Recovery, the very word itself, is as a foreign language to those not participating in their own journeys. An individual not ready to admit how the choices of their lives are negatively impacting them will find themselves at odds with the one seeking guidance out of their craziness. Added to that, seeing one break free from destruction may cause a conviction upon the other not in recovery, who therein reacts with anger and tactics to undermine the healer in attempt to get them to re-join the toxic pathway.
I have been on a journey of recovery since 2006 when I was first diagnosed with Bipolar 1. In those early days, I found myself fearful of the label yet clung to it for some hope of answer. I felt isolated from others due to my own doing as well as being surrounded by those not suffering from the throes of mental illness. The term "mental illness" or any of its various diagnoses felt foreign and a death sentence. In 2008, I found NAMI and other forms of support groups, low income therapy, and throughout left the feeling of isolation and began the recovery journey.
However, being part of a fundamentalist "evangelical" worldview plus not yet working on my codependent rescuing, left me with the inability to not make recovery about myself, leaving the others journeys their own. I attempted multiple times, throughout all of my life but especially in the early days of recovery, to TELL people their issues, what was wrong, with the hopes of assisting only to be met with resistance, anger, loss of friendship.
As time wore on further, I used this 'rescuing' and the knowledge earned from my insatiable desire to learn all things, that being psychology in recovery, as a means to set boundaries. Labeling another to their face with a diagnosis was not acceptable according to my position. Setting boundaries is not about fixing or changing the other, even punishing the other, it's caring for oneself in affirming how one's desire for respect.
Furthermore, setting boundaries is an act of love for oneself and others. Recovery, in itself, is not about the other but the self healing. In my journey at present, I seek to maintain the focus on myself, how others affect me, not to punish or change them, but how I may care for myself and assist in my soul's evolution. Not to say that I am completely perfect in this self-work, that would defect the point of recovery (See Step One), rather I daily choose to come back to myself. In the world of recovery, we say "progress not perfection". For I cannot know truly what is in the mind of another, nor can they know mine, I can only choose to act in integrity of self love, doing my best to not react to toxicity, but also learning to stand for myself with an unshakable voice and inner stability.
Never do I seek to close myself in the impacting of boundaries to the opportunity of healthy, honest conversations with those still in the throes of their own pain, but I do not pressure them in word or deed, force them into healing, rather as I focus on self, I put my assurance that truly others journey towards discovery of self is found in 'attraction, not evangelism".
.webp)
In my recovery
I’m a soldier at war
I have broken down walls
I defined
I designed
My recovery
Keep soaring
Keep song-writing
Keep soaring
Keep song-writing
My recovery
