My Recovery Story

I have such a wonderful sense of empowerment in my recovery now. I have so much support from people I love and that continuously show me how worthy I am by reflecting to me how much they care about me and show me that I am cared about and loved. I am so appreciative of my chosen family, my recovery family, that has helped me get through such dark times of excruciating distress. I have learned through the support I have gotten that I am truly not alone. I am connected to all the people that have given me the space to be myself and have accepted me unconditionally and with such an open-mind ad so much empathy. I have been shown that peer support is critical to thriving in recovery. I have struggled with self-harm since I was 13. I have had substance use issues that I’ve successfully tackled and overcome. I have had body image issues and issues with disordered eating, mental health issues and psychosis as I am diagnosed with Schizophrenia. I’ve got PTSD from some adverse childhood experiences as well as from adulthood that I cope with now in healthy, self-compassionate ways because I know and value that my experiences are valid and I have to show myself some grace with the negative decisions I have made in the past to cope self-destructively with distress as in the past that was all I knew how to do, I was lost. Now, I use healthy tools and go to a lot of online recovery meetings to get peer support and love that so many relate to me and I relate back. I work in recovery for youth and volunteer leading peer support groups in different spaces because this isn’t just a job to me or service work. It’s a purpose, it is the most meaningful action that I can do for my wellness as well as to show gratitude for the battles I have overcome with care from the communities I participate in. My quality of life now is beautiful, is based in radical acceptance and a calm that comes with understanding my reactions and feelings better and having that insight allows me to choose, very mindfully, to be safe and loving to myself, to nurture my needs and wants and allow myself to grow every day by reflecting on my thoughts and changing them as needed to ones that serve me better and lead to healthy feelings and safe and productive actions that make me feel proud of myself and excited for the next moment of clarity. I understand now that no feelings or thoughts should be given a moral value. They are neither good nor bad. I don’t have to run far away from my uncomfortable, distressing emotions so much now, because I can accept that they may be uncomfortable and allow them to unfold and take me to an insightful headspace from sitting with the feeling and riding out the experience without feeling overwhelmed by it because I can understand and see now that I can feel things and don’t have to cause myself harm to hide or escape them. I can sit with urges and moments of pain as well as use healthy methods of getting safely away from uncomfortable or intrusive thoughts and feelings so I can get to feelings that are more comfortable and enjoyable. Recovery is not liner, healing is not linear, my feelings are fluid and constantly changing and I am grateful to have my experiences now and feel so powerful in my abilities to find strength in difficult and overwhelming times and come out feeling resilient and with a growth mindset and more helpful perspectives.

My Motivation To Help

I know what it’s like to have adverse experiences, to suffer with problematic, maladaptive compulsive behaviors and it is so important to me that people don’t feel alone and don’t have to suffer in silence and isolation and have that pain be overwhelming and unbearable. I am here to carry some of the weight that emotional distress can have because I have often felt alone and that my suffering was too heavy for me to carry. I’ve been blessed and gifted with wonderful friends that all support me and have helped me get to a wonderfully safe space within myself by providing the empathetic support I have always needed, that we all need from time to time. I have felt terrible in my struggles when I didn’t have anyone to connect with and reach out to, so I know how painful that loneliness can be, that silence and desperation for someone to hear me. I don’t want anyone to feel alone, I don’t want anyone to be left unsupported especially when they are crying out for help or reaching out for a listener. I am here to give back to the recovery world and community what was so freely and lovingly given to me— compassion.

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