What Is Recovery To You?

[wordsmithy]

I do think its an important topic, and I guess I'd like to know what it means for each individual person.

Being an eternal 'Serious Kid' - 23 years old and having had at least 4 years of therapy, meds, doctors, hospitals etc.

I'm curious to know what it is you want when you say you want to leave this mental ill-health world behind.

[Dani]

its not feeling utter darkness everyday...being able to function.

to smile and mean it and to be comftable being me.

and luckily i feel this way now ...its been a long road.

[hummm_mabbe]

Some form of the following

- (Symptoms)

- Relationships and deeper personality issues resolved

- Life direction and meaningful action

- Spirituality

Symtpoms are in brackets because for me I think they are reliant on the other things. That is, getting rid of symptoms is not what I believe the aim of therapy to be, rather they change naturally as a process of and focusing on other things.

Ross

[icu_baby]

Being able to enjoy things you once did and enjoy the moment

Being able to function (at school or work)

Being rid of anxiety and fear

[foreverborderline]

Recovery is hard to come by these days but in the past when I had brief periods of recovery it was the following

• doing what I have passion for and love (travel,working with dogs,sports,school)
  
• having healthy thinking and feelings
  
• not using drugs or alcohol
  
• not hurting myself
  
• helping others
  
• being emotionally stable
  
• being happy
  

To recover I need the following (which is hard to do right now)

• therapy
  
• meds
  
• AA/NA meetings
  
• volunteering
  
• support groups
  

[sam25]

Being free!

Able to plan for the future, having a family ( there's no way I'd be a good mother at this point), hold down a job, complete my studies.

be confident I can trust myself and others.

To have a stable mood for more than a few hours/ days.

Not to loose any more days in bed not seeing the sunlight.

To get my concentration sorted out.

Not to feel this nagging doubt and frustration all the time.

To be calm.

To stop picking myself to death.

To know and like myself.

To forgive myself.

To get my life back!

To make a difference in this world and help other people and animals.

What does it mean to you wordsmithy?

[Ulrica]

After more than nine years of therapy, meds, closed ward admittances and such I have really thought a lot about this one. It's been revised over the years and my expectations have gotten lower. Much because some things I know I might never get. My life has damaged my brain in many ways beyond repair, I'll most likely never be able to work 100%, but that's okay with me. I want to be happy and healthy, the rest will sort itself out.

For me, recovery will be when I can manage to function socially, be content with life and when I am able to actually like myself.

[wordsmithy]

What does it mean to you wordsmithy?

I realised how important recovery seems to everyone and I guess I wanted to know specifically what it was that people wanted.

It seems to me most people can come up with a list of what they want, and maybe I what I need is just a few ideas... ?

Honestly? Perhaps I feel I will not 'recover'. Or perhaps recovery isn't what I want.

I don't think being asymptomatic of my PD problems means recovery for me, or having the ability to just like myself or being free of my social/relationship problems.

What I really, really want is to have woken up and gone back to who I was before everything started, that the past few years have just been a awful dream.

[shawnm339]

for me recovery would be no more self destruction to know when the impulses come and being able to address them, for my wife to trust me and for mew to trust me....to build a successful like free of depression and bad thoughts.....

[Villan]

i guess recovery is a personal thing dependant upon the issues one suffers from...

so for me it would be fully reconnecting with my feelings and emotions, being able to express them in healthy ways at the time that they are being experienced and becoming emotionally mature enough to hold down meaningful relationships with people...

it would also be having the ability, self esteem and indeed confidence to comfortably be who i am and not who i think people want me to be... (obviously once i have worked out who i actually am lol)...

i would also like to live in the "now", not worry about the future or the past...

good thought provoking topic... thanks smithy xx

[hummm_mabbe]

As an aside, something folks may like to look at is two topics in Acceptance and Commitment Therapy. They are "creative hopelessness" and "change agendas", and they talk about how a persons actual concept of what recovery is, and how they believe it will or how they want it to happen, can actually be barriers to that very recovery.

Its a massive topic, so I thought I would just let folks decide if they wanna take a peek.

Ross

[foreverborderline]

Words says something very true - "Perhaps recovery isn't what I want " I can SOOOO relate to that statement as I never know if I wanna get better or not. BPD is painful but so is NOT having BPD .

[Data]

When I have recovered

• I will not need mental health treatment or the mental health system
• I will have a social life and friends
• I will have outbursts of anger only VERY rarely
• I will be able to drink socially and stay within sensible limits
• I will be able to keep my body weight at a healthy level
• I will rarely think of death or suicide
• When I am with people that I know, I will usually be able to relax around them without fear of offending them, or being hurt emotionally
• When I am with people I will feel like them, as if I am a part of a group: I won't feel weird or an outsider
• I will have the strength to be a good father and a good husband, despite my family's difficulties

[foreverborderline]

Recovery is a process though, never a finished act.