As inspired by Mental Illness Awareness Week earlier this month, I am sharing my story of recovery. I am a therapist. I am a wife. I am a mother. I am a daughter. I am a sister. I am a friend. I am a person in recovery from mental health issues.
This week marks Mental Illness Awareness Week, a week dedicated to increasing awareness and knowledge of mental health issues to help decrease stigma. This campaign, organized by the National Alliance on Mental Illness (NAMI), encourages people to learn more, see people for who they are (not their illness) and advocate for equal care.
Last week, I had the opportunity to accompany someone to her first Alcoholics Anonymous (AA) meeting. Sarah* had considered attending for a long time, but several things kept her from going. She feared that if she went, she’d have to admit that she had a problem and she wasn’t sure she was ready to do that.
A few weeks ago, I discovered that my landline was not working. I called the phone company and they scheduled for a technician to come out. While I waited a few days for the service call, the problem resolved, so when the technician came out, he couldn’t find anything wrong.
A few months ago, I went to a conference where we participated in an exercise in which we wrote down “that thing” that we don’t like about ourselves on a name tag. We then had to wear that name tag for the rest of the day.