Earlier this week, I wrote a blog on the topic of self-care when you live with a mental illness. Within that blog I focused on the importance of exercise, nourishing our bodies properly and having a regular sleep pattern. This blog will focus less on what we need to do to stay well but what we might consider avoiding--external and internal negative influences-- in order to recover from mental illness effectively.

When you are first diagnosed with a mental illness you are told--probably within the same five minutes--that self-care is crucial when working to become stabilized. What is Self-Care and Why is It Important?

The title of this blog, Recovering from Mental Illness, argues that, yes, it is possible to recover from mental illness. But recovering from a mental illness is different from, say, recovering from a physical injury. I broke my ankle two years ago and spent time on crutches and in physiotherapy. The recovery period was slow, six months passed before I could walk with both feet, but my ankle slowly healed. It became well and functioned as it once had. I could rely on it to take me through the day. I could go running again. Recovering from mental illness is not the same. The process probably does not require physiotherapy and Tylenol as the drug of choice. The road to recovery from mental illness is much longer, not usually smooth, and perhaps hot to the touch. Metaphors aside: it isn't easy.