Is it possible to recover from mental illness? 7 tips from personal experience
Is it possible to recover from mental illness? 7 tips from personal experience
Mental illness isn’t something to be wished on your worst enemy. In a matter of seconds, you could find yourself going from absolutely fine to panicking and thinking the worst. Personal experiences from survivors can help you to take proactive steps towards mental wellness.
A brief history
With diagnoses of borderline personality disorder and anxiety, I felt like recovery wasn’t an option for me. Having struggled with my mental health from around 12 years old, it was something that shaped the majority of my identity.
While self-harm was present throughout, things took a turn in 2018. This saw my mental health deteriorate to the point of hospitalisation from a paracetamol overdose. It was also here that I really started to put the work in to get better.
Now, five years later, near enough to the day, I am a completely different person. I’m happy, in a stable relationship, and have two jobs. The girl I was back then would never have thought this was possible.
One of the main reasons I am public about my mental illness journey, and write with Mindful Me, is to try and break down those barriers surrounding mental health. I want my story to inspire others and give them the support they need to also begin the uphill battle towards wellness.
Find a reason
Mental illness can feel incredibly overwhelming. At times, you may find yourself unable to enjoy the good things in life because of all those negative thoughts.
While you should want to recover for yourself, it can help to have other reasons for doing so. It could be that you want to improve your mental health for your child, or partner, or even simply to obtain happiness.
Using an external reason to begin with could help to motivate you for the journey ahead. In time, you can also begin to think about why you want to do this for yourself.
Setbacks, not dead ends
As with any task, there can be setbacks along the way. This can include self-harm relapses, or struggles with keeping yourself afloat. This can be entirely normal.
When these setbacks do occur, it is important not to let them stop you from continuing forward. Some may find this incredibly difficult, or even use this as an excuse to go back to previous negative behaviours.
Understanding that blips and errors can occur can help you to remain in a positive mindset and not give in.
Write it down
Writing down how you’re feeling can be cathartic. You could then choose to discuss these feelings with a trusted person, or simply keep them in your journal as a timeline of progress.
When using writing, don’t forget to include some of your successes, no matter how small. Documenting making it a month, or even a week, on your recovery journey can allow you to celebrate each win.
At some point, you can look back on where you were at the beginning, and where you are now, to see just how much you have accomplished.
Set goals for recovering from mental illness
Having goals to work towards can help you to stay on track while you recover from mental illness. These might seem quite difficult to begin with, but remember that you have spent a long time battling an invisible illness and building up positive habits can take time.
To begin with, you may want to focus on eliminating burnout. When you’ve been under too much pressure from your mental illness for far too long, you may find yourself feeling fatigued and unwell.
Making changes to your diet and lifestyle could be of use. For many struggling with mental illness, even getting out of bed in the morning can be challenging. Doing your utmost to banish burnout and leave yourself feeling physically healthier could help you when you want to work on your mind.
Acknowledge your emotions
Those who suffer from a form of mental illness may find they experience a rapid change in emotions throughout the day. While this can be exhausting, you may not want to try and ignore how you feel. Trying to push your emotions away could leave you feeling stressed and work against your recovery.
Instead, acknowledge each emotion you feel as it comes. Try and pinpoint what might have caused that emotion to appear so that you can identify your triggers.
As you continue on your recovery journey, you may find ways to avoid these triggers until you are better equipped to manage them. This doesn’t, however, mean avoiding them forever.
In time, you can learn which coping strategies best work for you and put them into place before, and during, triggering situations.
Practise mindfulness
It cannot be stressed enough just how helpful mindfulness can be for stress and overcoming mental illness.
Mindfulness exercises such as deep breathing can be key to calming anxious moments or helping you to keep your thoughts under control. They can also be used when out and about, such as when driving or at work, to allow you to gain peace and clarity.
Understand the journey itself
For some, mental illness recovery may have a finite stopping point. However, others may find that they never fully recover from their poor mental health and subsequent experiences.
Don’t go into recovery expecting a quick fix. It can take a lot of time and work to be able to find your baseline. You may even still have disturbances years into the future.
Realistically, the main goal of mental illness recovery may not be to eradicate the problem altogether. Instead, it is about finding better, more positive ways to cope and create a healthier mindset.
How can I start my recovery from mental illness?
Ultimately, learning how to recover from mental illness is down to the individual. You may have had people around you trying to offer well-meaning tips and advice in the past. Alternatively, you might know someone who struggles with their mental health and want to support them in getting better.
A person won’t be able to start their journey until they’re ready to. This can be frustrating for those around them who feel like their support has fallen on deaf ears. It may take a serious incident to kick-start the process, or simply a change in thought.
Regardless of the reason, deciding to be more proactive about taking steps to combat mental illness is a big achievement. Whether you decide to start today, next week, or even a few months from now, you are doing an incredibly brave thing.
Having that support around you can make a big difference. This could come in the form of friends and family, but it’s also important not to discount the NHS and mental health practitioners. Wait times for these services can vary depending on where you live. However, if possible, you shouldn’t use these as a reason to not begin your journey.
Whoever you are, and whatever your circumstances are, we wish you the best of luck with your recovery. Your journey may be hard, and there might be a few bumps along the way, but recovery from mental illness is certainly a road worth taking.
Have your say
Researching other experiences and how to better manage your mental illness can be a good first step to recovery. Finding support from those around you may make it easier.
This is just one experience of struggling with mental health and finding ways to move forward.
If you have your own experience with mental illness and recovery, you might want to think about writing a guest post for Mindful Me.
Together, we can feel better both inside and outside ourselves, and break the stigma associated with struggles.
Freelance writer for 3+ years, currently working in marketing.
I love walks in the woods, Asian dramas, and cooking up delicious food.