Sunday Writing Prompt – A Multitude of Musings

A ton of ideas are floating through my mind for topics I want to write about. However, I’m tempted to just do another #WDIIA post. I also realize I signed up for the #AtoZChallenge and haven’t even started drafting my posts for it yet. Ugh, that’s me being a blogger. Instead of drafting a post in advance though, I’m participating in Mindlovemisery’s Menagerie’s Sunday Writing Prompt for yesterday, for which the theme is Dear Diary. And no, this isn’t going to be a boring description of today. I hope it will be a diary entry I can write someday in 2021, when like I predicted last year, everything will be okay. Here goes.

Dear diary,

I just took a look at some old blog posts from last year. Today is September 30, 2021. My sister and brother-in-law have their fifth wedding anniversary today. Hubby and I just had our tenth on the 19th. It was wonderful! We celebrated by going out at my not-so-newly favorite restaurant, where both of us ordered unlimited piri-piri chicken. It was delicious! My husband had the following week off, so I decided to stay with him for the week. Since traveling still was discouraged last year, but isn’t this year, we took some time to vacation at a nice resort. I spent most of the time in the swimming pool. Boy, have I missed swimming!

I’ve also missed going out to dinner. Oh and ordering pizza. Though during most of the COVID-19 crisis, Domino’s still delivered pizzas, there was no-one to eat them with, since my husband couldn’t visit.

Oh, I’m so happy my husband didn’t leave me over that whole COVID-19 thing. I mean, it took several months before the no-visitors rule was lifted at my care facility. I was worried all of this time that hubby would want to have a real wife who could be with him. Apparently not. He wants me.

I’m so glad the worry is a lot less than it was last year. I’ve been working on my self-worth in therapy and getting EMDR for my childhood trauma. Thankfully, mental health resumed regular face-to-face sessions in June last year. By now, I feel better than I’ve ever before.

In 2019, I wrote on my blog that, by 2021, everything would be okay. I could not have predicted a pandemic making life much harder first. Thankfully, my husband and I survived and it’s made us and our relationship stronger.

Today’s Sunday writing prompt over at Mindlovemisery’s Menagerie is “recovery”. This is such a commonly used word in mental health. “Recovery” is the ultimate goal for any mental health consumer or so it is assumed.

I attended a recovery course while in the mental institution in 2010-2011. It was very interesting. It was made clear that recovery is not the same as cure. You can be recovered and still live with a mental illness. Rather, recovery refers to getting as positive and fulfilling a life as possible. It is commonly used in conjunction with “rehabilitation”. The difference is though that rehabilitation is a treatment approach and is hence centered on the professional relationship, whereas recovery is completely patient-centered.

The recovery course I took was specifically for those residing on one of the long-term wards in the psychiatric hospital. This at first surprised me, since being hospitalized is clearly not having a fulfilling life. Or is it? I mean, if you can’t live independently, can you still consider yourself recovered.

I was at the time not planning on ever living independently. In fact, though I was engaged to my now husband, I was planning on going into a workhome, a long-term living environments for autistic people.

Here, it is important what I wrote above, that recovery is completely patient-centered. This means that, though it is believed that most people would want to live as independently as possible, if you don’t, that’s okay too. You are encouraged to make your own decisions, no matter how ill you are.

I have always been of the opinion that self-determination and self-reliance are not the same and shouldn’t necessarily be connected. I am pretty determined, but I’m not very self-reliant. I think personally that self-determination should be more important. Clearly, my last psychologist at the institution disagreed. She diagnosed me with dependent personality disorder, which according to the DSM is characterized by passiveness and an inability to stand up for oneself. I didn’t meet those criteria, but she felt I was asking for care she felt I didn’t need. She kicked me out of the institution almost with no after care. I survived, but I don’t feel well. Now it’s time to focus on self-determination. To try to reach the goals I set for myself.

Like I said, recovery is completely patient-centered. This is what I strive for. To me, recovery is feeling as well as possible. This means I can still work on recovery while going into long-term care.