A lot of folks seem to think of recovery as a steady upwards slope towards being happy. In practice, it’s messier than that. It’s a long, zigzagging trail that loops back on itself in ways that frustrate map-makers, and it’s not a nicely-paved road in the slightest. You’re going to twist your ankle on tree roots. Someone misplaced half the trail markers and led you in circles. Part of the path is blocked off by rocks that you have to haul out of the way, and you’ll wrench your ankle again doing that. The hill is covered in loose pebbles that send you tumbling back to the beginning. You’ll lose the progress you gained, then have to pick yourself back up and push forwards again.
It’s a nasty mess of a trail at first, but it’s your trail. When it loops back on itself, you recognize the trees and remember where their roots are. You fixed the trail markers on your second pass through here. You knocked out the rocks that were blocking your path; now you can breeze past what used to be a major barrier. Over time, you stop tripping over your own feet. It gets easier to hike the trail. Each time the trail doubles back on itself, you can make it a little farther.
Eventually, you look back at miles of pristine trail and see just how far you’ve come. It seems so obvious in retrospect. You wonder how you missed all that progress when you were stumbling around in the woods.
It’s normal to lose progress and struggle. Sliding backwards is frustrating when you’ve worked so hard to improve yourself, but it’s a fairly normal part of the process. You’re not a failure if it happens. That progress isn’t lost forever, either. When you get back to work, it’s easier to get back to where you were before that slide. Each time, the good periods get a little better. The bad periods get less bad. It’s slow, but things do improve in the long run. You just have to find ways to pick up the pieces and keep pushing forwards. Keep trying. You can do this.
A lot of people think that recovery is about becoming normal. The more you can blend in with everyone else, the healthier you are. In reality, recovery is a lot more nuanced and personal than that.
People want different things out of life. One person’s main values are another’s worst nightmares, and that’s perfectly alright. Everyone’s ideas of what it means to function and be happy are specific to them. It’s part of what makes you who you are.
A one-size-fits-all model of recovery is a sham. It doesn’t recognize that people have different goals and ideals. It doesn’t acknowledge that one person’s happiness is another’s misery. Recovery is painted as becoming “normal” again, but the idea of normalcy making everyone’s lives better regardless of differences in their goals and ideals is absolute bullshit.
Recovery is about finding ways to become happier and healthier according to your priorities and ideals. Because everyone has different ideals, everyone’s goals are different. For some people, recovering means embracing their weirdness and rejecting “normal” ways of doing things. For others, becoming more typical is something they value, and it might be part of their recovery process. It all comes down to the individual.
The methods people use to reach those goals vary too. Sure, yoga and meditation might work beautifully for one person, but someone else might find it pointless and irritating. Sometimes, the best methods for a person are so unconventional that other people are bewildered by them. A one-size-fits-all model of recovery doesn’t account for this.
If recovery were the same for everyone, then we’d only need one method for every person that’s struggling, and everyone would be struggling for the same reasons. Everyone could start meditating, get on medication, improve in the same ways, and it would magically solve the world’s mental health problems. This clearly isn’t the case.
If the typical notion of recovery isn’t working for you, you’re not alone. Say “screw it” and define it your own way. Find what works for you. What do you want out of life? What’s actually helpful for you in reaching your goals? What does recovery mean for you?
(Healing) is a continual, ongoing process of letting things unfold in their own time, hearing and holding each when the time is right. There is no rushing it, only making space and being patient and kind, learning safety as you go.
Issues are good at hiding themselves because if you notice them, you can strip them away. And when they developed to protect you, your brain doesn’t want them stripped out until it’s actually safe to do that. Felt safe, not known safe. So they come up when the time is right and no sooner. When the time is right to notice and shift things, then the source of the problem presents itself to you.
Sometimes that takes a while. And that’s okay. The fact it happened at all says you’re doing something right.
The goal of the recovery process is not to become normal. The goal is to embrace our human vocation of becoming more deeply, more fully human … to become the unique, awesome, never to be repeated human being that we are called to be.
Patricia Deegan
I think the risks of harm are lower when people are able to sit with the idea that there may be many paths for people, and one is not necessarily better or worse than another, that what is supposed to happen for them will happen, and that {regardless of who you are} if you are decent to people, animals, and the planet, you are not a failure.
Sarah K Reece, What’s the Deal with Integration?, 2015