Dreaming New

Healing from a mental illness requires a long journey in what we call ‘acceptance of the illness’. At least it did for me. For me, there was a lot of grief, shame and anger/rage that needed to be addressed and worked through. There was also trauma from the catastrophic events that surrounded hospitalizations and diagnosis. So right there, from the beginning, there was a lot working against me on the road to recovery. Two of the most important decisions and commitments that I made during this long road of acceptance, was taking my medication as well as being fully committed to a medication regime, and taking full accountability for my actions. Taking medications sounds simple enough, and it is if you are committed to doing what is right, but for many people this continues to be a battle that goes on year after year as they do not fully accept treatment in this way, and time and again refuse medication for whatever reason. For these people, the road through healing, recovering and living in wellness with mental illness remains elusive, and they rarely begin. Taking responsibility for one’s actions also involves reclaiming “choice”, and resolving to choose moment to moment and day to day, to proactively deal with crises while practicing resilience and reclaiming hope over one’s situation. 

So years and years pass. We are on the path of recovery. We take our meds, and hopefully, eventually, accept therapy or counseling to aide us in dealing what can feel like insurmountable grief, sadness, failure, resentment, anger, shame and rage about all that has happened to us and around us because of our illness. Slowly, we begin to learn to take care of our bodies, as the body and mind are connected and one. Basic wellness not only involves physical health, but also involves us learning or relearning the basic skills of life. Hygiene, basic chores like cleaning house and doing laundry, working a simple job and keeping it despite reoccurring symptoms and episodes, social integration or making friends regardless of the fact that we don’t feel like we know who we are post-diagnosis, are amongst our many challenges. And, all the while, we are working over and over, harder and harder, at accepting the illness. We must accept who we have become; our lot in life. We must learn to accept disability and learn to live with stigma. We must learn to not hate ourselves for what we might perceive as weakness. Maybe we will even learn through the process of accepting our illness, that what we thought of as weakness has brought us strength. We might learn to love ourselves more for enduring hardship, becoming strong through the struggle, and gaining wisdom. But this is just the beginning. Decades may pass, and did for me. Decades of continuing to take my pills, getting my blood drawn, attending Psychiatry and Therapy appointments, trying to do chores despite symptoms, trying to exercise despite symptoms and side effects, dieting despite the weight gain and continual weight gain side effects, trying to drink less and learn to cope with the pain and grief instead of bottling it up; just trying to get by somewhat normally despite my truly extraordinary situation.

During those decades I was continually working at healing. I was constantly working at improving my health both physically and mentally, as well as building resilience, regaining hope, and redefining what I had learned to accept as total and utter failure at life. I reframed these negative thoughts. I found purpose. I learned about self love. Though, it is true that anyone that that has dealt with a major health obstacle in life, we learn that the path is never ending. There is always more to learn about self love and acceptance. There is always another layer or habit to pick away at, quit, build up. We are constantly making discoveries about ourselves and how to heal and improve. We are constantly rediscovering or inventing our identity, healing even older and deeper layers of trauma, and finding undiscovered dreams. I am at that place in life now. I am learning to dream again. A key, I believe, is not feeling attached to old dreams that I discarded, but discovering the new; discovering who I am now. Because I am changed. All of this, all of the deep mud that we mental health consumers have slogged through, all of the healing that has taken place, it has changed us. It is time to dream new. It is time to rediscover what dreaming is all about, and what it feels like to pursue these dreams and truly believe in ourselves no matter where we have been, what we have seen, how old we are, or any physical obstacle. I look forward to truly engaging in this next phase of healing, living, and becoming who I am truly meant to be.