Tag: recovery

lobotomelon:

poetrylesbian:

poetrylesbian:

So one thing I spoke about with my therapist today is the fear of recovery.

Like, there’s this expectation that mentally ill people WANT to “recover” from their illness. That they want happy, healthy lives, that they want to be like “normal” people.

But that’s not always the case. At least, not emotionally. Logically, I know that I want to have a normal life. But emotionally? That’s freaking terrifying.

To me, right now in the middle of this depressive episode, I don’t want to get better. Getting better involves work, getting better involves facing my fears, it involves conforming to these societal standards that I care less and less about each day. Often there is this little voice in the back of my mind that just says… “Don’t get better. What other people think doesn’t matter. Just stay sad. Just stay in bed. This is easy for you. This is what you’re used to. This is your status quo. Why change?”

So I just want to let other mentally ill people who sometimes feel this way, I understand. You’re allowed to have days where you don’t want to get better. That doesn’t make you a “bad” mentally ill person or lazy or anything else. You and your illness are still 100% completely valid.

Okay I want to add to this, because I’ve seen people mention it in the tags and because it’s something I myself feel, is that a lot of the time this feeling of “I don’t want to get better” comes from a fear that you’re faking your illness.

There is this huge attitude in non-mentally ill people where they don’t tend to take these illnesses seriously because they don’t see actual evidence. Therefore often people will mental illnesses begin to feel like, “I have to be bad, I have to show this” to prove to the world, and themselves, that their disorder is real.

So once again, if mentally ill people are reading this, you don’t have to prove your disorder to everyone. If you’re “functioning” or “recovered” or just in a good stage, that does not mean your illness doesn’t exist or that you were faking it.

❤

I would now write something along the lines of ‘ You probably don’t
even know how much that helped me just now.’ but I actually think you
do. So thanks random person that I don’t know, for putting into words something that I
couldn’t explain nor understand for shit for about 4 years.

And
might I add that even when I actually find the source of my
unwillingnes to improve, it still feels like I am faking every single
time that I progress in my understanding of myself. Because as long as I
understand my condition, I feel like it’s possible for me to
(subconciously) force my illness since I know how it works.

This
makes it all the sadder, since I know of no other way to feel good
about myself than to understand and accept me but at the same time it
breaks down every effort I made to feel valid.

So basically my efforts nullify themselves as soon as I achieve more understanding and insight.