Recovery. A return to homeostasis. Also a widely-used term in the mental illness community.

What does "recovery" even mean, as far as treating mental illness is concerned? Is recovery a return to functionality by the world's standards? Because if so, there is no need to treat the illness. Countless people every day work multiple jobs, make lots of money and even have thriving social lives under the weight of depression, anxiety, or some other form of neurological disorder.

Is recovery the cessation of panic attacks and unregulated emotions? Because if so, there is, again, no need to treat the illness. The right medication can easily stop those symptoms all together, sometimes in a matter of days. However, medication cannot provide the therapy that a mentally ill person needs to process their mental makeup and understand what THEIR role is in recovery.

Is recovery a kicking a specific habit, addiction or self-destructive behavior? You might as well put a Snoopy Band-Aid on a shark bite. Leaving an addiction is the relatively easy part. Maintaining distance from your trigger or any other potential triggers you don't even know about yet is the *FREAKIN* hard part (and oddly enough, this is the part few people seem to be willing to help recovering people out with?!?!)

The Oxford Dictionary definition of recovery is "a return to a normal state of health, mind or strength." Most people in recovery that I know would laugh out loud at the word "normal" in this definition. What is normal? How do you define THAT term in the context of trying to treat millions of mentally ill people around the world?

This is where we must accept that the definition of normal will be different for everyone. You cannot expect what is normal for you to be normal for someone else. This is, in a nutshell, the entire basis for recovery. The person recovering cannot hold themselves to the standards of others recovering or to neurotypical people because until a person with mental illness stops comparing themselves and finds grace instead, there is no healing found. There is no recovery. In lieu of that same principle, the ones who are close to the person recovering cannot expect what is easy for themselves to suddenly be easy for the person they love just because they are pursuing recovery.

I have met many strangers, peers and even therapists who have chosen to focus in on a sole aspect of recovery and regard it as the whole of the recovery process, even though recovery makes so much more sense zoomed OUT. Recovery is time. Lots of it. How can both society and healthcare condense that into a checkbox or two?

Moral of the story:

1. You can't just treat the symptoms of mental illness and expect the "recovery process" to go smoothly or feel like anything but a joke.

2. Recovery does not equal the absence of mental illness in any way.

3. We must take responsibility in looking after our friends and family who struggle with psychiatric disorders.

Stay informed and love others well!