Why is Recovering From Mental Illness So Difficult?

Recovering from mental illness IS difficult. It takes time AND it takes effort. I believe there is a high reoccurrence of depression because people do not make significant changes. Some people recover by time alone. Some may recover with support of medicines. However, I believe in a multi-pronged recovery which may look different for everybody. It may include a support group of friends/family, therapist, engaging in a hobby, mindfulness/meditation, journaling, support groups, etc. It takes time and effort to recover...and it is WELL worth the effort! I blog on depression, stigma, & suicide awareness/prevention at allevin18.wordpress.com. You can also find me on Twitter @allevin18. Thanks for your article!

My understanding that comes from the National Mental Health Standards is that Recovery is living a meaningful life with or without the symptoms of mental illness. Under that definition most people are in recovery and my own recovery journey is non-linear involving cycles of inevitable relapse. With recovery orientated services in the community I believe many people can live recovery orientated lives. In fact I believe my mental illness had helped me become more empathetic and compassionate to other people who are suffering. Developing a strong support network is important whether they be your family or family of choice is vitally important and as a community we need to support people who become socially isolated. I agree that recovery is hard work and sometimes we need to accept baby steps and small victories. In bad times it helps to hold onto hope, and I think peer workers can play a vital part in demonstrating that recovery is possible even without a 'cure'. Some of the things that make recovery much harder is discrimination, stigma, shame and blame. Sometimes medications have unpleasant side effects which is as other sad truth about living with mental illness, your meds might cause you to put on weight, shake, drool or become tired. Some people hate the medication and I support their right to make informed decissions about thief care. I accepted that I hada mental illness quite easily, but it took me nearly ten years to realise how big an effect it would have on my life and the lives of those I love. I don't think we have a grieving process from the losses that can come from living a life with mental illness.

This is an old article but was reposted to FB so I hope that the replies are still checked. I have suffered from bipolar for over 20 yrs. Depression has been much worse than mania. It is extremely difficult to have hope when I do all of the things that I should (therapy, medication, self-help) and I only make a small amount of progress. I am not able to function and the intellectual level that I once could or take on the stress that that functional level required. I am not the same person I once was and will never again be that person. I am so tired of trying. Where do I find hope?

The hardest part of my MI, is living up to the the demands of modern Christianty. God included. I feel I was created against my will.

The five reasons pointed out why mental illness is so difficult to recover from are outstanding! That being said, I don't suffer from mental illness, I enjoy every minute of it! God Bless

How do you know it's not without hope? Is Michael J Fox going to get better? Are you sure?

After reading this purposeful objection, I can say that process of recovering from mental health illness indicates as long and complex psychiatric approach. Beside your five exactly point, the recovery from mental disorder requires a satisfactory support from community as ameliorative psyco-social milieu where concrete psychiatric patient lives and works. To achieve this goal, it should undertaken a set of numerous psycho-social intervention, that have got crucial impact in functional promotion and affirmation, as well, on mental health care system. Psycho-educational supply indicates the primary place and role in community that make possible to haved a complete psychiatric management of mental illnesses. In this efficient activity would participate more social factors, amidst them governement, schooling institutions, socio-cultural activities...have got primary role. It goes without saying, that professionals of mental health care team have the main duty to manage the functional promotion of mental health service.

I've recently been diagnoses bipolar 2. It feels like I'll never be well enough to simply take care of the (should be) easy stuff in life. I'm exhausted. I'm hopeless. I just won't it to all end... Lithium makes me care just enough to keep getting out of bed every day. That's it though... I'm merely existing. This is NOT really living. Suicide was the one control factor I had. Thanks to lithium, I don't even have that anymore.

I thought after my 1st "severe deppressive" episode @ 20,that I was dying,had a brain tumor,and what did dr's mean I was depressed,that was just being down in the dumps,not being in the awful nightmare that had become my life!I was ill,w/some horrid bizarre disease I thought.Ha,well...Many months later I started to get "better" despite all the life shattering events that occured @ the same time this all was going on.After being certain this would never happen again to me,guess what?It did!This time phsych meds became the order of the day and have continued to be when things got bad again.Today I have been on them many years.Doing better or doing worse all flow on together now.I also have a grown daughter who started developing symptoms of OCD among other things.I was going to make sure she got the help she needed and she was going to get well!Ha on me again is all I will say.Niether of us has "recovered".It is a daily struggle.