Recovery from Mental Illness is something which is often
compared to climbing a mountain, or scaling a high wall. A huge task, looming
over us; a task which if we accomplish, we will be the person who managed to climb
that mountain. Those things are true and fair, but from where I am standing,
recovery doesn’t look like climbing a huge mountain. When you climb a mountain,
you train, then you have a handful of incredibly intense days where you scale
this huge height, then you get to come back down again. This is no mountain.
Recovery, to me, seems to be more like walking alone across the world. I wasn’t born this way; I was once a relatively normally functioning young girl who was ready to see what life had to throw at me just like any other teenager. Yet slowly, across time, I found myself very far away from home. For whatever reasons, I was no longer in the country where I was born and raised; I was alone in a foreign place where I didn’t recognise anyone or know my way around. I know I want to come home, I can sort of remember what my home country feels like, and the bits I can’t remember I can still imagine. But to get there I have to walk, step by step, through a lot of countries which feel alien to me. I have to find a way to trek jungles, swim through seas, and scale a few mountains along the way too. Walking across the world like this may take years: it is such a long way that I don’t know when I will make it back. There are days when I might find myself in a beautiful garden, walking in the sunshine through rose beds, but I never get to stay there I have to keep walking. Some days I am in a jungle so deep that I never get to see the sun rise, and I meet a lot of creatures in the dark. Sometimes these creatures rustle in nearly trees and scare me, and sometimes I need to fight them off just to be able to keep walking. Some days I find myself in the desert with no clue which direction to go, no sign of water, and no shade from the heat. Occasionally I will feel someone hold my hand as I walk, it never feels like they are walking with me, but I can still feel the comfort of their hand in mine, and I know that they for a little bit of time, I am slightly less alone.
Every day feels a bit different, but with a few things in common: I rarely recognise my surroundings, I almost never feel at home, and I never feel like my destination is in sight. One of the things which hurts the most about recovery being like this is that when I finally get to the place I want to be, I won’t have gone on the sort of journey which has an exciting destination, I will just be in the place where everyone else starts off. My goal is to reach the destination that other people see as base camp. Yes, I will have picked up experiences along the way which will give me a unique outlook, but it also carries the chance that I will never make it home. There are so many days that I want to lie on the ground and give up, because I feel so far from home, and to keep walking is exhausting and painful. I didn’t ask to be here, and there’s not option catch a flight home.
I suppose the important thing here is to remember that if you can be the person who holds our hands for a bit, it is appreciated. If you are the person doing the journey, then don’t give up, because home might be closer than you think. If you have played a part in my journey, then thank you and as always I apologise that it still might take a bit of time to get somewhere that I can call home, and it may also take me time to accept that for many people, recovery doesn't mean getting home. For many people with BPD recovery is learning to live out here alone.
Recovery, to me, seems to be more like walking alone across the world. I wasn’t born this way; I was once a relatively normally functioning young girl who was ready to see what life had to throw at me just like any other teenager. Yet slowly, across time, I found myself very far away from home. For whatever reasons, I was no longer in the country where I was born and raised; I was alone in a foreign place where I didn’t recognise anyone or know my way around. I know I want to come home, I can sort of remember what my home country feels like, and the bits I can’t remember I can still imagine. But to get there I have to walk, step by step, through a lot of countries which feel alien to me. I have to find a way to trek jungles, swim through seas, and scale a few mountains along the way too. Walking across the world like this may take years: it is such a long way that I don’t know when I will make it back. There are days when I might find myself in a beautiful garden, walking in the sunshine through rose beds, but I never get to stay there I have to keep walking. Some days I am in a jungle so deep that I never get to see the sun rise, and I meet a lot of creatures in the dark. Sometimes these creatures rustle in nearly trees and scare me, and sometimes I need to fight them off just to be able to keep walking. Some days I find myself in the desert with no clue which direction to go, no sign of water, and no shade from the heat. Occasionally I will feel someone hold my hand as I walk, it never feels like they are walking with me, but I can still feel the comfort of their hand in mine, and I know that they for a little bit of time, I am slightly less alone.
Every day feels a bit different, but with a few things in common: I rarely recognise my surroundings, I almost never feel at home, and I never feel like my destination is in sight. One of the things which hurts the most about recovery being like this is that when I finally get to the place I want to be, I won’t have gone on the sort of journey which has an exciting destination, I will just be in the place where everyone else starts off. My goal is to reach the destination that other people see as base camp. Yes, I will have picked up experiences along the way which will give me a unique outlook, but it also carries the chance that I will never make it home. There are so many days that I want to lie on the ground and give up, because I feel so far from home, and to keep walking is exhausting and painful. I didn’t ask to be here, and there’s not option catch a flight home.
I suppose the important thing here is to remember that if you can be the person who holds our hands for a bit, it is appreciated. If you are the person doing the journey, then don’t give up, because home might be closer than you think. If you have played a part in my journey, then thank you and as always I apologise that it still might take a bit of time to get somewhere that I can call home, and it may also take me time to accept that for many people, recovery doesn't mean getting home. For many people with BPD recovery is learning to live out here alone.
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