Managing the Bad Days After Mental Health Recovery
Living with lingering shadows.
“The fight against yourself is such a fearful war.”
― Hannah Clayton, Until the Shadows Lengthen
I write a lot about my recovery from PTSD and schizophrenia. My message is that you’re never too broken to change your life, even if it takes decades, as it did for me.
But that’s not the whole story.
You might think life is plain sailing for me now if you read my articles. Once you recover from mental illness, you go back to how you were before, and pain is a thing of the past. But it doesn’t work like that.
The truth is, I still have bad days when I wonder what the point of it all is. I’ve recovered, yet I still struggle, and both of those things can be true at the same time.
On a bad day.
“Put simply, suicide happens when the outward pressures of life are greater than the inward ability to cope in that moment.” ― Karen Gibbs, STOP THE DOWNWARD SPIRAL
I’ve made huge strides in recovering from my PTSD. After 20 years, I can talk about any aspect of the incidents that caused my illness. I’ve shed the survivor guilt that hounded me for decades. I’m no longer limited in where I can go and what I can see. I don’t hide anymore.
