suffering on purpose

I’ve talked previously about suffering when an individual has disturbing or extraordinary experiences that are sometimes labeled mental illness. Often times these experiences can bring about suffering in themselves or at the hands of others in the medical community. Whether the suffering comes from within or without, the fact of the matter is the suffering and its after effects are real. They are real and have very real consequences.

In this post, I want to borrow from the mindfulness community and my own faith tradition and talk a bit about acceptance of suffering. From my experience my greatest and most damaging suffering has come from wanting my circumstances to be somehow different from what they were. I have suffered because I wanted more money, more status, more possessions, more beauty, and in recent years I’ve suffered because I’ve wanted some of my experiences to stop.

It has been in this incessant wanting that I have suffered the most. In the midst of my suffering, the tears, the episodes of traumatic fear, the distressing voices I would call on my Higher Power to take it all away. It never occurred to me to look for meaning in those experiences. It never occurred to me that there was a reason I was having these experiences. It never occurred to me that these were opportunities for real and meaningful growth.

So, over a span of time two things happened for me. An awesome healer suggested I stop fighting against my experiences and really be present for them. She proposed I sit in them and listen to what they were trying to tell me. She suggested I accept them as a part of me versus trying to exorcise them as some sort of external entity. Radical thinking. The second thing that happened was that through the teachings at my church, I came to see that Jesus went through a similar experience. I came to see that He suffered contemplating dying by crucifixion so much so that He sweat blood. And I learned that when He accepted His fate he experienced peace, courage, and strength.

I’ve had many labels over the course of my life, many struggles as we all have and suffered greatly. However, what I have learned that has transformed the quality of my life, has given me peace, courage and strength in the midst of suffering is acceptance. Not blind acceptance, but acceptance with the faith that there is always meaning in my suffering; that there is always something to be learned, an opportunity for growth.

Instead of masking my suffering with food, drugs, or loveless relationships I embrace the lessons. I use the pain to learn more about myself, my strength, my community and I use the pain to empower myself and others. I use that suffering to connect with others to ease isolation, to humanize extraordinary experiences and to foster hope. Suffering on the surface appears futile, but it has a purpose and the potential to heal beyond our expectations. 

labor pains

When I think about recovery I think about the night I gave birth to my son Joseph. Yes it was painful, but it was also exciting because I was living in the highest state of expectancy of my life. I was bringing forth someone brand new that had never before existed.

Recovery is like that. You are becoming something you never were before. Someone brand new. And like childbirth it can be painful. Recovery requires growth. It requires taking a broad and deep look at yourself. To live in recovery you must look at how you talk-do you speak positivity into your life? You must look at who you spend your time with-are your friends and family in support of your goals? You must cultivate purpose -do you volunteer or work in an environment that honors your contributions? You must advocate for your healthcare-are you working in partnership with hour healthcare workers for the best possible plan for you? If you can answer yes to these questions then its smooth sailing for you, but if not, this is where the pain comes in.

If you answered no, then you’re going to have some recovery labor pains. Recovery got real for me when I took the training to become a certified peer specialist (CPS). In this two-week training they gave the participants a button at the start that said “I’m a walking miracle.” At first I just put it in my purse. It didn’t jive with the language I spoke back then about myself as someone with a mental health diagnosis. I didn’t have any positive talk about that so I couldn’t relate. By the end of the training I was color coordinating my clothes to match that button!

In that training I came to understand that the coping skills that I had used to thrive and survive made me an expert on me! And the training I was getting made me a competent peer specialist! Whoa, talk about bringing forth someone brand new that had never before existed! Those trainers had me fired up. I left that training with a new idea of who I could be and what I could do.

When I got home from the training I told everyone who would listen that I wanted to do what everyone had told me that I would never do. I wanted to work full time as a CPS. My family cautioned me against it. Some of my friends warned me that the stress would send me back to the hospital. My co workers expressed their fears for me. There was tremendous pushback.  Labor pains. But the seed had been planted. It was just a matter of time. And I cried because I knew if I were go grow into this vision I had for myself I was going to have to part ways with people who had been my support. I had to create new boundaries with old friends. I couldn’t share my new goals because they were naysayers. Some relationships don’t survive recovery. Some relationships don’t survive recovery because when you take a good look at yourself and change, you force those around you to do the same.

How do you move forward with this new version of yourself when your supporters stop supporting you? You realign yourself with people who are where you want to be. That’s what I did. I kept in touch with the people I went through the CPS training with. I had to create a new support system. It was painful but necessary. And all the while I was looking for opportunities where I could be involved in that reflected my new vision of me.

So now, four years later I’m still working my recovery. Still going through pains though not as dramatic, establishing new boundaries, letting people go and welcoming new supporters in. 

romance and recovery

Recovery and romance; where to begin? There’s a lot of discussion in the peer community about individuals with mental health diagnoses seeking out and cultivating romantic relationships. One line of thought is that it’s a risky endeavor to add the stress of managing this kind of relationship with the challenges of managing a mental illness. Another line of thought suggests that romantic love can be a source of strength and a natural support in the journey towards wellness.

I subscribe to the latter point of view. Every healthy relationship can support recovery. Friendships, family bonds and romantic partnerships are the emotional artillery needed to live in wellness. Romantic love provides support on the most intimate levels. There are challenges we can share with family and friends, however, romantic partnerships create a safe space for full disclosure and acceptance.

So, in a perfect world, our romantic interests would be open-minded, compassionate, and non-judgmental. This is ideal right? And this happens for many of us living with a mental health diagnosis. For many of us there is someone who is strong enough to be a witness to our successes and setbacks. Someone who can love us unconditionally and help us stay on track. But, what about when we are rejected because of our challenges? How do we process being rejected for something we have very little control over? How do we avoid feeling damaged and unlovable when confronted with another person’s fear and prejudice?

In my experience, transparency is the key. Because I am open and transparent about living with schizophrenia, the stigma loses its power. Transparency, openly telling one’s recovery and wellness story humanizes something that most people are terrified by. Let’s face it, most people rely on the media for facts and the media has a poor track record of portraying individuals with a mental health diagnosis. So countering these negative stereotypes with stories of hope and wellness is essential.

What I’m advocating for is disclosure which is highly personal. For some it’s terrifying because once you let the cat out of the back there is no turning back. Why do we need to tell the people we encounter we have a diagnosis? For one, it frees us from fear. For another it allows the people we meet to make an informed decision about whether they want to interact with us. For some people, mental illness is a deal breaker. Without disclosure, this essential part of us becomes a weight around our neck that will drag us away from wellness.

When do we disclose that we have a diagnosis and are living in recovery? It’s going to be different for everyone. Most of the time when I meet someone it comes out pretty early on because it’s an integral part of my job. Most people outside of the peer community don’t know what a peer specialist is. So in explaining that, I have to disclose. How I disclose varies, but I’m usually pretty straight forward. I simply state that I have a diagnosis and describe what that looks like without burdening the person with medical jargon.

Some people have responded with curiosity and compassion. Some have flat out rejected me. In either case, I just keep things moving. There is someone for everyone. In my opinion, anyone who rejects me based on a medical diagnosis is not someone I want in my life anyway. 

recovery in action

Recovery is not a passive endeavor. It requires an act of the will. Recovery doesn’t just happen. It springs from hope, it springs from desire and it requires purposeful movement to occur.

But how? How does one put the desire to be well, to live in wellness into action? There are many paths to recovery and they all need a strategy. To move forward into wellness an individual must have a goal, a vision for their life. This goal must be to move from position A to position B. Position A is a place of dissatisfaction. We’re not comfortable in position A, like square peg in a circle groove. Position B is our vision of wellness; of wholeness. In position A we must ask ourselves what we want our lives to look like. We must ask what our day to day existence will be like when we are living in wellness. The answer to these questions become our roadmap back to the land of the living.

The answer to these questions for me always came back to my desire to work full time after living in my illness. I was dissatisfied with living as a “permanently disabled” person and wanted to move into purposeful, gainful employment. If I had based this possible shift on the circumstances of my life at that time, I would have been paralyzed by hopelessness. Not even those who loved me dearly thought it was possible. Everything in my life pointed towards spending the rest of my life depending on social security disability checks to survive.

To move from position A to position B I had to recognize that full time employment, despite its challenges, was my goal. And I needed to know why. It wasn’t enough to know that I wanted change; I needed to back it up with a justification. The answer was self-sufficiency and a sense of purpose. At my core I had always been a do-gooder and a worker bee. That was who I was, who I wanted again to be and employment was how I expressed it.

The next step in my journey was to identify what had already been done to manifest this goal. At that time, it seemed I that I had done very little, when in fact I had laid the foundation for success. That foundation was a quiet commitment I had made to myself and my son. I didn’t yet know how I was going to do this thing, but I was committed to trying. I didn’t yet know what success would look like either. I had simply planted a seed of possibility.

To move forward I needed to visualize what success in achieving this goal would look like for me. I needed to be specific too. I asked myself “how many hours a week would I work?” and “how money would I need to live comfortably?” etc. Once I had this new vision for my life, I started brainstorming specific actions I would need to do to get to my vision. These too were specific and had time frames that held me accountable. I gave myself hard deadlines and shared them with my supporters who also held me accountable for meeting those deadlines.

The next step was to figure out what I would need to complete these actions. I had to figure out what resources I would need to access and who I should enlist to help me. I was realistic though, so I also brainstormed possible barriers to success and a strategy to overcome those barriers. So, all this soul searching became my game plan for thriving in this life. It was a turn by turn map to reach my final destination of wellness. The road was not always straight or well-lit and there were many times when I feared I had lost my way. When that occurred I went back to my plan and began again.

There is no cookie cutter formula for recovery. Every journey is unique. We all don’t get there at the same pace or at the same time. But the awesome truth is, recovery is not only possible, its real.