Is MH recovery like a game of snakes and ladders

Hi @Glisten

Do you think that evolving is moving forward or means your resilience has increased? I would have thought it was.

I am asking this next question completely out of interest, I am not eluding to anything by it, but just to genuinely increase my own understanding. Why did you put neurodivergence aside?

I definitely agree people can have programmed behaviours because of their backgrounds that were useful, but now are no longer so, but sometimes they are so ingrained it is difficult to stop.

Yes recovery, or evolution does take a lot of energy and time and is possibly, or even probably, is an ongoing thing.

I wonder what other people think @MJG017 @Oaktree @Appleblossom @Shaz51 @Just @tyme @Clawde @ArraDreaming @Spirit_Healer @Blackcloud

@Till23 @Glisten I agree we change. We interact with what's happening for us and around us but it often depends on where we're coming from ourselves and it's not always useful to see it as progress or regression.

Interesting re adrenal gland remark, I've just been told I have a mass on/in one of mine.

I agree @Dimity overall I would not be thinking of progression and I definitely wouldn't say regression, but just the ups and downs. I am wondering if people feel there are ups and downs in their MH journey, not small ones, which I think happens with anything in life, but more major ones. I suppose I am just trying to get more of an understanding of MH journeys, everyone's journey is definitely different, but are ther some things that are more general.

I suppose also I am thinking, a bit of what could my journey look like, are there any generalisations that can be made. Sometimes I feel if I am slipping down, is it my fault, have I not been aware of something etc

@Till23 yes, very.

i find that it tends to happen quite a lot to me. like at one point i'm in a good place and that I'm able to regain my life back, but then other times it's like going back to square one and you suddenly have all of these negative and possibly self-hatred/self-loathing thoughts come to you to the point where you think that you dont feel that life is worth the living but then at the same time you keep holding on and try to keep push through the days.

@Till23

As part of my course unit on trauma-informed care, I watched a video yesterday from a psychiatrist. He talked about the ongoing damage from trauma is not necessarily the event itself, but the loss of a feeling of safety after if there is no support. Humans apparently are quite good at dealing with trauma. The example he used was a child getting bitten by a dog. Yes it can be traumatic, but the parent/s will generally pick the child up, comfort them and care for them. So the child still feels safe and doesn't develop coping strategies to feel safe again. Apart from not liking dogs i guess.

Compare that to a traumatic event where there is little or no support after. Coping strategies are formed to keep us safe, and they work, so we rely on them. But eventually they become detrimental to further development, and now they are damaging trauma responses we've developed whenever we feel that safety is at risk.

I think i covered the main points of it correctly, and it made a lot of sense to me in regards to my own childhood and why I still struggle so much to change those behaviors I developed back then to keep myself feeling safe. Only now (and most of my adult life) all they have done is keep me isolated and unable to form close connections with anyone.

I'm getting better now that i've started to understand a lot more over the past 6 months or so, but i think it just takes a lot of time and effort. I think they'll always be there in my mind, so i definitely see it as an ongoing process in not listening to them as much.

Good afternoon @Till23 @MJG017 @Blackcloud @Dimity ,

I think of my progress in recovery in terms of a graph - and I describe it as non-linear in terms of negative to positive health. It doesn't aways improve.

Many mental illnesses including mine are episodic - there are times when I'm functioning well, and episodes when I'm too unwell to work at all.

My aim with recovery is to maximise the times I'm well and minimise the proportion of time when I'm in an acute episode.

Each episode, I learn more about how my illness presents - what works and what doesn't, in regards to medications, psychotherapy and the people I choose to have around me.

Over time, I've developed coping strategies such as exercise, mindfulness meditation, art, music (playing and listening), healthy eating, spirituality, socialising, etc.

What a wonderful discussion you began @Till23

@Blackcloud @Spirit_Healer @MLE @MJG017 @Glisten

My mental health journey has involved lots of research in both the general field and in my childhood and family history. I have usually been the one visiting... So also felt my needs and existence often overlooked in the in the broader scheme of things. It is only recently I am the person receiving care. Mostly for me it has been a Survival journey and doing the next right thing.

My family demographic has been extremely complicated.

I first visited mum in hospital at 4, then dad when I was 10, then siblings and now son.

Had to do an awful lot of reading to understand normal and then all the funny sounding names they called all my family... Then Deconstruction of all the labels to see them as human beings...

Then coming to understand me and how weird my life has been. Definitely ups and downs and episodes and coping til the point I am wary of the use of resilience as a buzzword. There are limits and when our natural limits are exceeded there can be damage to the physical body.

Hello @Till23 , a great thread My friend 🧡

Hello @MJG017 , @MLE , @Spirit_Healer , @Appleblossom , @Dimity , @Glisten , @MissGremlin

Hello @Shaz51. Hope you are well ❤️