Defining Recovery
There are many ways to see a thing
NEW YORK CITYVOICES: Spring 2006
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By William Anthony, Patricia Deegan, and others
Editor's Note: Dear reader, we want to read how you define recovery. Please mail your definitions to Voices, PO Box 310368 Brooklyn 11231, fax 646.349.3695 or email [email protected]. Please include your name and address. Thank you.
- Recovery is a deeply personal, unique process of changing one's attitudes, values, feelings, goals, skills and/or roles-a way of living a satisfying, hopeful and contributing life regardless of the limitations caused by illness
- Recovery involves the development of new meaning and purpose in life as one grows beyond the catastrophic effects of mental illness
- Recovery is a truly unifying human experience, relevant to every human being
- Successful recovery from a catastrophe does not change the fact that it has occurred, that the effects are still present and one's life has changed forever-successful recovery does mean that a person has changed and that the meaning (significance) of what has happened for them has therefore changed, that it is no longer the primary focus of their life and that they are ready to move on to other interests and activities
- Recovery can do more than leave a person less impaired/disabled/dysfunctional/disadvantaged, it can give a person more meaning/purpose/success/satisfaction in life
- Recovery is the lived, real-life experience of persons as they accept and overcome the challenges connected with disability
- Rehabilitation is the services and technologies made available to disabled persons in helping them adapt to being in the world
- Recovery does not refer to an end product or result, a cure, solution, resolution-rather it is marked by an ever-deepening acceptance of limitations, a foundation from which spring our own unique possibilities
- Recovery's paradox: in accepting what we cannot do or be, we begin to discover what we can do and who we can be
- Recovery does not refer to an absence of pain or struggle-rather it is marked by a transition from anguish to suffering, marked by a peace in knowing that the pain experienced is leading us forward toward a new life
- Recovery is the urge, the wrestle and the resurrection-it cannot be forced and it requires a willingness to try and fail and try again
- Recovery's three cornerstones: hope, willingness and responsible action
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