connections. I honestly was at the point where all I wanted to do was completely just give up. The burden of illness felt too much to bear. I thought I was never going to be able to function appropriately in society. My self-loathing got worse and worse and of course then follows the guilt and isolation. No one could understand how I could be this way. To good family, good friends, from the outside looking in, I should be happy as can be, right? Everyone loves me, just be happy.

Well, I wasn’t.  I was overly exhausted from faking it my whole life.  I had coped with my invisible illness alone for so long I created a world of puking out the pain or grinding my teeth until my jaw would lock up. I was sick and tired of trying to find pills, just so I could go outside and spend time with family and friends and not dread every moment of it or fear that I would have a panic attack, sick and tired of looking for ADD meds so I could just function to clean and maybe not lose everything I touch (which was ongoing problem that messed with my life way more than it should). The hustle of it all only contributed to even more to triggering my PTSD or my generalized anxiety disorder. For me the saddest part is no one even knew what was going on with me because I took pride in my resilience and always just kept keeping on, convincing myself that this darkness will fade if just can focus on the light. It is what I had always done after all. I had always made it out of the chaos in my head alone so this time shouldn’t be any different. Hiding my illness for so long, I became the master at faking a smile and crying in the shower.

This time though, I was spiraling down deep into the abyss of the darkness part of my illness and with a little help from a narcissistic man who enjoyed playing with my already fragile mind, I lost it. I let him manipulate me into thinking that I would feel better if I just let him put a needle full of drugs into my body, knowing I am terrified of needles. He insisted and the darkness in me submitted regretfully. After that night of drug use, I realized I had hit rock bottom. It was time to put my ego aside and tell me my family I was not doing well.

After the shock of telling my family, I checked myself into a crisis unit. For the first time in my life, I did what was needed to be done for my own mental health and left everyone’s opinions at the door. I needed help. I needed control over the increasing amount of panic attacks a day, along with the self-medication because if I didn’t I would most likely end up dead. I was losing the ability to even care about life because I wasn’t living a life worth living.

After spending 18 days with some amazing staff and doctors, I could feel happiness and hope again.

I wrote this about four months after I left crisis unit. At that point I was just happy to be able to go the grocery store, socialize and enjoy the little things again. I was not only functioning though. I thought I was excelling. I felt and—still feel—extremely blessed. For the first time in forever I began to write, paint and had even got myself a role and once again could be under the bright lights of the theatre stage. While the rest of my time than was spent volunteering with NAMI and trying to openly talk about my illness in the hopes of helping someone else.  

Now, eight months later, talk about full circle. I teach “living successfully with a mental illness” on the crisis unit where I once was resident along with the honor of becoming an In Our Own Voice presenter for NAMI. Also, I am interning to get my crisis recovery specialist certification at the unit. While there, I was blessed with the job opportunity to become a residential specialist before my internship was up.

I can help spread the word and breathe hope back into others who are in the same shoes I was once. It a magical feeling to say the least.  

It was little less than a year ago when I thought my life was over and pointless. Now I’m nothing but excited about the future and what it has in store for me. The possibilities are endless when you finally have hope and confidence in yourself

I learned to own the chaos inside me and because of that, I am now tapping into the great potential and edge my mental health condition has gifted upon me

My goal in life is to remove the stigma and to use my voice so that no one ever feels as alone as I once did.

I have BPD and major depression with anxiety features.  I have been in active recovery for a year now.  What do I mean by active recovery?  I am not cured, and by no means able to stop taking my meds or following my treatment plan.  I have worked really hard and with support have reached a point in my life, were I can take a step back and realize life is worth it.  I no longer struggle every day nor is my mental illness controlling my life anymore.  Mental illness is just a petal on the beautiful rose that makes me, me.  It is worth all the effort and struggles.  I know everyone has a different level of recovery, and that is okay.  We are all unique and bring to the world our own beauty.  Never give up on yourself. You are so worth it, even if you do not feel it. One day you will be the one to post about your recovery.  Never stop trying, even if for that moment all you can do is cry, as long as you chose today to live one more minute you are fighting a battle and that is sometimes all you can do.  But you are doing it and that is all that matters.  Courage after all is sometimes the little voice in your head that says, tomorrow I will try again. 

I’m in recovery now