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0 By Max Guttman
For people with a chronic illness and longstanding mental health diagnosis, it can be difficult to find the right pace for the journey through recovery and healing. The concept of recovery can even be misleading at times during the life of a chronic disorder. Acute disorders leave people with the space and room for energy and focus once they have abated. Often, people can afford to expend their energy dealing with an acute disorder, because it will be inactive soon enough.
Needing some self-awareness
However, with a severe chronic mental health diagnosis, there can be a misstep in applying energy and symptom management. This can leave a person vulnerable and open to breakthrough symptoms and other unwelcome reactive symptoms. This is due to the mismanagement of misidentified opportunities to heal and recover.
From the very moment I began my battle with schizoaffective disorder, I learned that positive outcomes for people in recovery require a degree of self-awareness of one’s symptoms and of their chronicity and intensity.
As a clinician, it became obvious that if I were to have true ownership of my disorder, I should apply science and the available technologies in the field. This would be to measure symptoms from baseline to a hopefully inert or managed state. This level of sophistication in measuring progress, or the lack thereof, requires the completion of steady activities.
A barometer
When a person goes to work every day or has steady contacts, there is a barometer for how they are coping each day. When these activities aren’t present, or a person becomes isolated, it becomes less clear how to measure their wellbeing. What is needed is a third party observer like a case manager or therapist. Or someone who can study the functioning of a person when he or she is not managing the usual demands of the day.
Therefore, lasting recovery in the wake of chronic illness requires a depth of insight from others. These allies are those who have a vested interest in the person’s recovery. Especially if a person doesn’t work or isolates themselves, given the turnover of caseworkers, friends and family are the real point people and allies in recovery.
Moving into each new phase of recovery will necessitate drawing from supports, and partnering with them for seasonal, round-the-clock, and year-long support. This is required when someone has a chronic severe diagnosis. There will be times when symptoms become active, and times when a person is vulnerable.
Real allies
Only natural supports and the organic point person can help someone with a chronic illness achieve a sustainable pace for healing and recovery. Artificial and hired workers are simply more out of touch with the organic needs of someone struggling. The person has to continue to battle their illness long after a case manager leaves their client’s journey through recovery.
Family, friends and natural point people are simply more connected and are real allies. Case managers will leave when the insurance has a problem or the money runs dry.
Sustainable healing
Next to insight, sustainable healing requires the challenging of previous assumptions. There are skills to learn for every phase of recovery. You need to plan to use every device available in your arsenal for healing. Never discount the importance of adapting old skills to target new problems. Don’t assume nothing will work to manage new or existing symptoms in your recovery until you’ve explored every avenue and put each solution to the test.
Challenging assumptions every day, everywhere, with applied scientific reasoning may make the difference in symptoms becoming active again or breakthrough symptoms demoralizing the person’s progress. I experienced mood instability and collateral chaos for so many years. So I learned to appreciate the safety of a static, unchanging, healthy mental status.
We all live with residual symptoms, either active or in remission. Acknowledge the dangers that lurk behind every turn in your recovery. This will save you from the pitfalls of someone who still hasn’t accepted the chronicity of their disorder.
A giant first step is accepting that self-control, behavioural and otherwise, means seeking and accepting help.
Your chosen journey through recovery
No one can look for help all the time. So supporters like family and others can connect the dots between the artificial support networks. And they can be available at times and in ways that allow you to feel comfortable and creative with your chosen journey through recovery.
It is said that recovery is a stance. There is no moment when a person magically becomes undiagnosed or even unsymptomatic. Instead it’s a process of reinventing the manner in which you handle and manage your struggles in life. This is my perspective on recovery. I hope it helps you similarly to share your own story that inspired you to keep fighting on towards a better future.
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This is very informative, thank you for sharing your personal experiences with mental illness. You are right in saying that family and friends are good support networks for recovery. As a clinician, I have found it very helpful to work with my clients’ families as they often provide information about my clients mental health history and other information that my clients aren’t even aware of. However, I have also found that very often clients lack this type of support. What do you suggest for such clients?
Thank you for commenting? This is a very good question! People without good organic supports people often fall through the cracks of the mental health system. Without family, friends, and other natural supports having a point person with enough latitude to cross walk multiple systems, (DSS, Mental Health, & other agencies which offer assistance) might ultimately be some folks only option. In cases like this, isolation and other factors contributing to poor mental health often trump the necessary access to life sustaining services in the community. I recommend connecting clients in these circumstances to regional SPOA committees and other single point of access services which can access help at multiple levels of care.