Recovery or Rediscovery

As I write this, I’m away solo travelling which is something the past version of myself couldn’t have even fathomed doing. I have had a lot of time to reflect upon my own journey, the really low parts of it, but also the things I have achieved since fighting my way out of the trauma and I thought it’s the perfect time to write about ‘recovery’ as a whole, and also introduce the statement of Recovery, or Rediscovery.

Recovery is a very cliche term and one that I don’t like to use much since it signifies an end to it. Honestly, I would love it if there was, but mental illness isn’t something that can magically leave your brain. It takes a gruesome battle to fight it and hard work to maintain it – that being said, it is a battle that’s beyond worth it.

‘Recovery’ is hard

Now to call ‘recovery’ hard, is an understatement. It is a gruesome, relentless, exhausting battle. It means having to do the opposite of every single thought your brain tells you. It’s as though you think to yourself – ‘I need the toilet’, but instead of going, you have to sit with that discomfort. Recovery means stepping into the unknown – with no knowledge of whether things will actually feel better and losing the identity that the illness created. It hurt knowing I had to battle this demon in my brain that I didn’t even choose to have there in the first place.

The term ‘recovery’ would get brought up to me a lot and every single time, it terrified me. People would talk so casually about it when to me, it was as though I was standing at the bottom of a mountain I needed to climb, but had no sight of the peak, no equipment to support me and no one to cheer me on. I questioned, ‘what does it even mean to get better?’ And more so, ‘what’s the worth in getting better?’.

However, it reached a point after being stagnant in the depths of my illness for 2 years that I gradually realised that things needed to change. I knew that no one could put in the work for me, it had to come from myself. It was a lonely start, I was having to fight something nobody understood the pain of doing so. Nevertheless, I embarked on the journey because I was so exhausted by the trauma of hospitals – I just wanted out.

Living in the illness is hard, fighting that illness is gruelling.

It is not straight forward

It’s a very cliche term, but it is a term that is so true. With my ADHD, I know that my emotions towards things are very ‘all or nothing’. When that links to recovery, it means that I either avoid the problem as though it doesn’t exist, or I’m knee deep in it. I found that when I started the battle of getting better, once I had pushed through the initial torment of it, it was so much easier. I was doing things with ease that had once been unimaginable. I remember actually thinking to myself – this whole recovery thing has been pretty straight forward. That was until it all came crashing down and I felt as though I was back at square one.

I now know, it isn’t that simple. In the past, I had viewed it as this end goal – something to work towards, then once completed, I would be fine. I’d break down in tears time after time, desperate for things to be better. I had done the hard work, I was out of hospital, so why was I still struggling? Mental illness doesn’t magically leave your brain and the trauma doesn’t just vanish. I think that the real healing started when I accepted that.

For me, I ‘started recovery’ back in 2023, and I am still learning about my brain, my struggles and having to challenge those pesky thoughts. The last 2 years have been very rocky and full of ups and downs.

It’s a journey that takes time and patience.

Who are you outside of your illness?

Mental illness is a sneaky thing that warps the way you view yourself and the world around you. It’s like a parasite that thrives on taking over your brain. For me, one of the hardest parts was feeling as though I’d be even more ‘worthless’ without my illness. I had no knowledge of who I really was. As time passed, I had become a diagnosis, a patient file or a bedroom number and I was surrounded by people who only know the unwell version of Hope. Can you blame a person in that situation for believing their worth in the world is built on struggling?

Learning who I was after trauma took patience and many mistakes. I went into it expecting to morph back to the human I was before the struggles and when that wasn’t the case, I found myself confused again. Now, I am so grateful to not be that person I was before becoming unwell. It has meant I have been able to create a version of myself that is centered around me rather than trying to conform to how I think I should be. But once again, that was a long process.

On top of having no idea of who I was, I also had no idea as to the world around me. It’s very easy whilst facing those complex emotions to revert to ‘comfort’. For me, my comfort was pain – that was all I was used to, but it was the thing I was trying to eradicate.

I learnt that I will never be the same person I was. I had experienced a significant time of trauma – that changes you as a person. However, it’s okay not to be the same person you were. Sometimes it’s actually better.

You are so much more than your illness.

It truly is worth it

I know I have talked a lot about how hard recovery is, but I want to also remind you that it is SO worth that battle. Once again, it may sound cliche, but it’s true. I was one of those people that always dismissed the prospect of getting better. It seemed far too out of reach for me and I could never understand why it was worthwhile. After putting in all of the hard work, I can now see how rewarding it is. Committing to recovery and the journey to rediscover who I am is by far the best decision I have ever made. Living freely is worth it. Whether it be big or small things – laughter, having goals, seeing loved ones, going on adventures, it’s all a bajillion times better than a day enthralled in my illness.

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