Positive Recovery Stories.
 

A member recently told me they didn't think things would get better, and that their life is over, after a recent admission. Though I've mentioned there's a great deal of members who are now in recovery, they would like to hear your personal recovery stories, and I promised I'd make this thread.

It would be lovely to show them that there's always hope; no matter how dark things seem, and how bad things get. That there are people out there from all walks of life, from doctors and nurses, to teachers, and even to mums and dads. I've rambled a lot, but it would be great to hear what you're doing now that you're recovered, and what recovery means for you.

The member is especially interested in stories that relate to recovery from BPD or life after a section, but I am sure all stories would be helpful, and it would be lovely to hear lots of positive thngs.

Great thread Soph & to the member who requested it :)

For me, I would say that I am in recovery rather than recovered but I feel like I have come a long way. In 2011, I was on a section 3 after a serious suicide attempt and it wasn't unfortunately my first section 3.
I remember at the time feeling like my life was completely over. I had tried so hard to recover and nothing was changing. It just seemed like I was a revolving door - in and out of hospital, with no real change despite how hard I was trying.

Things did change though and gradually, my recovery has really started to take hold. I began to speak more to staff and I also found a good psychotherapist who was able to understand my issues more. When I was discharged from hospital I was lucky enough to move flats a couple of months later which gave me a fresh start and I got a kitten. She really helped with my recovery because I wasn't taken responsibility just for me anymore, I had to for her.

Fast forward to now and I am engaged with a date set to get married, have to pets and am looking forward to having a family with my partner. There are of course blips but things have changed drastically, to a point I never imagined back then.

x

Agreed that this is an excellent thread, and congratulations Lottie on how far you have come :)

I'm not very good at writing about my 'story', but will have a go!

When I went to university, my mental health got worse, rather than better as I had hoped, and despite some periods of being self harm free, three years later my self harm was even more out of hand than it had ever been, I had developed an eating disorder and had a BPD diagnosis but no professional help, because of waiting lists and frequently moving house. I wanted to die, because I saw no way of the situation improving. I had an unpleasant experience in A and E and so I thought "I'll show them then", and went from quite a lot of self-harming to none at all (I am nothing if not contrary and stubborn!). Obviously my problems didn't disappear overnight and healing has taken a long time and I do still have some symptoms of BPD, but over time I've found ways to manage my self hatred and the difficulties I have relating to other people, as well as to fight urges to self harm or engage in eating disordered behaviours.

Now, I'm two years self harm free, am at a non-anorexic BMI, am in a stable long term relationship with my fiancée, and have just completed my first year of teaching in an inner city London secondary school. Who I was never would have been able to handle the pressure and the social challenge of teaching, but things truly have gotten better for me and I'm happier than 18 year old me ever could have imagined possible.

I feel really awkward writing this! I hope it's ok.

Jenna.

That is far better than OK. It's fecking awesome to read. :-)

And because I am horrendous at technology and cannot multi-quote for the life of me, I'm posting again.

Another great and inspiring piece to read.

I have come a hell of a long way too and RYL (or more its members!) has been a huge part of that. Maybe one day I'll write a proper 'success' story on here. I love this community. Threads like this make me love the world and everything in it! :-D

I'm not exactly recovered, but I spent about 7/8 years in hospitals, roughly 5 of those years in total were on section 3. I was told in 2010 that in a few years, I'd be in prison, Broadmoor or dead.
I've lived on my own for the last 2 years with only 2 admissions, one was for 2 days and one was only a week on a section 2. So nothing compared to before.
I'm doing a degree and have had a few job offers.
So yeah. Things aren't perfect but improved by about a million times! People that knew me back when I was in hospital can't believe that im the same person!

Thank you for making this thread. I am recovered, and also free of a lot of the mental health problems I grew up with, and it's always mystified me a little and hearing stories of how others have recovered is inspiring and might help understand how I've gotten to where I am.

I've was first sent to psychologist for evaluation when I was five, and have been in therapy from five years old until I was seventeen. In that entire time I never met a psychologist or counselor who could understand me or help me very much. The most influential person during that time was actually my teacher from elementary school who was a child psychologist and worked with me a lot, but my family moved when I was 8 and I never saw her again.

I have been diagnosed with all manner of ills. Oppositional defiant disorder, generalized anxiety disorder, obsessive compulsive disorder, depression, and the most colorful diagnosis "SED" for severely emotionally disturbed. Looking back on it, I think what was really wrong was I had almost no healthy method of coping with change and I was extremely sensitive to it... sort of what you see in autism spectrum disorders, but I am definitely not autistic. It was very confusing.

I discovered SH when I was sixteen, and luckily did not continue that for longer than a year before my family came in with unrelenting support and love that helped me work through my problems. I had already come a long way by that point and was dealing mostly with depression only by then.

The greatest strides in getting better was always because of love and support; and when I didn't get that I sunk lower and things got much much worse, but when I had it I started to get better. Despite all the doctors analyzing me and poking at me, the best therapy was my cousin hugging me every day and saying "I love you" for months on end. I never told him what was going on, how I felt, what was wrong... but one day he came up to me and said, "I know you're hurting. I don't know why. But I love you, and I see you. And you don't have to say anything if you don't want to, but know I care and I'm always looking out for you." and that somehow moved mountains inside me. If you ever find a person like that in your life, never cease being thankful.

I'm still not sure how I got better. I almost think that walking through fire was necessary. Things happened in my life that completely stripped me of control. And this primal fear of change and losing control was confronted directly through that. I had to completely let go of my fear before I could get better... but at the time I didn't know that was happening. It was years later, when one day, I knew I had encountered a turning point.

I was in a situation where I should have had a panic attack. Someone switched up my schedule on me and what I was planning on doing I could no longer do. This kind of thing usually triggered panic attacks, but it never came. Only a dull ache and a tinge of fear, but I could continue my day without a meltdown. It was the first time in my life that I felt I was truly in control, and I was 17.

There were several years where I learned to be a "normal" person, and I had a lot of anxiety and fear over that. For instance, I could make friends easy, and they wanted me around and called me and asked me to hang out with them. I would panic at that for a while until I got used to it. But now not even that happens. I went to college and got a degree, and I work full time, and I have a boyfriend who will soon be a husband, and I'm generally in control of my life to the point that no one I know who didn't know me then would recognize me.

It's still crazy to think that I've come so far, even though this was over a decade ago. My mother was told that I'd need care all my life because of my emotional problems. But, I hope, the fact that this wasn't true might be inspiring to others. One thing is never giving up. Ever. Someone would say to me, "you're broken. You can't do it. You're not going to make it. It's just not possible," and that drove me to prove them wrong. Even when I dragged myself down and said I was worthless, there was always this spark inside or this small voice that said these things weren't true and then I'd keep going. Finding and holding onto that spark is so important. Other people can help nuture it, but it has to come from within you, too... and I believe it's there in everyone.

I wish well everyone dealing with all the pain and trauma life has to throw at us, and hugs and love to everyone still struggling to recover. I am so glad RYL exists, I wish I had known about it when I was still struggling.

I don't want to write a long old boring ramble about the in's and out's of my life, but a quick summary to show others that moving on and recovery really is possible!

I've had multiple traumas in my childhood, self harmed frequently from 12 - 18, diagnosis of depression and anxiety (though as I've grown older I've realised that I actually have quite a few BPD traits though have not sought an official diagnosis for a few reasons).
Luckily, I have avoided any admissions to psychiatric wards (though had plenty of trips to A&E!) because I've always been pretty good at 'faking' being well and saying yes/no to all of the right questions, no one in my family really understood mental illness so I knew to conceal that side of me as much as possible.

Anyway - I went to college, dropped out because of stress and a pretty severe depressive episode, but managed to scrape myself back up off the floor to go back to college the following year. I then went on to university and got a 2:1 BSc degree.... And am now a psychiatric nurse, since 2011!

Recovery isn't easy, I still don't feel 100% 'recovered', but it IS possible to begin that road to recovery! :)

It's lovely to read how far people have come :) x

This is such a wonderful thread. Can we sticky it so it's always at the top for people to read and add to?

It's lovely to hear everyone's success stories. :)

I also think this is a lovely thread :). Here's mine (it's a bit of a ramble, but its kind of a long story anyway).

I joined this site in 2004 under a different username, but didn't really start posting until 2008. Things started to get a bit better after that, I sought help in terms of meds (which didn't really do anything for me), counselling (which helped immensely) and in 2009, I met my would-be fiancée, S. We moved in together and spent a wonderful 2 and a half years together, to this day I still don't think I'll meet someone I loved as much as I did her but that's a different story. We didn't work out for a number of reasons, and I spiralled back into my old ways of ODing, self-harming and had to move back in with my parents as I couldn't stand the thought of bumping into her in the town we lived in.

However, I'd say my recovery really began after S and I split up. My mum gave me a period of about 6 months to "get myself sorted" after the break up, so I did a number of things. One thing that really stands out is I managed to secure myself a support worker, and through her organisation (which was/is for adults with learning disabilities rather than adults with mental health problems, although I have/had both) I secured a voluntary placement in a nursery. I would say that this placement is really what turned my life around (although, obviously, I put in a lot of hard work!). I fell in love with all the little children I was looking after, and from there secured a permanent paid job. From this job, I got told I'd be suited to more senior/management roles within the nursery and I decided to go back to college to get my qualifications for these roles. I've currently been at college for 5 weeks and although the workload is manic, I'm loving every second of it. I'm loving the positive things my mentor from my voluntary placement says, she compliments me on how far I've come and how much I'm learning at college and gives me cuddles and things, ha.

Another thing I did was, in order to advocate for the charity my support worker was from, she asked me to give a speech to "a few local people" telling them my story and how the project helped me. "A few local people" turned out to be 500 (which I nearly killed my support worker for! :P). From this speech, I was asked to go down to the Scottish Government and talk to a few Scottish MPs to try and secure the project some much needed funding. I couldn't do this because of my work/placement commitments but I did consent to be filmed for a youtube video and my support worker showed that to the MSPs instead.

So yes, that is my story :). I still find it hard sometimes, especially with the stress of college but usually, I'm far too knackered from looking after little children all day that as soon as I come home, I just go to bed!

Hey, wonderful idea for a thread Soph!

It still feels strange to say that I've recovered but I guess that's what I am :P

I struggled with insomnia from around the age of 6/7 - but depression from the age of 12. I'm now 25. I finally got help with my self-harm suicidal thoughts and depression along with the insomnia when I was 22. It was the hardest decision I had to make. However, I'd struggled with self-harm, suicide attempts and depression alone for 10 years and I needed someone to help me out of it.

The couple of years following that I was in and out of hospitals because of suicide attempts, picked up by police in various places and drinking heavily, but I was also getting support with medication, CBT, DBT, counselling etc.

Up until last year I genuinely thought I wouldn't live to see my 25 birthday, and was harming myself or ending up in hospital every couple of days at least. All of my family told me they thought I was going to end up dead. So did my friends. Even the MH team didn't think I'd see the end of the year. I was almost sectioned because of a suicide plan.

So, to sum up, having been through too many traumas to write out here, and having seen what rock bottom is really like, I can officially say I am recovered from SH and suicidal thoughts. Yes, the depression sometimes pokes it's head up but it doesn't stick around for long. Having lost my job, house, boyfriend, friends and hobbies; I'm now back on track.

I left Uni in my third year, but I'm studying a degree with Open University. I am getting my friends back slowly. I now mentor a number of people locally. I am a Supporter on here. I have a job I enjoy. I'm in a happy relationship. All in all, I'm pretty damn lucky to be where I am. I wouldn't change what I've been through because I know how strong I am now is because of it.

I am also over 18 months SH free and suicide attempts free :)

You can do this!

x x x

I have made recovery posts before and then been disappointed 6 months later when I end up struggling with my mental health again. I know consider myself as someone who is living with a mental illness trying to do my best to live a life despite it.

I think my lowest point was when I was in my late teens from about 16 to 19. There was one particularly bad winter and when I broke up from school for the christmas holidays my friends and teachers where certain that I wouldn't return to school in the new year either I'd be in hospital or simply broken at home or I wouldn't be alive. Somehow, I did make it through Christmas and my school helped me get professional support. I was on a self destruct mission and this did continue despite fantastic support from my school, friends and my doctor. They weren't able to fix me but they kept me alive and they kept me functioning. At the time this was all I needed from them. Thankfully I was able to persuade my school to give me a reference to go to university.

I started university getting away from home as I desperately needed and doing a course I really wanted to do. Two weeks in I relapsed badly into my eating disorder, I was close to being thrown off my course. Paramedics were phoned and they gave me some advice that turned my life around. I can't remember what they said but it made me realised that there was only one person in this world that could make my life better and that was me. The realisation came easily putting into place less so but with time I did start to make more sensible decisions. I made myself a promise that I would keep my weight above the minimum for my height and build (in 7 years I haven't broken it) and I decided I was no longer going to rely on self harm. At first this just meant I did it a lot less but it has now been 4 years since I last self harmed.

In 2010 it became clear that I had bipolar rather than depression and everything seemed to click into place. I had a few more years of pretending it wasn't real coming on and off medication, disengaging with support and indulging in my mental illness. In 2012 I fell back into depression and finally made the decision to take full responsibility of my illness. I committed myself to taking medication and engaged with my new team. Mental health wise 2012 was my worst year, I ended up cycling from depression to hypomania to depression to hypomania and then into the darkest depressive episode since I was a teenager. For the first time in my life I had to take a break from my studies I felt like my world was falling apart and that I was the confused 16 year old girl that tried desperately to self destruct all those years ago. This time round though I didn't fall into the self destructive circle, I worked with my team, fought to keep with the therapy despite their concerns about my mood being too low. With time and patience my mood stabilised.

Things aren't perfect, I still struggle with my mood. There are times when it is bloody awful and I feel like I am back at square one. I still try to self destruct at times, I still get suicidal and have to fight the urges to give in to my illness but I have things to live for and that helps me find the strength to keep putting one foot in front of the other.

Is it okay to post something here even though I just started my journey?

I think it would definitely be OK concrete!

To everyone who has posted their stories; thank you for sharing, they are truly inspiring to read. Congratulations on what you have all achieved :)

I don't consider myself recovered either, but I'm in a much better place than I was 5-6 years ago.

I got referred to CAMHS at age 13 after self-harming for a year or so, and attempting suicide a handful of times. I was diagnosed with depression, did some therapy and was discharged after a few months. Within a month or two, I was referred back after relapsing with the self-harm and taking an OD.

From there I developed psychosis (unbeknownst to everyone around me), my self-harm spiralled out of control and I ended up in A&E after another OD, and was then admitted as an inpatient.

For the next year and a half I was in and out of hospital, I couldn't go to school much, and when I was at home I often had to be supervised by my mum so I didn't run away or attempt suicide.

Since then I've managed to get some A-levels, and I'm now in the third year of my Chemistry degree. I've been living on my own for just over a year now (two, if you count student halls), I haven't been admitted to hospital in over 4 years, and I rarely self harm now. Although I do still have psychotic and depressive episodes every so often, I've gained enough insight to make sure I make my support team aware if this happens, and I can counter the thoughts enough that I don't usually act on them anymore.

Mkay, so I think I started SHing since around either the age of 9 or 11. I forget which. But for about a decade now, I've been SHing on and off, with each period of time growing longer and worse than the last, and also continually less secret (first times were very, very secret and now I think the neighborhood knows something's up). A couple years ago, I had a particularly bad episode, and I joined here because was going to move out to try being on my own with a few roommates for housing in college. I was worried that at some point, I'd end up doing some major damage to housing property as a result of SH.

Fast-forward to the beginning of this year. I started off the semester pretty well, and then it all went downhill pretty fast. My self-doubts were even worse than they had been in previous years, and as a result, so was my inactivity. I went to see the school counselor about it, but we only had 2 meetings, so nothing really could come out of it. The following months ended up in horrible job fair interviews, and my reapplication to the school being declined.

Now in Community college (which many people kind of treat as "failure college"), the same exact pattern in the above paragraph started to happen. One day, when I'd slept through nearly an entire day of school, I decided to finally pick up the phone and call the office there. A couple meetings went by. During the first meeting, she gave me a quiz to take because it sounded to her like I had signs of depression. The test wasn't a full diagnosis on anything, but from the sounds of things, it seems like that test asked the right questions. About a week later, she told me my results of that test were "severely depressed", and thus began my actual journey.

Upon hearing the news of this, Dad decided to give me the number to a Christian counselor (even though I'm athiest, and we'd had that discussion many a time before).

A couple weeks later, I was left in charge of my siblings. Long story short, the youngest and I got in a fight about her going to bed, and it resulted in screaming and me smashing a glass bottle over my head. One 911 call later, and several stitches in my left hand, I was brought to said Christian counselor.

Turned out he's a previous member of the county's crisis center. He knows I'm LGBT now, and he also knows I'm athiest. It seems he also respects both of those.

So I've been seeing both him and the school counselor. Another friend of mine who's had this as a major (and also has been diagnosed with a couple things) has also been a very helpful, very supportive friend and asset.

So I guess what I'm trying to say here is there's a lot that can happen with just one call. When people get an idea of what's going on, it might just help you out. I'm not done at all, but I'm definitely on the right path. Things are being unveiled to me as I go along, and I've got to take note of them. I still don't know if I have anything, but that'll probably be something I know in the near future.

Wow it's awesome to read everyone's success stories I'm so proud of everyone!!

I've stopped cutting for three months which is the longest I've ever gone in a long time. But this is the first time I've actually looked in the mirror and told myself it has to stop and that I actually wanted it to stop.
It's been a difficult road, I started to cut in the 5th grade before I knew what it was and how it was actually bad. My parents knew but ignored it cause we had to be the 'perfect' family so as long as I never showed anyone and kept it covered we could pretend it never happened.
I've had two suicide attempts the first one a friend found me and helped, the second was a hospital trip which wasnt fun at all and still recovering from that.
I've been dealing working with a friend and talk about the physical and sexual abuse in myself and working through everything. So I'm proud of myself for making it this far and hope I can continue. ^w^

I have a diagnosis of BPD and started self harming at the age of 13 (I'm 26 now). From the ages of 17 to 23, I spent most of my life in hospital, often sectioned. I also spent time on medical wards, having surgery or other medical procedures as a result of my self harm. I never saw myself stopping, I only saw things continuing to get worse, and I was told several times that if I continued what I was doing, I would end up dead.

Almost 3 years ago now, I found out that my psychiatrist of almost 8 years was leaving. In true BPD fashion, I disengaged from mh services while continuing to hurt myself badly and regularly presenting to A&E for medical treatment. I was determined not to end up back in hospital though, so I never pushed things to the point where I might get sectioned again, although I was still very ill (physically and emotionally). Then 2 years ago, I met a guy on an online mh forum (not this one!) and we eventually started dating. Again, in true BPD fashion, I continued to hurt myself, both to see if it would drive him away and because I felt like I didn't deserve to be in a relationship with such a nice guy.

I was a total mess, and I also had this thing about turning 25 (basically I didn't want it to happen) so I attempted suicide quite a few times that year (one time I was so out of it, I went online and told someone who called an ambulance, another time my landlord happened to look through my window and saw me collapsed on the floor, and a few times I just woke up a day or 2 later with a fuzzy head). I turned 25, and a few days later I attempted suicide again. It didn't work, but when I woke up, I found myself struggling to breathe and feeling very dizzy. I was anaemic at the time, so I put it down to a combination of that and anxiety as I figured what I'd done had worn off by then. It continued getting worse for a few days, to the point where I could barely stand and was getting chest pain. I had a GP appointment scheduled that week, so figured I could wait it out until then. The day of my appointment came, and I realised I couldn't walk the very short distance from the bus stop to my GP surgery, so got a taxi there. I walked into her, she took one look at me and called an ambulance. It turns out it wasn't anxiety or anaemia or a result of my suicide attempt. I had a blood clot in each of my lungs that was stopping blood circulating around my body properly, and by the time I got to A&E I couldn't breathe without oxygen. They told me if I'd waited any longer then I could have died. I'd heard those words before, but they'd always been as a result of my actions, something I chose. Realising I could have died without trying somehow felt completely different. It was then that I decided that I wanted to live.

It didn't just happen though. I continued self harming, but it slowly started becoming less frequent. I agreed to see a psychologist again, and this time I was seeing her for me - not because someone else forced me to or because I didn't want to disappoint people, but because I really wanted to get better and to start living my life. I applied the skills she taught me, I challenged myself, I reached out to people, I stepped outside my comfort zone. All on my own I found and applied to a mh centre that offers groups and support and social activities, and I've been going to that for a few months. I got engaged in July, and my fiancé moved in with me in September.

I haven't hurt myself in almost 6 months now, which has never happened before. I don't count days though, because my focus isn't on the absence of self harm, it's on living my life the way I want to. And that's what I'm doing. I'm interacting with people, learning new skills, living with and planning to marry an incredibly supportive guy, thinking about children in the not-too-distant future. I am managing my anxiety, and doing things in spite of it. I am learning that there are people out there who can be trusted, and the ones who can't don't matter anyway.

This is a good idea, someone remind me to post my story later! I'd do it now but it is a bit of an essay.

Hey I hope this will be my last post on Ryl and it seems appropriate that it's in this thread. So I won't go into the whys but I started self harming in 2003, but I'm now 3 years and a month free! I would say I'm recovered, though some days and some moments are still hard but I just won't let myself now, I've come too far to ever go back to that (I hope) getting my wrists tattooed with helpful song lyrics has helped, I couldn't destroy them by cutting there now. I don't really know what else has helped, I guess when I moved house I decided to start over and luckily I've been happier in general and just let a lot of stuff from the last go. I know that's a hard thing to do, but you get to the stage where you kind of have to if you want to be happy and healthy again. Also, I've had no hospital stays or suicide attempts since 2008 which is great. I hope I can stay well and self harm free forever. Good luck to you all, if I can stop anyone can!
Have some hugs and stay strong xx

Great to hear such positive stories and best of luck in the future!

For me, I never thought I'd be able to get out of the rut of binging and purging. I thought it was my life forever, and I would die soon. Indeed, the amount I was purging I was close to death. I felt trapped and alone and stuck with my disorder.

But I found with time, friends and sticker charts I could get out of it. I started spending more time with other people, particularly Jenna, and that helped immensely. She gave me hope, and sticker charts. She spent time with me when I would normally be purging. She helped me to realize I didn't need to spend every waking moment with my head in a toilet.

So I started to stop... I spent more time with people and less time eating. I spent my days happy rather than numb and out of it.

I really couldn't have done it alone, so anyone out there struggling, please I implore you to seek help and advice from either professionals, or those around you if you can. Spending time with people is really a great way to motivate you to not do the bad things anymore.

Sorry this was rambley.

All these stories are really wonderful and inspiring to read :)

I have been meaning to write stuff here, and I have finally got round to it!

I am doing pretty well these days. Thinking back to several years ago, I was a bit of a mess. I have always had periods of being absolutely fine and extended periods of being very low, and for a long time I did not cope well at all with the lows. I'd feel terrible for no apparent reason, spend days in bed, go weeks without doing anything productive or attending to basic needs. And instead of being compassionate with myself, I'd absolutely berate myself for it, telling myself that I 'should' be functioning, I 'should' be okay. When I got stuck in the darkness, I'd find it impossible to believe that I would ever feel alright again. I couldn't see that it was 'worth it' to keep going through the same crap over and over. So, of course, I coped in unhealthy ways. I self-harmed a lot, and of course it was never 'enough' to make things okay, because it is the wrong kind of coping method altogether, but instead of realising that, I let it get worse and worse. And when it didn't help, I'd get suicidal and just want everything to be over, because it felt absolutely unbearable, and it hurt just to keep breathing, and it didn't seem possible to live like that. There were several hospital admissions.

The other day actually, I read something I wrote on here about five years ago. That was a horrendous time. Things have never been quite that bad again, and I hope they never will again. I was so, so low. I had to take time out of university because I just couldn't study, couldn't focus, couldn't function at all. I moved back in with my parents for a while, and tried unsuccessfully to pretend everything was fine. I genuinely didn't think I'd ever feel okay again. I was scared and on edge all the time. I was convinced that there were demons following me around waiting to possess me, and that they wanted me to kill myself. I find it kind of heartbreaking now, thinking back to that time.

A couple of months in hospital, the right antidepressants, and CBT, were all helpful, and things did get better and I got back to uni and I haven't struggled quite that much since. But recovery is a process and I still have really struggled. I have still had months and months of being low and feeling unable to cope, and it has taken me a very long time to get to the point where I no longer rely on unhealthy ways of coping.

You know that C.S. Lewis quote, "Isn't it funny how day by day nothing changes, but when you look back everything is different." Recovery has been like that for me. It was long and slow and a lot of the time it seemed like nothing was changing. I'd have months and months of being fine and then bam, I was right in the middle of a 'low patch' again and I couldn't believe that anything had actually changed. It had, it was just hard to see. It eventually clicked into place when I realised that there are so, so many things I want out of life, and they just wouldn't be possible if I kept self-harming and such. And I want those things way more than I want a life that is filled with self harm and trips to A&E and hospital admissions.

Realising that didn't take away the mood issues. I still struggle with those. I still have times when I am very low and can't function at the level I usually would. I struggle far more than I used to with 'ups' as well now. But the difference now is that I know I can cope. I have survived everything up to now and I will continue surviving. Sometimes it still hurts to breathe and on a bad day, all I do is just focus on breathing and getting through all this time that seems to move at an unbearably slow pace. But that's okay. I'm much more able now to accept how I feel and treat myself with gentleness and compassion. I have a lot of positive things in my life. I got my degree. I have amazing people around me, and I am so grateful. I manage to work full time and even enjoy it sometimes! I have plans for the future.

I want to be able to say that everything is great now and I won't have low patches in the future. But that isn't the case. I am not 'recovered'. But I am recovering, and probably always will be. It's a work in progress. But that's kind of just how life is. And these days I'm okay with that. It's not a bad thing. It's wonderful and horrible and messy and painful and beautiful. And all of that, the whole lot of it, is just wonderful. I don't ask whether it's 'worth it' anymore. It doesn't work like that. It is what it is, and I do what I can to make each day the best it can be. I am continually grateful to be alive and to have so many positive things in my life. I'm even (sometimes!) grateful for my struggles because I can use them to work on being more self-aware, more compassionate, and more appreciative of the good times.

Thank you for sharing your inspiring stories.

A few lines really struck a chord with me and really summed up my recovery too.

I think I can add to this thread :)

I've had mental health issues since I was 12, in particular depression, social anxiety and hallucinations/delusions. I was suicidal and self destructive for most of my teenage years and self harmed everyday, which eventually became a coping mechanism for tactile hallucinations.

I told nobody what I was experiencing mostly due to the fact I was not close to anybody and this went on until my second year of uni when I had a complete relapse. I barely left my house for about 6 months not going to lectures as I was too paranoid thinking people were trying to control me and were plotting to kill me and eventually withdrew to get treatment.

I've been diagnosed with various illnesses since then including bipolar type 2, schizophrenia, complex PTSD and now BPD and Aspergers Syndrome. I knew I would never get better unless I worked hard so instead of believing my doctors who told me I was too complicated a case to get talking treatment and should just be left with medication (I've been on 13 different ones) I took steps to regain my independence in particular by volunteering then getting a job. Up until last year I was hallucinating at least 10-12 hours a day, however in order to reduce my medication by nearly 90% I changed my attitude towards what I was experiencing and also aspects of my personality became stronger and now I barely experience it. I'm no longer on antidepressants and am on the minimum dose of antipsychotic, which is basically a sleep aid.

It's been hard, I went through years of being suicidal every day believing I had no future, I lost my memory, my identity, my intelligence, my home, my friends, all my money, my career to illness, and I relearnt it and regained it all from scratch. I can say now that after 6 years since my mental breakdown I haven't taken time off work due to illness for well over a year, I am happy, normal, living in the city surrounded by good friends, have been living away from family support for nearly 3 years and applying to go back to university next year.

I still have residues of some issues, like social anxiety and flashbacks, and some external voices, my 6 years away from reality has slowed down my development and I can't always communicate properly with people but otherwise I am a functioning adult.

If there's one thing I can say about recovery from mental illness it's lay the foundations, one step at a time. At first I couldn't even wash my hair on my own, and I knew things would get better as long as I kept trying and moving forward. The main thing that got me through it all was kindness from others, patience, understanding, and acceptance. I am very honest about my mental health condition and that in itself has given me confidence. I'm not ashamed to have a disability and hope that it's made me into a more compassionate person.

that is a good story.....well done and good luck

It's really good to hear such a positve story Dragonsmoke!