Progress is a choice and it means we are in control of our disease.
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Progress is easy to define when you are building a home, studying for a degree or taking a trip. There are markers along the way that let you know you’ve completed a step and are ready to move onto the next. Like waypoints on a map, you can point to the indicators of your progress and be proud of your accomplishments. Even on the micro level, there are ways to see what has transpired.
Perhaps because I’ve been so open and vocal about my own personal struggles with mental illness, people want to know how my progress in recovery has been. This isn’t alcoholism or drug addiction. I can’t look them in the eye and say “I’m 46 days, 22 hours and 13 minutes clean.” I can’t. That’s the nature of this beast. How then do you make progress quantifiable when no true measure exists?
I can’t point to a shrinking tumor in a PET scan or a surgical incision and a clean bill of health. There isn’t a blood test to tell me I’m nearly free of my disease and the brain remains shrouded in mystery.
I spend much of my life wanting to be better, desperately wishing I knew how it felt to be normal but unable to quantify my recovery in a meaningful manner. It’s a struggle that hits home every time a friend falls into an episode and we speak, supporting each other. How can we define something so abstract?
I’m still occasionally suicidal. I still have periods of time that leave me alone and isolated. I’m never sure what happiness is and I continue to lash out. If I’m still engaging in classic depressive behaviors, how can I believe I’ve made any progress?
Do we point to the space between episodes? The number of days in a row we managed to take our pills? What about the good days outnumbering the bad? Is the aforementioned self awareness a sign of progress? How do we see it? How do we measure it and make it concrete, something we can hold onto when we need it?
While all of those are indicators, they aren’t really progress. Even an untreated person with mental illness can go long stretches between episodes. Taking your pills is great, but it’s kind of like breathing. After a while the habit takes over and it becames less a conscious decision. Increased self awareness is a blessing and a curse, often as much a trigger as a sign of healing.
So then what is progress? How do we measure or quantify our recovery? We live. That’s all there is to it. We’ve made it another day. There is no countdown, no clock on the wall. The measure will always be simply one.
One more day. One more morning to hope for better. One more chance at happiness. Another cup of coffee, another hug from your children.
Progress is choosing to live just one more moment and then choosing again and again. Progress is realizing that, as my good friend Amy Joy is fond of saying, “You live to hope another day.”
It isn’t always easy, and the fight gets ever more exhausting. Progress is a choice we make and it means we are in control, not our disease.
Does that mean we can’t give in once in a while and let the darkness embrace us? No, but it means we know there will be a tomorrow and it has a chance of being better than today.
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