A mental illness relapse tricked me into thinking I was a fraud. As the author of the blog entitled Getting Through Tough Times, I am required -- by the very delineation of the phrase -- to speak about my own tough times. It’s my job to share obstacles I have overcome and urge other people to do the same (Mental Health 101: Developing Coping Strategies). But recently I’ve felt like a fake, a fraud. I’ve sat in front of a computer screen with my fingers poised above the keys, ready to type a stream of words that sound fancy and wise, and I’ve stood in front of a camera with a bunch of rehearsed clichés, prepared to spout them out robotically. But I could never go through with it because I was struggling with my own form of mental illness relapse. And for those with a history of mental illness, that is what struggling so frequently means (Anatomy Of A Mental Illness Relapse).

The definition of mental illness recovery is a “return to a normal state of health, mind or strength. To regain possession or control of something stolen or lost.” For me, and for others suffering with a mental illness, the loosely named "recovery" is the ultimate goal. To integrate back into normality, to regain the possession of broken faculties, to retrieve the logical mind that has somehow been lost. That is mental illness recovery.

Time after time I told myself I was going to change. Today was the day. All I had to do was make different choices. Choose to be normal. Choose to fit in. Choose to be strong. It was as simple and easy as making the right choice. But I couldn’t do it. Did having a mental illness make me weak?

One of the most memorable mental health therapy sessions I have ever had focused almost entirely on the question “what does your anorexia do for you?" That was it, just those few words, lost on the vast, white surface of the display board. There were no hidden meanings, no underlying hints of the rhetorical. I was simply faced with the one question I had never been seriously asked before: does mental illness serve a purpose? And my mind exploded, shifting perspectives in a rare and colossal flash of clarity.