RECOVERY

PART VI

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      Recovery from an emotional illness is impossible, because one can never

completely forget the past, rather, one learns to cope from one day to the next.  One learns to control its; symptoms.  It is living in darkness without hope; without a future or past.  It is self pity.  It is hatred of everything that is good and life giving.  It is a wound with no mouth, a wound that is so deep that no cry can emanate from it.  It is inertia which paralyzes the will to do and to accomplish because there in no hope.  It is truly being disabled, not by disease or injury, but by despair.  This part of recovery is a dark night in which even God is felt to abandon us.   For some, these nights will last for days, months and for some years.  For others the despair and anguish nay never end."  (Patricia Deegan)

        Recovery is a process that is marked by struggle and multiple setbacks.  It is so easy to get stuck in the chaotic and tormented web of mental illness.  H. Westley Clarke says:

          "There is no common road to recovery.  It is an individualized

        and personalized journey.   There are no absolute paths.  Some

        roads may be paved while others are rough.  Recovery includes

        ones' family, friends, the community, as well as peer support,

        and hope."

       Recovery means having a home, meaningful relationships, family, intimate  and personal relationships.  It is marked by the transition  from despair to hope, and from fear to love.  It involves making the evolution from blind doubt to eye opening faith.  Recovery from an emotional illness is impossible because one can never forget the past. Rather, one learns to cope from one day to the next. The individual learns to control symptoms.

     I believe that the past always lingers in the present.  It is characterized not by a sudden conversion but by a lifelong and continual process marked by struggle, pain, and multiple setbacks that linger beneath the shadows of m

mental illness.  Patricia Deegan says that recovery is a way of life and

attitude.  She says that, ‘The paradox of recovery is that in accepting what we cannot do or be, we begin to discover who we are and what we can do.

Through this process, disabled individuals come to discover a new valued self and life long purpose.