“I’m in recovery.”
I often can’t think of a better way to phrase it. We tend to use the word recovery when it implies a notion of constant forward progress. Coping with a mental illness isn’t like that. To see any progress at all, we often must look at the bigger picture, like a longitudinal study, not a snapshot of life. Remission? Perhaps remission illustrates the pauses between episodes more clearly. I don’t know. Honestly, today, after an up and down week that has seen heartbreak, hopelessness, fear and self-loathing all catch up with me, I’m not sure how best to help anyone see where I’m at.
I suppose perhaps that’s what’s most disturbing about this. I’m a writer. A pretty good one if I’m to believe what others say. I’m no Steinbeck perhaps, but then nobody else is either. If I can’t quite place into words what depression and anxiety are like, no wonder so many people struggle to help those around them understand their personal experiences.
Not only is the experience different for each of us, but we also lack the ability to fully understand what another person is feeling at any given time.
|
Not only is the experience different for each of us, but we also lack the ability to fully understand what another person is feeling at any given time. Until we have the ability experience life through another person’s eyes and emotions, we will continue to lack that understanding.
***
As humans, we like to make comparisons. It helps us to understand and process things when we can put them into a category that we already have some knowledge or awareness of. When we are talking about mental illness, one of the easiest ways for people to understand is to compare it to Cancer. For the purposes of fighting stigma, that analogy seems to work. “We don’t judge a cancer patient for enduring chemotherapy, for their hair falling out or for missing social events. Why then, do we do so for a person with a mental illness?” See? It fits the situation well.
Maybe it helps, or perhaps it’s cliché now. Either way, recovery is incongruent with what reality is like for someone with an affliction of the mind. For us, recovery is less like a physical disease and more like someone fighting addiction.
***
If you made it past the title, some of you right now are thinking, “Dude. You’re taking the stigma and making it WORSE!”
The slope is slippery, and they require support and reassurance, a safety net of friends and family to help them on their journey.
|
No. This has zero to do with stigma. It has everything to do with the actual experience. I have friends who have coped with addiction throughout their lives. Our experiences have been similar, though not quite like reading word for word from the same book. We aren’t always on the same page, but we are often reading from the same chapter. The parallels are uncanny.
We frequently hear from addicts that the craving never completely goes away. They must be ever vigilant, and every setback is dangerous. The slope is slippery, and they require support and reassurance, a safety net of friends and family to help them on their journey. And, like addicts, we require the same things. People to remind us of who we are, to lean on when we’re struggling, and to listen when the weight of the world seems a burden too heavy to bear.
I’ve spoken with dozens, perhaps hundreds of people with Depression, Bipolar Disorder, Anxiety, Borderline Personality Disorder, and more. Most of us recognize that we’ll have to face the challenge of our illness for our entire lives. We will always be able to look over our shoulder and know that it walks with us.
***
I’m not saying there’s no hope. On the contrary, we can live with things like Major Depressive Disorder and still lead a happy, fulfilling life.
The implication that everything is suddenly healed doesn’t help us at all. There will be setbacks.
|
The alcoholic, though the pull remains, does not need to spend their life miserable and drunk. I may have setbacks, depressive episodes, or a panic attack. That doesn’t mean my life is an empty shell, anchored only by pain and suffering.
I may always be on antidepressants. I may always have to take something for my Attention Deficit Disorder. I may be in therapy of some kind until the day I die. Conversely, I may be able to wean myself off all of them. I don’t know; the future isn’t set. It remains a mystery.
No, recovery isn’t the best way to describe what life is like after healing begins. The implication that everything is suddenly healed doesn’t help us at all. There will be setbacks. There will be bad days when we stumble and fall. Even when we are moving forward, that progress may be a desperately slow shuffle.
I do know that I must be vigilant. I must take care of myself and others. And I must be aware that a relapse is not cause to lose hope. We don’t get rid of a car when the tire is flat. We patch it or replace it and continue on our journey. Life is a journey. Let’s keep our wheels rolling.
Photo Credit: Getty Images