Why Advocacy is Key to Recovery
Please, fight for yourself, friends, and family!
Doing homework when severely depressed is an indescribable feeling. When nothing seems to matter anymore, putting effort toward anything seems like a waste of energy. At the lowest point in your life, you would expect nothing would be asked of you. But, that’s not how life works. Not for me at least. To improve, I had homework to do.
For the record, it took me a long time to come to this conclusion. For months, I shuffled my feet into therapists, psychiatrists, and other appointments with no intention of showing I cared to get better. I thought that if I looked soulless, providers would try harder to improve my situation. Maybe for some that was true, but reflecting on my time has helped me discover the necessity of buckling down for a short amount of time to get to the possibilities of why I felt like garbage. Worse than garbage, like an entire dump.
It is a harsh reality to learn that you must advocate for yourself when you horrendous.
To maximize your odds of recovery, you must prove to yourself, and others, that you are casting a vote for living.
Perhaps the hardest task, I recognize that, but somewhere from within it’s essential that you find the slightest drive to show you want to improve.
My grocery list of psychiatric diagnoses that never checked out. The accurate diagnosis would eventually follow after aggressive measures by my family and me. And, of course much homework, which you'll read about in another blog post.
Millions of people have improved from mental health illnesses, and at some point I’m sure a large percentage of that population has advocated for themselves. I’m not the only one.
I’ve identified three areas where advocacy was critical to my recovery:
Friends and family: I’m lucky to have a supportive network of friends and family. That said, because they are so helpful, I was asked many questions about how they could help. If I did not give helpful answers, it would be incredibly difficult for them to do any type of research to help. When I finally understood the importance of sharing my experience, and showing I wanted to improve, they helped me more effectively.
My psychiatrist: I had horrible experiences with several psychiatrists. They walked into appointments, usually when I was hospitalized, and would lazily ask me questions about my situation. The same questions I heard over, and over, and over again. “What meds are you on?” “Are you feeling suicidal?” “Do you have any side effects?” All important questions. But, if I sat there and responded to their questions without asking any of my own, I would usually walk out with a generalized plan for improvement. Once again, to improve my odds of recovery, I had to vouch for myself. “Why am I being prescribed Clozapine?” “Why are my meds not being adjusted when everything is still so horrible?” Don’t get me wrong, these psychiatrists are intelligent, trained, and have lots of experience. But each case is unique, and it’s your responsibility to get in the ring and fight until you’ve gotten the answers you need.
Yourself: Permit yourself to feel awful. Tell yourself life sucks because it’s the truth. Tell yourself this isn’t fair. Because it isn’t. And it’s not your fault. Nobody should be under the covers, suffering silently on a bright sunny day. So, don’t do anything if you have the luxury to check out slightly. However, when you walk into that office or take a call from your providers, do all that you can to yank yourself out of that state of mind. Make it count.
In hindsight, I think I made the mistake of shuffling my feet for too long, but it didn’t feel like a mistake at the time — it felt like survival. Just showing up to the appointments was a win.
You have a choice. On some days, your vote is just for living. It’s OK to consider showing up at an appointment as a win. But when you’re capable of voting to get better, try to find it within yourself to be your own best advocate.