A Journey of Recovery

By Anonymous

I am sharing my journey as a story of recovery and the possibility of living with mental illness and thriving. The support that I found, or lacked at times, and the inspiration this has given me to be a mental health advocate will, I hope, inspire someone to believe in their ability to achieve and maintain recovery from severe mental illness, and find meaning and purpose even in the midst of challenges.

My SMI story began as a child, dealing with instability related to a parent’s periodic absence and unpredictability due to their own mental health issues, which was severely traumatic for me. I suspected that I also had schizophrenia as a teen, but I masked my illness and the trauma of those adverse childhood experiences (ACEs) with school studies and socializing. I wasn’t diagnosed formally with schizophrenia until after I had reached a breaking point.
I had always had an interest in healthcare, and following secondary school, I trained as a nurse in my home country and then worked in general nursing. However, my mental health declined while I was working as a nurse in my country. At the time, I believed that moving to Australia to work would save me. I know now that I was running away from my illness as a coping strategy. I immigrated and worked in Australia as an agency nurse in a busy hospital. But, behind the exterior, I was barely functioning.

My SMI story’s turning point occurred while I was in Australia in 2010. Because I’m from a different country, I was without close family or friends for support when I experienced a very low point in my life – I was suicidal and in need of care and treatment. For my own safety, I called a helpline, and an ambulance came to take me to hospital.

After my initial treatment, I was discharged the next day, but I was still unwell; I didn’t have a proper diagnosis or treatment and care plan that would support me with a full recovery.

Although this time was extremely difficult, it was also a turning point for me. I made the difficult decision, at the urging of my family, to book a flight and to return to my home country and seek treatment there for my mental health. Once I was home, I went on to spend six months in acute inpatient care. During that time, I was prescribed Clozapine, after many other failed treatments. This drug worked almost instantly, and I began to recover to the point where I was discharged and was well on my way to a full recovery.

However, while my mental health improved from a clinical perspective, I had not achieved personal recovery. I was drifting, and it took a referral from the community mental health team to a rehab and recovery team to really kick start my personal recovery process.
Within rehabilitation, my care plan included counseling, CBT, and physical exercise to restore my fitness and healthy weight which had increased due to medication side-effects. Because I was successfully supported by key staff members, I made rapid progress with the intensive holistic approach to mental health. Lithium was prescribed, and again I responded very quickly. I returned to work, and experienced the joy of becoming a first-time mother, and am now in a happy family unit with my partner.

There have certainly been challenging times throughout my journey, including in the post-partum period, during which I experienced several traumatic losses in my family, relapsed, and needed an additional six months of inpatient treatment. However, for me, the most important things in my recovery have been the support I received from my mental health team and the benefit of effective medication in my recovery care plan.

As I continued in my recovery journey, I naturally moved towards advocacy in roles as a peer ambassador in a country-wide program and in research projects relating to recovery. Peer support is my passion, and my lived experience as a family member and as a person recovering from mental health challenges, who is living with a SMI diagnosis, demonstrates that recovery is possible. I want to continue to use my lived experience and my skills as a communicator to influence the conversations around mental illness.

If my journey and what I have learned can provide hope to someone in a difficult time, I am happy to be here, and pleased to share my story.