What is a Recovery?
This chapter provides two recovery charts to illustrate the journey of recovery. In chart one, two comparisons are laid out: The Treatment Stance and The Recovery Stance. The treatment stance illustrates “The Illness” (anxiety; depression) at the center of a person’s life. This is an unrecovered position. For folks experiencing “medication failure” that is having negative impacts, this unrecovered stance leaves the person and their life revolving around the mental health illness faced. In such an orbit, Illness-Centered Living dominates. Here, the weight and influence of mental illness feel like a huge drag on a person’s life. This drag puts up a great amount of resistance where one needs to lean in and brace the headwinds of the mental illness blowing against the grain of where one wants to take one’s life. People in this position tend to feel stuck, feeling there is no way to get their lives back on track. However, when a recovery position is in motion, the status of the orbit changes. In this position, the “Person” is located at the center of their life rather than The Illness. Instead of illness living dominating, people begin to live a Person Directed Life. This recovery position is both freeing and uplifting. Life in this position is experienced as having a renewed sense of value, meaning, and purpose.

Chart 2 lists two comparisons: the “Illness-occupied” position and the “Person-Occupied” stance. In an unrecovered position, mental illness takes up most of the energy, time, and space in a person’s life, an “Illness Occupied” position. For folks experiencing treatment failure that is having negative impacts, this unrecovered stance leaves the person suffocating from a lack of breathing room and space dedicated to living one’s life.  Here, the weight and strength of mental illness feel like a huge pressing weight on a person’s life that needs relieving. This drag puts up a significant amount of resistance where people need to lean in and brace the headwinds of the mental illness blowing against the grain of where they want to take their lives. People in this position tend to feel stuck, feeling there is no way to get their lives back on track.

While in a strong recovery position, a person reclaims their breathing room and personal living space, a “Person Occupied” stance. Here, illness
occupancy has retreated and has diminished room. With this stance, a person is better positioned to direct their life. 

For example, in a weak, unrecovered position, a friend calls and says, “Hey, let’s meet up this weekend?” an external request or from an internally generated suggestion, saying, “Hey, I want to meet up with my friend this weekend.” Here, the individual is in an Illness-Occupied space. In this position, the suggestion for the weekend first filters through the persona of the mental illness. The consideration of whether to act or not act, flowing through The Illness’s (mental illness) presence, receives top priority for this evaluation over what the person wants to fulfill. As such, there is an extreme likelihood that meeting up with a friend is less likely to occur. 

However, in a strong recovery position, Person Occupied Living, this request is first filtered through the person and their priorities of value. Consideration is not given to The Illness (mental illness), now occupying a secondary position. Since the individual has regained personal breathing space originally held by The Illness, there is a greater likelihood that meeting up with this friend would overrule the mood of the mental health condition. Hence, the decision to act is prioritized as having more value and importance over the mood of a mental health condition. 

Summary
As outlined in the charts, the recovery continuum is very fluid when in a recovery mode. Here, daily, weekly, monthly, and yearly cycles oscillate back and forth between Illness-Centered living and Person-Centered living. With a dominant illness position, the accumulated decisions to act or not favor the mental illness over the personal needs, desires, and values of the person. When engaged in recovery, migration begins towards a more person-centered position where decisions to act or not act significantly favor what the person values of importance. Over time, this momentum cements the individual to a Person-Centered way of living. With greater breathing space, the mental illness would now assume an orbit around the “Person” in a strong position, where their grip, strength, and influence have been diminished.

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