What is recovery?

‘Recovery’ means getting well, doesn’t it? Not necessarily.  Many people with personal experience of mental illness have reacted against this model of recovery.  They argue that it is too difficult to achieve, and have instead produced their own definition.  It goes something like:

                Recovery = living a full and meaningful life whether in the presence or absence of symptoms.

I like this definition, because it focuses on what I do with my life, rather than whether I’m having symptoms or not.  But despite this, I still aim to be symptom-free.  Not only that, I want to be positively happy, and that’s what I work towards.  Most of the time I am, despite some major life adversities such as being too physically to ill to work many hours, and it’s one of my greatest achievements.

But I still think it’s important to say that a person doesn’t need to be symptom-free to see themselves as recovered.  Depression and other mental illnesses can be crippling, robbing the sufferer of the will or ability to do the simplest daily tasks.  So being able to get up each day and carry out purposeful activities is a real achievement – believe me, I speak from experience!  I can still remember the dark days decades ago when simply getting dressed seemed beyond me.

Despite this, I do believe it’s realistic and worthwhile to aspire to be symptom-free, if that’s something you want.  Someone made the point to me the other day that some people don’t want to lose some of their symptoms, especially mania, which can be so useful for getting things done! 

I read somewhere recently that the people most likely to move into normative scores on depression questionnaires are those who most want to get over their depression.  I would think everyone would want to, as it’s such a noxious, unpleasant illness, but maybe that’s not true.  In the end it’s a personal choice.  I do think though that the twisted thinking that goes with the illness can mean it’s easy to get bogged down in thinking that happiness is not possible or you don’t deserve it, which can decrease the motivation to change.

Which brings me to the take home message of this blog.  It's that experiencing lasting happiness is a real possibility for people with experience of depression, even when it’s been severe, life-threatening and/or gone on for decades.  I've achieved it and I believe others can too.

What about you?  Do you want to be symptom-free or is it not an important goal for you?  Do you think it's possible?