This is what recovery feels like.

On Monday I had the most amazing day.  I looked at everyone with kindness and love. If someone had something I’d have felt envious about in the past, I looked at it thinking, wow that’s cool, I’m going to work towards having that one day. I didn’t feel any resentment towards anything/anyone and most amazingly, if someone said something sensitive or cutting, it didn’t hurt me.

Furthermore, I felt so confident that I was able be a 'part of’, I belonged. At orchestra rehearsal in the evening, I joined in on conversations in the break, I was comfortable to just listen, I didn’t feel like I had to be impressive or please anyone in order for them to accept or approve of me, I knew I was enough and worthy. 

This feeling was surprisingly odd, I’d never felt like this in my life, it was so new. I sort of walked around bedazzled (yes that is a word) because nothing was frightening me. I was curious at to why the boogey man hadn’t jumped out at me, but I quickly understood that he didn’t need to, nor was he going to. I understood for the first time ever why people wanted to live, why they were afraid of dying. 

Since Monday, I have become used to this feeling very quickly. It’s like a drug, if you have something that makes you feel so good, you want it again and again, one possesses a new level of expectations. I have felt good every day since Monday. It’s feeling normal now. Four consecutive days of feeling 'normal'. Just two days ago I was explaining to my therapist, how I was feeling the most remarkable sense of ecstatic joy. She explained to me that I was not feeling ecstasy, rather how people without emotional disregulation experience healthy happiness. 

It is remarkable how people react to me. They smile and look at me with kindness and love. They are happy to be in my presence. It is very subtle, but for me it is so loud and clear. I am a pleasure to be around. I had dinner Tuesday and Wednesday with people. Friends invited me to eat with their partners and children. It felt like I was a part of a family. Just being me was a contribution.

I am so filled with gratitude and humility. I feel like God has said, ‘Kate, welcome to the human race, you are one of them.

The combination of a Twelve Step Program and Dialectal Behaviour Therapy together with my sheer determination and courage have made this all possible. For this I am truly grateful.

Mountains of love to my DBT therapist and AA. Thank you for accompanying me on this journey of recovery.

I won't do it.

Currently at work, I am dealing with a client who is demonstrating really destructive behaviour. It's very self sabotaging, abusive and rude. I identify with it all. In fact I laugh because I've done exactly the same thing. This client is getting so much support from the government with doctors, social workers, cleaners etc etc. but the woman is just refusing to do anything and is being abusive to those trying to help her.

My heart goes out to the client because I can see how much pain she is in, and those trying to help her are getting really worn out and are therefore increasing the invalidation and causing her more grief. As a peer support worker, how do I get her from, 'I won't do it' to 'I want to do it'? We have to get the client to a place of really wanting to get on the recovery journey. I remember being there myself, I was in so much pain that I couldn’t do, feel or think anything. So anyone saying, ‘come on Kate, you need to do this’….I’d tell them to f*%# off because I felt like they had no idea how hard/impossible it would have been for me to do 'that', they just didn’t understand and they must have thought I was being silly and should just get over myself (after all that’s what I believe my mother has been telling me for forty five years). The only way for the pain to have stopped would have been to exit this world. My poor client is saying I'll have blood on my hands if she is successful in this. From my experience I do know however she is safe. 

In the end I had no help whatsoever, my friends were fed up with me, I was fed up with my family and I had ‘sacked’ any doctors/social workers trying to help. Typical Borderline behaviour. Perhaps my friends weren't fed up with me, but I believed they were, I didn't want that they would have to 'suffer' me anymore so I isolated myself.

Realising that I couldn’t seem to exit this world (after five attempts), meant that I would have to find a way to make life bearable. It was the first time I had reached the 'I want to do it' step. The first thing was that I had to find a way not to loose my house. I luckily found a job in which I used my experience as a mental health patient. I was a ‘peer support worker’, ‘peer’ meaning I also was a mental health ‘consumer’, a consumer of mental health services. I used my ‘lived experience’ to help others cope and recover. This was a great foundation to my recovery. I was a useful member of the community, the increased amount of time I spent with other consumers, helped me to feel less lonely and that my feelings and pain were valid. I felt so good about myself sharing my coping strategies to help others and I wasn’t going to lose my house. I was alone, but I had a great team and clients at work. My new employer was supportive enough to keep me afloat, not much more.

Finally the 18 month wait was over and I started DBT (Diabolical Behaviour Treatment…..ha ha only joking, Dialectic Behaviour Treatment). I think it was that first day in which I met my DBT individual therapist when I got to the ‘how do I do it' step. I had found someone who said, 'come on Kate, this is how you do it'. This person (Dr Fabbo), who was telling me what to do, did know how much pain I was in, did understand what I could and couldn’t do, was prepared to tolerate me when I tell her to f *^% off. God had given me the right help. This was my big opportunity. I felt confident that these clinicians were not ‘one of them’ (mental health clinicians). Well they weren’t ‘one of us’ (mental health consumers) but they were a ‘one of them’ who know precisely how it was to be ‘one of us’. We became, 'we are one'. 

The first day I went to group therapy I was terrified. I hid my face and cried the whole way through it. I just knew that I couldn’t leave that room, this was 'how to do it'. My commitment to changing and beginning to live a life that was bearable depended on it. The odd thing was that the other participants and clinicians in the room did nothing about my sobbing. It was awesome. They didn’t embarrass me by saying anything, making a fuss of me or giving me sympathy. Their silence was pure empathy and understanding. It was although my behaviour was totally normal. I felt totally safe and validated. So throughout the morning my crying changed from fear tears to soothing and relief tears.

My journey to recovery had begun.