What Mental Illness Recovery Is Really Like

精神illness recovery looks nothing like I expected it would. Talk of recovery painted pictures ofcures for mental illnessthat removed all struggle from my life and made everything—and I mean everything—better. What I’ve found is that recovery is different from that perception, and the truth is I’m okay with that.

精神Illness Recovery Expectations Versus Reality

The beauty of what I’ve found mental illness recovery to really be like is while it’s different than my expectations, I’ve still gotten (most of) what I was actually seeking beyond the surface-level description of “better.”

This might be clearer if I break it down.

What I Get Out of My Mental Illness Recovery

• Mymental illnessesdon’t impact me as much anymore.
• I’m no longerashamed of having mental illnesses.
• I’m able to live a full and satisfying life even though I still have my mental illnesses.

When it boils down to it, those are the things I wanted when I was looking for cures or ways to erase my struggles from my life. I wanted to alleviate the impact mymental health struggleshad on me, I wanted to stop feeling ashamed andstop hating myselffor having these illnesses, and I wanted to be able to live—to truly live, not just exist.

有什么不同呢精神Illness Recovery Than I Expected

• I still havedepression,anxiety, andexcoriation (skin-picking) disorder.
• I still have bad days (plenty of them) that can leave me struggling to function.
• I accept and don’t feel the need to get rid of my illnesses anymore.
• I’m okay with talking about having these illnesses even though I still actively deal with them.

The way I see it, recovery is presented as this idea of the complete erasure of mental illnesses (expectation). Instead of efforts to work with what we’ve got and address it that way, it’s about cutting away the struggle as if it was never a part of us and didn’t change us in any way.

The truth (reality) is that mental illness changes us emotionally, mentally, and even physically, so we can’t just pull it out and chuck it as if it never existed.

精神Illness Recovery Gave Me My Life Back

Is the way I experience recovery better or worse than what I expected? I can’t actually say. After all, I’ve never had a taste of the vision of recovery we’re presented with.

What I can say is that this version of recovery works for me. If a better version does come along, that’s awesome, but until then, I’m happy with the mental illness recovery that’s given me my life back.