Recovery Questions

October 29, 2014

I am applying for Georgia's certified peer training. It is a really great program. Basically, when one is doing really well in one's recovery and would like a job helping others who have mental illness, they can apply to be trained and certified as a CPS. They are trained on how to use their life experience as someone in recovery in a way to help and reach others and they will have a respected credential that will help them get jobs. I had to answer a lot of questions about my recovery on my application yesterday and I thought a few of my answers might be interesting to you. Here they are:

What does recovery mean to you?

I do presentations about my recovery on a regular basis and I always say that recovery is when a person believes that “mental illness is a part of a person, but does not define the person.” I am in recovery, because mental illness no longer controls my entire life. I will always have to acknowledge its presence in my life and cope with it, but I am a person who refuses to be defined by mental illness alone.

What are some of the important factors in your own recovery?

1. . Taking responsibility for my own recovery-no one can utilize my own coping skills and take my own medication but me.

2. The wonderful, supportive relationship I have with my therapist, family and communities. I know that isolation is a death sentence and that my recovery depends on the healthy relationships between me and supportive people, which is why I am an active participant in my church, several book clubs, an alumni mental health group and a support group.

3. Providing hope to others. Posting to my blog, Hope is Real!, and speaking about recovery for NAMI and seeing how my actions influence other people for the better gives my life meaning. Having a purpose to my life keeps me positive, motivated and away from the pits of depression.

Why do you think it is important to tell your story?

Our stories provide hope-hope to consumers, hope to families and hope to us. Many people still believe that one is stuck being trapped in an eating disorder or having BPD forever. I am proof that that is not true. Many people believe that they are stuck always being depressed or anxious or in the throes of schizoaffective disorder or the mood swings of bipolar disorder. I am proof that one can learn to manage all of those disorders, because yes, at one time or another, I have been diagnosed with just about every disorder, which makes me very relateable and also living proof that one can have any disorder and still live through it and still have a productive and extremely satisfying life. Our stories of hope are the most important thing for the world to hear in a time when mental illness is equated with gun control laws.

Link Love:

Crunk Feminist Collective

Clair Huxtable is Dead: On Slaying the Cosbys and Making Space for Liv, Analise, and Mary Jane

Shakesville - This Is Rape Culture

Many of the men who tell apocryphal tales of former brothers-in-law and distant cousins whose lives were "ruined" by rape allegations (which are always, always, presumed to be untrue) really mean that those men were inconvenienced for a little while. Embarrassed. Not that their entire lives were ruined. Or even meaningfully changed.

Recovery Questions

October 29, 2014

Clair Huxtable is Dead: On Slaying the Cosbys and Making Space for Liv, Analise, and Mary Jane

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