Mental Illness Recovery

There are five pillars or fundamental principals of mental illness recovery:
1. Hope
2. Personal Responsibility
3. Education
4. Self-Advocacy
5. Support
We are going to explore all five starting today with Hope.



Hope is the foundation of any type of recovery. Without it, you can't even begin to move forward. I sure couldn't. During the darkest period of my darkest days, I was hopeLESS. Initially I felt helpless, then worthless, and eventually hopeless.
 

 I was a Pity Sandwich. A slice of misery surrounded by two slices of hard times. I was in a funk so deep I felt there was no way out. I just gave up! I felt my emotional situation was impossible to change. I was traumatized by my emotional and psychological state of being. 

 Shocked and dumbstruck, I drifted through life until somewhere, somehow I happened upon a spark of hope. From that point on, my life began to change. Until that point, friends tried to reassure me by saying "You may not realize it now, but there's a light at the end of the tunnel." I would respond "I know. I see it  It's a train, and it's closing in fast."

It was like every time Life threw something at me, I faced it head on and worked through it, and stomped on the remaining emotional and psychological debris. Packing it down beneath me. Finally, I had packed so much debris beneath me, I was able to just step out of my Hole of Despair.

That little spark of Hope began to burn a little hole in my darkness that grew bigger each day; letting in more and more light, which brought with it more and more Hope.

 Hope can also be an acronym for Helping Other People through Empowerment. I found that the more I helped others, the more hope I collected. Helping others actually helped ME.

How does Hope factor into your recovery?