I am not a professional in the field of mental health. All my post about mental illness come from what I learned through years of therapy and through research. Always confide in a professional first. My posts are only meant to give you suggestions, educate you and encourage you.
When I was really struggling with my mental illness, many of my friends and family members didn’t know what to say. Some avoided me while others said the wrong thing. I felt alone, unheard, and like no one cared about me or cared if I were alive. This deepened my depression and suicidal thoughts. I did find a friend who knew the right things to say, and she made a big difference in my struggles.
Knowing what to say to individuals struggling with their mental health is very important and healing. I compiled a list of words that can help a person heal.
If you use these words when talking to a person struggling with mental illness, you can help him or her heal. You could help him or her begin his or her journey towards recovery. Use words that help, not words that hurt. Be there for your friend or family member who is struggling. If you can’t help, let the person know you are willing to help him or her find help. What you say makes a big difference.
Because I found a friend and family members who knew what to say, I’m in the healing light of recovery.
People say things about mental illness without realizing how harmful their words are. Many who say the wrong things are not trying to be cruel. Instead, they don’t understand mental illness. People have told me to snap out of it, watch funny movies and you’ll feel better, and other things. Their words have hurt me deeply and have made me feel unheard, angry, and sad. It’s important to talk about what not to say, because saying the wrong thing could lead a struggler deeper into his or her illness. The things people said to me threw me further down my dark hole.
Below is a list of things you should not say to a person struggling with mental illness.
Be careful with what you say to those struggling with mental illness. Your words could hurt a struggler or lead to bad feelings or doing something harmful. Be kind and understanding. It’s important that you learn about mental illness so you better understand it and can help those you care about. The more we talk about mental illness and learn about it, the easier it will become for strugglers to reach out for help.
I talk to people openly about my illness in hopes it will help others. I write this blog to bring education, awareness, and understanding to mental illness. I also write it to help those struggling. Because of my ability to talk and write about mental illness, I stand in the light of recovery.
Has someone said the wrong thing to you?
This is a safe place. Please leave your answers in the comments. Your words could help someone else.
My struggle with mental illness started in elementary school when I was being bullied and continued to get worse into my college years. I thought I could handle my overpowering feelings and deep sadness on my own. Mental illness wasn’t discussed when I was in school, so I didn’t know what was wrong with me. I thought if I asked my parents for help, they would think I was crazy. When I started college, I hit rock bottom of my illness, and I still could not ask for help. I thought asking for help would make me a failure and weak.
I fought to rise above bullying, and I worked around my learning disability to go to college. I moved in with my grandparents and started at a two-year college. Even though I lived with my grandparents, I felt like I was entering the real world. I was supposed to be strong and independent. I was an adult so I should have been able to handle the feelings of despair, hopelessness, and worthlessness on my own. I overcome so much to be in college I should have been happy to be there.
I knew there was something wrong with me, but I was too afraid to ask for help. I was self-injuring and I hid my injuries from my grandparents and parents. When my mom noticed my injuries, I lied about them. I couldn’t ask for help because I was afraid it would mean I was failing at being an adult and taking responsibility for my life.
By not asking for help, I sunk deeper into my illness. I became suicidal and I injured on a regular basis. I couldn’t keep food down and I struggled to sleep at night. I thought my whole world was falling apart. I cried alone in my room while my grandparents watched TV downstairs. I planned my death and took a bottle of pills, but they only made me sick. My grandma thought I had a virus. I couldn’t tell her I was ill because I swallowed pills. She gave me orange juice and chicken soup. What would she have thought if I told her the truth? Would she have thought I was weak and helpless? Would I have broken my grandparents’ hearts?
When I was at the very bottom of my illness, I finally turned to my mom and confided in her. It took all the strength I could gather up to ask her for help. It wasn’t easy to tell my mom I was falling apart and just existing was agonizing. My mom moved me back home, she started looking for a therapist for me, and she showered me with love. It was then I realized I wasn’t weak, I was strong, and I wasn’t a failure. I was just sick.
There is strength in asking for help. I learned that the hard way. I suffered for a long time because of my misconceptions about asking for help. If I had turned to my mom sooner, I could have gotten help before my illness had gotten so bad. If I had asked for help when I started struggling with my illness in elementary school, I could have reached recovery and never had gotten to the point of self-injuring and planning my suicide.
Don’t be afraid to ask for help. There is strength in asking for help. It takes a lot of courage to admit you can’t fight this illness alone. Asking for help is part of the recovery process. Don’t try to fight mental illness alone; turn to someone you trust and tell him or her you are not okay.
I am a stronger person because I have asked for help. Without help I would never have gotten better. I asked for help in college and reached recovery. When I fell down that hole again years after college, I asked for help again. I started going to therapy and in time I once again reached recovery.
Because I asked for help, I still stand strong in the light of recovery.
What’s your experience with asking for help?
This is a safe place. If you feel comfortable, please share your story in the comment section. Your story can help others.
Journaling has become an important part of my life and recovery process. It’s more than just putting words on paper. It’s away for me to express my feelings, to explore myself, and to better understand my emotions. It’s opening my soul and pouring out its secrets, deepest feelings, and strongest emotions. It’s a release of the pain inside me and the discovery of who I am.
I was hospitalized after my ex-boyfriend packed up my belongings while I was at work. He told me I had given up and he couldn’t help me anymore. I fell apart and put my hand through a window. I spent a few days at home with my parents until there was an opening in a mental health hospital. I felt hopeless, worthless, deeply depressed, and suicidal. When my friend came to visit me in the hospital, she brought me a journal and pens. She told me the journal would help me get through this difficult time. She was right.
I couldn’t talk about what I was feeling. I didn’t understand the powerful emotions that filled me. I didn’t even know who I was at that point in my life. All I knew was the pain inside me was unbearable. The only way I knew how to release my pain was to self-injure. In the hospital I couldn’t have a razor to shave my legs or shoelaces in my shoes. I saw the journal as a way to make sense of what was happening to me and to release my feelings and emotions.
In the hospital I filled page after page of how I felt about what my ex-boyfriend had done to me, my feelings, and anguish. With each word I wrote I felt the heavy weight of my mental illness lighten. After I left the hospital, my journal became my lifeline. I took it with me everywhere I went. I journaled while waiting for the doctor, between customers at work, on my break, and during any free time I had. Everything I held sacred and everything pent up inside me came out in the pages of my journal.
My therapist used journaling as part of my therapy. In a separate journal I wrote about things I was struggling with. Then during my sessions, my therapist and I discussed what I had written. She helped me find ways to cope with my struggles. Journaling became more than just a private place for me to express myself without judgment; it became a way to communicate with my therapist. I couldn’t tell her what I was feeling or what my fears and thoughts were, so I wrote them down. She used what I wrote to teach me coping techniques and to work through the things I struggled with. I still use journaling in therapy.
There is power in putting my feelings down on paper. It gives me the power to express myself openly without judgment. It gives me the power to work through my feelings and understand my emotions. It gives me the power to explore myself and my identity. It gives me a powerful voice to speak out to my therapist when I cannot do it vocally. It gives me the power to stay in recovery.
I don’t carry my journal everywhere with me anymore, but I still journal. I use it on my tough days when I’m struggling with powerful emotions and feelings. It helps me identify what my emotions are and to release my feelings. It is part of my coping techniques. I can’t get through the bad days without writing about them. Now I try to find something good about the bad days and I write them down in my journal.
You don’t have to be good at spelling or writing to journal. What you put in your journal is private. It helps to put your feelings down and to release your soul of its pain. There is power in putting your feelings down on paper. It gives you the power to take the journey toward recovery, the power to discover yourself, and the power to release your feelings. When you can’t talk about your feelings, write them down. Don’t let them rip you up inside; release them.
I will always use my journal to help me during the bad days of my mental illness. Journaling helps me stand in the light of recovery.
When you are struggling with mental illness, you develop bad behaviors that turn into a pattern of bad choices that worsen the illness. We learn to cope in the only way we know how, and without therapy, our techniques can be damaging to us and those around us. Also, while struggling with mental illness, we develop bad thinking patterns that are self-destructive. How do we change these behavioral and thought patterns? The best way to change them is through behavioral therapy.
The first question you may have is what is behavioral therapy? The website healthline, defines behavioral therapy as a form of therapy that looks to identify and help change potentially self-destructive or unhealthy behaviors. It’s based on the idea that all behaviors are learned and that behaviors can be changed. The focus of treatment is often on current problems and how to change them. Behavioral Therapy: Definition, Types & Effectiveness (healthline.com)
A popular form of behavioral therapy is cognitive therapy. This deals with the bad thought patterns you form while you are sick. This type of therapy focuses on how negative thought patterns lead to unhealthy behaviors. Your negative thoughts can lead to poor choices, bad relationships, angry episodes, bad coping techniques, and a lack of interest to live a productive life. If you believe you’re an awful person and you don’t deserve to be treated well, you may fall into bad and abusive relationships.
Through bullying at school, I learned to hate myself, and my thoughts became negative and self-defeating. I couldn’t see anything good about my life, and this led me into a series of abusive relationships. A high school friend abused me in ways I can’t say. I held onto her tightly because I thought I needed her and couldn’t live if I lost another friend. Another friend as an adult stole my paycheck, made false promises, and lied, but I stayed loyal to her. Another friend stabbed me in the back over and over and yet I moved in with her and her husband to only be treated badly. I made poor choices in friends because I felt I was worthless and didn’t deserve better. My thinking pattern ruled my actions.
For a long time, I stopped writing because my thoughts told me I was a failure, I was an awful writer, my dreams were hopeless, and I wasn’t smart enough to write a book. I was stuck with a dream to write a book, but I believed my dream was impossible to complete. So, I put my pen down and my computer away and dwell in self-defeating thoughts. That thinking pattern prevented me from achieving my dreams. After years of being told I was worthless and a failure, those ideas were drilled into my head. With that cognitive distortion I was stuck going nowhere. My dream to write a book faded.
In cognitive behavioral therapy I learned to challenge my thoughts and turn them into positive ones. I began to identify the type of thinking I was using like magnification, disqualifying the positive, jumping to conclusions, and so on. In therapy I learned how to practice self-affirming thoughts, to journal something positive about my day and about myself each day. It’s hard work and takes a lot of time, but it changes your life.
Now I make better choices. I cut off unhealthy relationships; I notice the signs of negative people and I keep my distance. On my road to recovery, I ended a lot of bad relationships. I learned that I deserve healthy and happy friendships, not ones where I end up getting used, abused, and hurt. The friends I have chosen lift me up, support me, and treat me well and I am able to treat them the same way.
Since I have fought the negative thinking about my dream to write a book, I have written and published a book. I have short stories published and I have won several contests. I’m no longer stuck in a world of self-defeat. I no longer feel like a failure. I’ve been on the news and in the newspaper talking about my book. I’m doing talks about bullying and I’m doing book signing. Changing my thought pattern changed my life.
Cognitive behavioral therapy is effective and a big part of your road to recovery. It’s not easy to do. It takes a lot of hard work to change the way you have been thinking for a long time, but it’s worth it. If you have the right therapist, he or she will give you homework and show you ways you can use this type of therapy in your life. Changing your thinking will not cure you of mental illness, but it will lead you down the road of recovery. Your bad thinking will not disappear forever. You’ll find yourself from time to time falling into your old patterns, but you’ll have methods to combat them. Cognitive therapy teaches you healthy coping techniques.
I am happy with the life I live and the accomplishments I have made. By going through cognitive therapy, I have learned coping techniques that help me stay in recovery and keep me above that dark hole. Because of cognitive therapy, I’m thriving in the light of recovery.
What is success? I once thought success was getting the highest grades in school and making honor roll. I also thought it meant going to a four-year college and obtaining a high paying job. I dreamed of becoming a famous author, buying a fancy house, and owning an expensive car. I told myself if I could do those things, I would be successful. As I struggled with mental illness, my definition of success changed.
In high school I studied for long hours and gave up fun to obtain high grades. When I made the merit roll, it wasn’t good enough for me. I was determined that I would be successful if I made the honor roll. At the end of the school year, I felt like a failure when I didn’t receive a lot of awards for the hard work I had done. I wanted to show my classmates and teachers that they were wrong about me.
I did make the honor roll, the honor society, and I had a hidden hero speech given about me when I graduated from high school. I was successful. I had big plans for my life. I would go to a two-year college and then a four-year college. I would graduate with honors and get a job at a major newspaper as a journalist. Then I would live a successful life.
Mental illness changed that.
In college just getting out of bed became a struggle, but I forced myself to do it. Going to class when I was fatigued and sick with anxiety was a challenge, but I did it. Getting good grades in college while I was depressed, suicidal, and self-injuring was a battle, but I did it. I didn’t realize it back then, but now that I think of it, I was successful. I chose to push forward when I had little strength to do it, and that was success.
I had to take a year off from college to work on my mental health. I started therapy and I began to see a psychiatrist. I was determined to get well enough to return to college in a year. I worked hard in therapy, I started making new friends at work, and in time I reached recovery. I returned to college on a part-time basis. I could have given up on college and lay in bed dwelling in my inner anguish, but I refused to do that. I made taking time off from college a successful adventure.
Three years after I graduated from college, I fell down that dark hole again. I soon learned that success wasn’t just big accomplishments; it was the small things I did to keep myself going and to battle the depression. Success was when I turned to a program through work to help me find a therapist, it was deciding to get out of bed each day, it was forcing myself to go to work, it was taking a shower when I had no energy to take one, it was taking my medication, and learning how to cope with my illness.
Success came when I sat in a mental health hospital and made the decision, I would work towards recovery no matter how hard it would be. It was a tough battle to fight my negative thoughts, to learn a new way of thinking, to find the right medication to stabilize the symptoms of my illness, and to learn coping techniques. I wanted to give up many times. I’d start climbing the walls of my dark hole, I’d be inches from the light, and I’d fall. Then I would keep forcing myself to climb that wall until I reached the light. That is success.
While in recovery, several surgeries and breast cancer threatened to push me down, but I coped and stood tall in the light. There are still days I struggle with my depression, but I work through it to stay above the hole. I make sure I take my medication and go to therapy sessions. I’m learning new coping techniques and turning to my support team when things get hard. I find strength when everything seems hopeless. I manage my illness each day and I find joy in my life. That is success.
What is your definition of success? Is it a well-paying job, expensive car, and a big home, or is it the small steps you take to work towards recovery and to stay in recovery? Did you get out of bed today after spending several days in bed? Would you consider that success? Did you struggle with challenges in your life, and you used coping techniques to get through them? Doesn’t that make you successful?
Success isn’t what money can buy or what prestige you achieve in society. It’s in the small steps you take to fight this awful illness. It’s in your determination to work towards getting better and staying better.
I’m not just successful because I published a book and won awards. I’m also successful because I decided to fight my mental illness to flourish in the light of recovery.
How are you doing? At one time I thought “doing well” meant I was successful, in control of my life, and living a productive life. Living with mental illness changed my definition. Now it means making it through the bad days, finding happiness in small things, celebrating all accomplishments (big and small), and never giving up no matter what happens. Doing well doesn’t always mean that I will no longer struggle. Sometimes it means recognizing I’m struggling and knowing how to cope and when to ask for help. It’s also means knowing I have the strength to keep moving forward no matter how hard things become and to not give up.
Throughout my life the meaning of doing well took on different definitions. In grade school it meant making it through a day without being called a retard. In high school it meant working hard to get good grades and achieving my goal of proving everyone wrong about me. I dreamed of becoming a successful author and returning to my high school to give a speech about bullying. I thought by doing that I would be a success. I had many big dreams for my future and I thought achieving them was the meaning of doing well. I worked very hard to get As and Bs, make the honor roll, and national honor society. To me this meant I would be doing well. But while struggling with mental illness, my definition of doing well changed.
Now doing well has a whole new meaning. It means that no matter how hard days get, how tough life’s struggles are, and what comes my way, I have the determination to push forward. I’m too strong to let my illness take control of me. I will keep fighting to keep my illness under control. I know that recovery doesn’t mean I will always be doing well, but that won’t stop me from working hard to stay in recovery. Doing well means that no matter what happens I will not give up.
My determination helped me to successfully get through high school with a learning disability and it has also helped me reach recovery from mental illness. Even when I sat in the deepest, darkest part of my hole, something inside me wouldn’t let me give up. In college I was very sick and suicidal. I was injuring every day, but something in me kept me going. I forced myself to get up each morning and go to my classes. I was fatigued and sick every morning, but I pushed forward. It would have been easy to lie in bed and dwell in my anguish, but I couldn’t do that. I went to class barely able to keep my eyes open and I studied hard each night while planning my death. My willpower wouldn’t let me give up.
Years later when my ex-boyfriend kicked me out and I ended up in the mental health hospital, I was determined to do what I needed to get better. I took my medication, I met with the psychiatrist, I worked on learning coping skills, and I journaled out my feelings. I was determined to get out of the hospital and to work towards recovery. I could have lain in the hospital bed and allow my illness to take over. It would have been easy to just give in, but I refused to give up.
When I was in the hospital, I decided that I didn’t want to let my illness take control of me anymore. I wanted something better for myself. I didn’t want to lie at the bottom of my dark hole anymore. I decided to climb its walls towards the light. Lots of things threatened to push me back down, but I refused to let them. I wanted to find hope and happiness and I wanted to live a productive life. I wanted it so bad that I refused to let anything get in my way. The only way I could achieve this was to work on fighting my illness by going to therapy, fighting my negative thoughts, finding the right psychiatrist to get medication that would help me, and using all my strength to battle my illness. I knew to be doing well and to reach recovery meant that no matter how hard things got I would not give up.
It could have been easy to give up. Once I got out of the hospital I lost some of my friends and had to end unhealthy friendships. I went to work each day and then home. I had no social life and I felt lonely. I went to therapy each week and cried. My therapist worked with me to help me find ways to cope with my illness, to build my self-esteem, and to fight my negative thoughts. I would take two steps forward and then fall. She gave me homework to do, and I journaled out my feelings to discuss in therapy. No matter how hard I tried it seemed like I kept tumbling backwards. I’d be doing well and then I would go into a deep depression. I was climbing up into the light and then tumbling back down again. It would have been easy to give up, but I couldn’t. I wanted to live a better life. I didn’t want to stay in the darkness.
It took time and lots of hard work to reach recovery, but I did it. Recovery is still a bumpy road. I still have bad days, but there are fewer of them. I still fall, but I know it doesn’t mean I have failed. It is just part of the process. Each day I use coping techniques to keep me going, I take my medicine to manage my illness, and I practice self-care. Health problems, financial struggles, my loved one’s health problems, and many other challenges leave me struggling to stay above the hole, but I keep fighting. What keeps me doing well is my determination to never give up.
What is your definition of recovery? Are you going to let your illness hold you down, or are you going to keep fighting? Working towards recovery is a hard battle, but you can do it. Staying in recovery is a rough road, but it’s worth traveling. You will fall, but you’ll be strong enough to pull yourself up. Know that setbacks don’t make you a failure. It’s just part of the journey. Take each day one at a time. Redefine you’re “doing well” to “not giving up.”
I will keep working hard to stay in recovery, and I’ll always be doing well because I won’t give up. This is what helps me thrive in the light of recovery.
One of the hardest things to do is ask for help. Many of us want to be independent and handle things on our own. I know I thought that way in college. I knew something was wrong with me. I couldn’t sleep, I couldn’t keep food down, I was depressed, I was suicidal, and I felt hopeless. I thought I could handle it all by myself. I believed if I asked for help, I would be weak. I was wrong.
In college I put on a show for my family, making them think I was okay when I was not. I didn’t know what was wrong with me, and I feared if I asked for help, my family wouldn’t understand. How could they if I didn’t understand it myself? I thought I was losing my mind. I knew deep down something was wrong, but I didn’t know what. If I told my parents what was happening to me, I figured they would think I was crazy or overly dramatic. So, I went to great lengths to hide my inner pain from them.
I lived with my grandparents while I was in college. They enjoyed having me there. They went out of their way to spoil me and encourage me. The last thing I wanted was to be a burden to them. They agreed to allow me to stay with them while I went to college; They didn’t agree to be carrying the weight of a young adult who was feeling very powerful emotions and planning her death. I was afraid it would tear them apart if they knew how sick I was. I didn’t want to be a burden to my parents either. They were taking care of my brother and younger sister who were still in school; the last thing they needed was to worry about me.
I was also ashamed by what I was going through. I had no reason to be depressed: my grandpa checked the fluids in my car every morning, Grandma bought me my favorite foods, and they refused to let me help around the house. My grandma always told me to focus on my studies and not worry about helping. What reason did I have to be depressed, to feel hopeless, to cry easily, and to lie awake each night fighting with my thoughts. I was also ashamed to tell them despite all they were doing for me, that I wanted to take my life.
I was afraid that after rising above bullying to succeed in high school and to graduate with five scholarships that I was failing. I had a hidden hero speech given about me at my graduation, and here I was at college barely able to make it through each day. I fought to keep awake in class, and I threw up in the mornings and before class. I was supposed to enjoy college, make new friends, and be strong, but I felt like I was in a dark cloud. I studied hard in between injuring myself and I got good grades, but that didn’t even make me feel happy. I felt like a failure.
Now years later I think back to how I was afraid to ask for help and wonder what would have happened if I had confided in my parents sooner. I know my mom would have gone to great lengths to find me help, because that’s what she did when I finally told them what I was going through. I would have been diagnosed sooner and could have gotten help before I hit the very bottom of my dark hole. With proper counseling I could have avoided attempts at suicide and learned to cope without self-injuring. I realized that I didn’t have to struggle for so long alone.
Asking for help is a big step in the recovery process. If you don’t feel comfortable turning to a group of people, then pick one person to say, “I’m having a hard time right now.” Choose someone you trust like a family member or friend. Turn to a therapist, doctor, counselor, or another professional. If you struggle with talking about your feelings, then write them down and give them to a friend, a family member, or professional to read.
When I finally asked for help, my mom went to a nearby city to help find me a therapist. I was diagnosed with depression and anxiety. I started going to therapy and reached recovery for several years. When I fell down the dark hole again, I asked for help right away. I knew that I couldn’t reach recovery again without support. I learned that I couldn’t handle mental illness alone.
Asking for help is nothing to be ashamed of. You’re not a failure for being sick. It takes strength to ask for help and it’s an important part of the journey to recovery. You can’t fight this illness on your own. Like any other illness, you need help to get through it. Don’t be afraid to reach out and say, “I need help.” You can’t carry the pain of mental illness by yourself.
It took courage for me to admit I needed help, and because I chose to ask for it, I have been standing in recovery for several years.
With many illnesses recovery occurs in a straight line. You go from illness to wellness. Your illness is gone and you feel better. Mental illness doesn’t go in a straight line. Recovery doesn’t mean you will no longer struggle again. Instead, in recovery from mental illness, you have detours, bad days, and good days. You use coping skills and you learn new ones, you make progress, and you fall.
If you have been fallowing my blog posts, you will see that I have written about struggling with illnesses, death, becoming a caregiver, surgeries, money problems, and so much more. All these things are detours in my recovery. Each one affected me emotionally and left me struggling with my depression and anxiety. Each time I felt like I was falling backwards, but I used coping skills to pull myself up. I also learned new coping skills to help me handle these. There are also days when I feel depressed and I’m not sure why. I just want to cry and lie in bed, but I must force myself to get up and keep pushing forward.
I have had to set boundaries in my life. Boundaries with friends, family, and my job. It’s important to put my recovery first. I have walked away from friends because I couldn’t handle their dramatic lifestyles or negativity. I’ve had to take breaks from friends because what they were going through became too much for me to handle. When my one friend’s brother was very sick, I did my best to be supportive but had to take a couple days break to take care of myself. I work part-time because full-time is too much for me to handle. When I’m called into work early, I have to decide whether I can handle the extra hours or not.
I use coping techniques to not only manage my illness on bad days, but to also make it through each day. My depression and anxiety don’t just disappear because I’m in recovery. Coping techniques help me manage my sickness so I can be happy. I can live a happy life if I cope with the challenges and struggles of living in society. I cope with stressors and detours of everyday life, so I don’t fall down into the hole of darkness. I have coping techniques for my anxiety, so I don’t have an attack that leaves me physically sick. I’m also learning new coping techniques.
I take my medication each day. I have to take medication in the morning, afternoon, and at night. I put my meds in pill containers with the days of the week. I have one for mornings and for bedtime. I carry a pill box with me everywhere I go so I have my afternoon medicine when I need it. If I miss an anxiety pill, I have the dry heaves and I get sick. Once in a while I do forget, but I try to keep on track.
I keep my appointments with my therapist and psychiatrist. For a while I was doing well without a therapist and I just leaned on my support team, but when my loved one was diagnosed with dementia, I knew I needed to take care of him and get help for myself. So, I started back to therapy. Part of being in recovery is knowing when to ask for help. I knew caregiving would be hard to handle mentally, so I found a therapist. I also keep my appointments every two months with my psychiatrist. This is important so that he knows how I’m doing on my medication and if I need any modifications or changes.
I have a support team I can lean on when I don’t see my therapist. My support team listens to me, gives me advice, and encourages me. I call my friend Cheryl my first therapist. I text her almost every day about things I’m struggling with, my worries, and my bad thoughts. A lot of her advice is the same as my therapist gives me. I also lean on my friend Nicky. She’s good at telling me about new coping techniques to try. She also has good advice.
Despite all the work you do to stay in recovery, old feelings come back, you fall, new stressors set you back, and old unhealthy coping techniques can return, but that doesn’t erase the years of progress you made. These are more of those detours in your recovery, and there are ways around them. You can pull yourself back up. You didn’t fail. It’s just part of the recovery process.
I hurt my back and have been going to a chiropractor for four weeks, and I’m not getting better. I feel sad, frustrated, scared, and hopeless. I fear I may have hurt the spot where I had surgery several years ago. Hurting, not being able to bend over, and trying to work while in pain is stirring up my depression. On top of that I struggle taking care of my loved one with dementia, and my dad’s bone cancer has come back. A lot of old feelings have resurfaced. I want to lie in bed and block out the world, but instead I use coping techniques, my support team, and therapy to keep pushing forward.
I look at this setback not as a failure, but as a lesson I can learn. I look at my feelings, my depression, and struggles and think, “What do I need to do? How can I help myself? What have I learned about myself and the detour?”
Recovery is work. There are many detours. It’s how you manage your illness, how you cope, and how you take care of yourself that gets you around them. Don’t let setbacks discourage you or make you think you failed. Push through them and ask for help when you need to. Recovery can be a bumpy road. It’s not a straight line. You move forward and make progress. Then you hit a detour and fall. Next you pull yourself up and push forward. And then you fall again to only pick yourself back up. Despite the ups and downs you’re stronger now and you can handle it.
Each day I work hard to stay in recovery. I have many detours in my life, but I always manage to pull myself up. Because I’m willing to work my way around the detours, I bathe in the light of recovery.
The other day my husband and I went out to eat with my parents, and a past co-worker of my dad stopped to say, “Hi.” My dad told him about his struggles with bone cancer. Today I mentioned to a customer about doughnuts being ten for a dollar this week, and the customer told me he can’t have them because he has diabetes. We easily tell people about illnesses we struggle with, and people listen and show compassion. What if you stopped to talk to an old friend and he or she said, “I’ve been struggling with depression?” Would you show compassion or just act awkwardly or shrug it off like it’s no big deal?
Mental illness isn’t as widely accepted or understood as other sicknesses. Many don’t understand it and there’s a lot of stigma surrounding it. Often people struggling with mental illness hide it behind a smile. They suffer alone because they are afraid of how people will react if they tell them. Some people think those with this illness are dangerous, when most of the time they are only dangerous to themselves. Some think you can choose to snap out of your illness, but you can’t. There are many misconceptions.
I have dealt with some stigma surrounding my own struggles with mental health. When a boss found out I had depression and was a self-injurer, he said I was a danger to the customers and employees. The only person I had ever hurt was myself. When I got out of the mental health hospital people, didn’t show concern and compassion. They asked me why I was in the looney bin, they asked me if I had hurt myself on purpose when I had a paper cut, they watched me carefully around knives, and they judged me. This made me feel angry and sad. I just wanted people to care and show me compassion, but instead they made me feel inferior.
I write this blog so I can spread the word that mental illness is an illness like any other. The person struggling has symptoms, gets treatment, and works towards feeling better, just like any other illness. I willingly tell people I’m a breast cancer survivor, but I don’t tell people too often that I’m in recovery from mental illness. A lot of people congratulate me for surviving cancer, but it would be different with recovery from mental illness.
I’m starting to talk more about my recovery from mental illness because I want people to see that this illness is like any other illness. We are humans struggling with an awful sickness, getting treatment, working towards recovery, and we are functioning in society. The more we talk the more we educate people about this sickness and dispel the stigma that surrounds it.
I’m going to be filmed soon talking about my fight with depression, anxiety, and self-injury for a documentary for One Life Project. I’ll probably become emotional and cry, but it’s important to tell my story. This documentary will be on news stations and on social media. I’m excited to do this because we need to talk more about mental illness, and society needs to hear our stories so they can see we are like anyone else fighting an illness.
So, instead of hiding our sickness, let’s talk about it. Tell people you are dealing with a horrible illness and taking the steps to reach recovery. Tell people about how you reached recovery. Tell people about what mental illness is and that you deserve to be heard. Let’s defy the stigma and show the world we are just like people struggling with diabetes, cancer, heart disease, and so on. Let’s stop hiding and start talking. When someone asks how you’re doing don’t lie and say,
“I’m doing great.” Tell them the truth. Say, “Today is not a good day. I’m struggling with my depression.” If they shrug it off, then educate them about your illness.
I’m going to keep talking about mental illness and find ways to educate people so that someday those who face this illness don’t have to hide it. Talking about it also frees me from fear of judgment and helps me stay in the light of recovery.
