RECOVERY

This piece of writing was written almost entirely by anonymous contributors. You know who you are. I can't thank you enough for sharing your experiences, I have learnt so much from every single one of you and I can't put into words how much I appreciate your help in creating this piece. 

Keep on keeping on xxx

This is my recovery; 3 pieces of cake down and ready for the fourth.

'Recovery is...'

There are two definitions in the oxford dictionary for recovery.

"The return to a normal state of health, mind, or strength"

Although I don't believe the concept of 'normal' is the same for everyone.

"The action or process of regaining possession of something that was stolen or lost"

But recovery isn't just about retrieving the little broken pieces of ourselves we thought were gone forever. It's about learning that it's okay to leave some of these pieces behind and discover new ones.

Now, here are some of my favourite definitions;

"Recovery is when I have a bad day, but know I can pick myself up again by tomorrow. That knowledge alone makes you stronger than ever before" 

- Anonymous; depression

"Recovery is the process of learning it's okay to not be okay. A rollercoaster of extreme highs and depth defying lows that make you question everything about yourself. It is reinventing your own reality until it feels right again, and until that day comes you will face battles that no one, not even yourself, will ever fully understand"  

- Anonymous; anorexia

"Recovery is honesty – the moment I decided to be honest about my recovery was the moment I was able to actually start recovering." 

- Anonymous; anorexia, depression, bulimia

"Recovery was one of the most valuable experiences of my life; learning to be authentically introspective. I discovered exactly who and what I was, I became so lucid, I saw through a new child's eyes the beauty of the world, and I found passion again. All this lovely jubbly gooey stuff. I sound like a monstrous hippy, but really, in being honest with myself entirely, I looked into the world and saw only what made me passionate" 

- Anonymous; borderline personality disorder, co-morbid anxiety, depression

"Recovery isn't complete, but I am on the road, and although I can't quite see the finish line I now know it's there. Recovery is hard, almost harder than some of the bad days, but instead of acting on my impulses, I'm fighting them." 

- Anonymous; bipolar, bulimia

"Sometimes recovery is worse, and sometimes it's better. Sometimes it's a bath, and sometimes it's curling up into a ball and crying until it hurts a bit less. One of the most valuable lessons I have learned is that it's okay to not be okay." 

- Anonymous; anxiety, panic attacks

Amongst these people are obvious differences in the experiences that they have suffered, yet each commonly believe in the importance of being honest, kind, and understanding of themselves in this process of recovery.

'I am...'

Living every single day of your life by the rules of your mental illness, you become programmed to think that this is how you have to exist, this is how you have to live, this is what you are. This is what defines you.

I am Sam bulimic. You are anorexic. You are depressed. You are bipolar. You are your mental illness.

When we recover, my therapist once told me it's like trying to teach a dog to stop chasing a ball. Let's call him Alfie. It goes against every instinct in Alfie's bones to let the ball roll away from him. He has an overwhelming urge, a desire, a need to sprint after the ball as fast as he can, because that's what he's been doing for years. But now he's being held back on a leash so tight it nearly chokes him. He's not allowed be himself anymore, he's not allowed to be Alfie. But what he doesn't realise just yet, is that he can be Alfie without the ball.

This is the same with recovery. I wasn't allowed to go for 9 mile runs after eating one piece of toast, nor eat past 11pm because that was when I was prone to binging. I wasn't allowed to use the toilet until an hour after a meal, or stare at my stomach in the mirror for 45 minutes waiting to make sure the bloating went down. I wasn't to weigh myself every morning, afternoon and evening, and I wasn't to write down how many grams of fat I'd consumed on the back of my hand as the day went along. And then the hardest thing; I wasn't allowed to purge my food. At the time I thought all these things were what made me me, and I was petrified of what would happen when I wasn't allowed to be me anymore. Would I disappear too? Where would Sam go? What would she do? How would she cope?

"After you experience a mental health ‘issue’, life suddenly becomes a process of not only ‘recovering’ your happiness, but also exploring and discovering ‘new’ happiness." 

- Anonymous

- This brings us back to Alfie. He is still on his leash, staring longingly at the ball in the grass. Until, he notices another dog further ahead dragging a giant stick across the ground. Alfie starts to wonder if playing with the stick would be more fun than the ball. And eventually this wonder turns into experimentation (which stick should I pick? This big one here or the one with all the leaves?) so the leash gets a little looser, which turns into exploration (maybe there's even more sticks in that corner of the park? Is that a pond over there?), until eventually he watches the ball roll away from him and does not flinch, instead he just lets it go. He doesn't need the ball to be happy anymore. He's still Alfie.

In the same way as Alfie, I realised that there was so much more to me than bulimia. I let bulimia go, and now I am Sam the one who paints, the one who runs, the one who goes to University in Sheffield, the one who always talks too much, the one who cries at TV adverts, the one who's South African. All of these are me now.

I was bulimic am Sam.

'I still...'

Because with every 'I still', there always comes a 'but'...

"I still have days where I look in the mirror and all I can think is ‘You are disgusting’. But I am beginning to learn that this is just another part of my recovery. I have gone through the phase where I was dependent on others for support and help. Now I am learning to rely on myself for that love and comfort. I may not be able to stop these thoughts, but I can rationalise them more easily, and that is something I thought I would never be able to do!" 

- Anonymous

"I have ADHD, and like many other people with this disorder I suffer from depression and anxiety. Due to a late diagnosis I struggled to understand myself, but I am getting better at it everyday. Although I wish I wasn't, I am still very private concerning my mental health, but things like this remind me that I am not alone." 

- Anonymous 

"Yeah I still take meds, I still have mood swings, I still develop delusions and sometimes get drunk in the bath (what are weekends for amirite?) but through all the therapy, the hours spent talking to myself, or talking to my therapist with that infuriatingly understanding look on his face, I found an honesty that brought me peace from so many unexpected places. I know who I am. And with that I carry on, hoping I hold the courage to be able to act upon what I know my happiness is." 

- Anonymous

"Clearly I am still 'working on things', but isn't that how life works? To lead a fulfilling life is it not helpful to look back at past experiences and learn from them to promote new, positive experiences? I think so. Recovery is not about having to say 'god, I'm still so entangled in all these difficulties'; it is the decision to pursue your own happiness for the sake of your own happiness. It isn't neccesarily about having a plan, but nor is it living in the moment. There is no handbook to recovery. Your recovery is owned by you." 

- Anonymous

'And now...' 

 "And now I look back on the worst times, and I smile because what my friends did for me is something incredible, and made me realise that happiness and life IS worth fighting for. The relationships and bonds we build with people are too good to be taken for granted." 

- Anonymous

"And now I know why it hurt so damn much. It wasn't just me that my depression was breaking to bits, it was my family too. That's what gets me out of bed everyday. That's now all the motivation I need. I won't let it bleed out into the people I love most, because they're the reason I'm still here. They're why I would now consider myself 'in recovery'" 

- Anonymous  

"And now I eat Yorkie bars. I forgot how much I f*cking loved yorkie bars." 

- Anonymous 

"And now I can live." 

- Anonymous 

Exercise for the week: Be open minded

I received a message from someone who suffers from chronic fatigue syndrome (CFS), and it broke my heart. CFS is considered both a medical and psychological condition, as there is no known cause or treatment but has been associated with occurring after a viral infection.

"The stigma that comes with it makes it worse. So many people say to me 'Have you tried this', or 'you're probably just tired', or 'it's just all in your head, be positive'. It's exhausting." 

- Anonymous 

Just tired? Just in your head? So 250,000 CFS sufferers in the United Kingdom alone just need a nap, or a little lie down? Their prolonged episode of depression is just because they're tired and haven't had enough sleep? Right.

Please, be open minded. Do a bit of reading on the internet about a mental health condition, or pick up a pamphlet if you're at the pharmacy, or watch a documentary on BBC iPlayer. Mental illnesses thrive on silence, so we have to be vocal, we have to be aware, we have to talk. 

0300 123 3393
info@mind.org.uk
Text: 86463