ARE YOU A FIGHTER?

In order to recover from mental illness, you must have determination, strength, and willpower to live a healthy life. You have to fight harder than you have ever fought in your life. Facing your mental illness is one of the most difficult challenges in your life. In order to fight, you must educate yourself about your illness, take your medication as advised, participate in therapy, and do any homework your therapist suggests.

When I found out in college I had depression, I collected pamphlets, I checked out books at the library on depression, and when I got a therapist, she gave me a video on depression. I needed to understand what my illness was and if I could get better. When I got sick again, years later, and found out I was a self-injurer and I had borderline personality disorder, I researched online and at the library and I bought books on my illness. Through research my life began to make sense. Many of the problems I had as a child had a reason. I wasn't a freak; I was ill.

Once I understood my illness, I became determined to live a normal life. In order to reach recovery, I had to fight. Fighting meant going to therapy and learning to change my way of thinking, to look at my life in a different light, and to take my medications as prescribed. Most importantly, I had to want to get well more than anything in the world and I had to learn to believe in myself. In order to believe in myself, I had to love myself, which was a struggle of its own.

A friend kept telling her psychiatrist what medication to put her on and took herself off medications when she thought they didn't work. By doing this she only made herself sicker. I found that even when medications didn't seem to be working, I had to stay on them and allow my psychiatrist to change them. I also learned I had to try many medications until I found one that worked. By being patient, I did find one that has helped me reach recovery and stay within recovery.

I spent my life drowning in negativity and believing I was ugly and worthless. My thoughts dipped into darkness and raced uncontrollably for many years. I burst out into angry episodes and broke things. How could I change all that? Within my heart I knew the only way I could learn to be positive and control my thoughts and episodes was to go to therapy and do the homework my therapist gave me. I had to fight for my right to be happy and to find the positive side of life.

So dig deep down in yourself and find the willpower to fight. If you can't find the power within you turn to God and ask for his help. By fighting, I am living a wonderful life and I have found true happiness above the hole, in the rays of the light.