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Believing I can cope

Author: Sam
Published: 24 January 2008

In her story Sam writes about the how her own personal growth and development has helped her on her recovery journey. Sam also highlights how, for her, developing supportive and understanding relationships in her life, getting involved in various courses and returning to paid employment have been important milestones in her recovery.

Sam decided to share her story of recovery after reading other people’s accounts on the SRN website. She hopes that by sharing her story she will help provide hope and inspiration to other people, just as those stories she has read have done for her.

I’ve read quite a lot of stories of recovery, and listened to people’s experiences in employment and education, but always felt that I hadn’t quite reached that milestone or turned that corner in my journey. Until recently, while reading the accounts on SRN, I realised that I don’t have to create a ‘happy ever after’ scenario for myself, but rather learn to deal with the situations that life throws at me, and appreciate what I’ve got. And on closer inspection, that’s quite a lot. I used to feel that I had no personality, no opinion, no strength of character, but looking back on my life I realise I do have these attributes and they are the ones that have pulled me through some seemingly insurmountable difficulties.

I always felt that I came from quite an ordinary family, and had quite an average childhood. Mostly, I remember really happy times, and only a few crap ones.

I left school at 16, with moderate exam results and a job as a waitress – intending to live at home for a while and go to college. I was deliriously happy-go-lucky. I walked the scenic route to work every day and pursued artistic hobbies in my spare time.

But very quickly little niggles crept into my mind about my worthiness as a human being. I began to berate myself during my long walks, eventually thinking I was just a bad person and firmly believed that if I was killed in an accident, I would go straight to hell. Between leaving school in the March and my 17th birthday in the July I went from being a bubbly teenager to a sulky, sullen withdrawn drifter. In a roundabout way, my religious fears helped me to keep going. I was too frightened to kill myself in case I went to hell, so I spent the next 8 or 9 months wishing I had never been born.

I was far too scared to go to a doctor, fearing medication and institutionalisation. My parents thought I was taking drugs and there was a general strain on family life. I wouldn’t tell them what was wrong with me, in case they frogmarched me along to a psychiatrist and I was afraid I would lose my freedom that I had only really just gained on leaving school.

Occasionally I had smoked cannabis socially, though very rarely, and never ever bought it for myself. Nonetheless, I felt terrible when I did smoke it and tried to pretend that I enjoyed it. I believed that everyone else enjoyed it too and had a terrible fear of being an outcast and labelled ‘mad’.

I left home soon after this, entering bedsitland and kept to my own company. I started reading lots of Carlos Castaneda books. (There had been great interest in the ‘Occult’ amongst my peer group, and even though I wasn’t really interested, again I had pretended I was, and it somehow got under my skin). It’s also true to say that I wasn’t really particularly religious, but when feeling bad the more negative aspects of my ‘churchy’ upbringing reared its ugly head.

The next few years were spent with lots of unemployment, some occasional domestic work, and lots of depression. I took on a voluntary job when I was 20, which enlisted the use of my artistic skills. While working there an affair with an older, married man put me under strain. He was very possessive and controlling, using physical force and threats sometimes to get his own way. I admit that for some reason I clung onto him believing somehow that I needed him and that I deserved the way he treated me. Eventually though, I completely broke down and displayed what I now realise were obvious signs of schizophrenia.

It was then that my journey through the labyrinth of mental health services began. I remember a fellow patient saying to me “Once you’re a patient in here, you’re never free of it and it follows you for the rest of your life.”

At first I became even more depressed. I found it difficult to overcome side-effects of medication and no matter how hard I tried, I couldn’t seem to apply myself to any kind of job or educational pursuit. At this point I thought that things couldn’t get any worse, but when I was 25, my brother was killed suddenly in an accident. He was 29 and just beginning to pull his life together. My whole family was thrown into grief and disarray. However, to my own amazement, this proved to be the turning point for me.

I made a pact with myself to persevere with the medication and to try and support my parents who were destroyed with grief. I decided that at least I was alive and that my brother wouldn’t want me to waste my life with bitterness. I started to go to a day centre that was independent of the hospital and found immense support. I took up walking and art again and began to feel genuinely happy.

It was then that I felt I could try another relationship. In short, this was disastrous. He was a completely different personality from the last but nonetheless, jealous and possessive. Looking back now, I can see he was a totally unsuited character to me who I had gone out with spontaneously one night when I was feeling a little low. However, at least my lesson was finally learned. Another spell in hospital, and an increase in medication made me, on one hand, determined to carry on but on the other quite nervous and unsure of myself. I made the decision that in future, I would find out more about men before I went out with them, even if it meant asking their friends what they were like.

The next 2 or 3 years were possibly the loneliest of my life Not only because I had few friends but also because I felt so unsure when I was alone. I also found that my motivation was very low. At this stage I made a very conscious decision to get involved with a drama course. Not because I felt naturally confident about it but more because I remembered a time in my childhood when I was very lonely at school and drama proved a way to come out of my shell and make friends. Somewhere in the house I have a video of my first ever performance, which causes much hilarity when I have the courage to show it.

This proved to be another turning point. I completed an employment skills course, and made friendships that have endured to this day. I mustn’t neglect to mention that I also met my partner round about this time (another relationship that has endured). As well as this, I managed to get through an audition and successfully complete a drama course at college. So things were definitely looking up.

At this point, I want to mention sex. It was basically something that I thought I didn’t really like and wasn’t very good at. It was just another one of life’s talents that I didn’t possess. But with my partner, it was a whole new experience and I was very keen to learn. That’s as much detail as I’m prepared to go into but I’m certain this has been a huge factor in improving my all-round health.

After the drama course I made a decision to work towards getting back into employment, rather than go down the educational route. By this time, in my mid-thirties, I had never really thought about what I would like to do but I knew that a really high-powered job was not for me at this stage (or ever for that matter). I began to brush-up on my computing skills and became involved with a local advocacy project. Through SAMH, I eventually completed an ECDL and had lots of fun along the way. During my years of unemployment, I had always engaged in some sort of voluntary occupation when I was well enough. This experience, along with my ECDL, managed to secure me a part-time admin post in a small office.

Although excited, I was naturally very nervous. By this time I was nearly 38, and had been out of the ‘paid’ job market for 20 years. But I’ve managed to hold this job down for nearly 5 years now, and if I’m being honest, I’d say that I haven’t really looked back. Nevertheless, it’s not to say that I didn’t have some teething problems and some moments of regret along the way.

The first 6 months were spent with lots of sleepless nights, worrying about getting up in the morning. I began to experience some anxiety and there were occasions when I would stay up all night for fear of sleeping in. I felt I had to make work the biggest priority in my life for the 3 days a week that I was there, and would just rest my nerves on my days off. I would often be sick before leaving the house in the morning and would occasionally become tearful, just because of the stress I was feeling.

There was more responsibility to perform in paid work than there had been in volunteering. I was terrified of not being able to do it and being sacked as a result. I was also in a much more specific role than when I had been a volunteer and I felt that nobody really wanted to know my opinion on anything any more, other than admin. Though I have to admit that I felt I couldn’t keep up with the conversation in the office, as a lot of it seemed to go above my head.

Having said this, all along the way people were pleasant towards me and my manager assured me that I was doing a good job. I was very shy at large events and committee meetings and sometimes I felt quite lonely, although I managed to cover it up. Regardless, after three years in the job I felt I had established myself and proved myself to be reliable. Following a bad weekend of anxiety I decided to raise all the concerns I had about it with my manager.

I blurted out all my troubles in a long letter, which I gave to him at a meeting. In hindsight, I can see I didn’t handle it in a professional or composed manner. It wasn’t very polite, or fair, and I was really quite emotional. But thankfully, my manager didn’t react awkwardly, or defensively – but rather helped me to make sense of it and managed to put in place some measures to rectify it. Things have definitely improved since then and my anxiety has become much more occasional rather than an everyday occurrence. Now all employees have a regular slot in their supervision sessions where they can raise concerns and make suggestions. I’m sure I will take advantage of this opportunity, but manage to be more composed and less personal about it in the future.

So that’s where I’m at now. I do feel as if I’ve overcome something major in holding down a job and a relationship. At 42, I’m still not ready to get married or move in with my partner. I still smoke and am sometimes incredibly disorganised at home. I see a psychotherapist quite regularly and sometimes have issues of insecurity surrounding family, work and friendships. However, I finally feel that I’ve recovered. I’m not waiting for some miracle cure to arrive. I also feel that I don’t have to become a homeowner, university graduate or managing director to feel that I’ve achieved something in life. I am ambitious but I’m not going to torture myself or my partner by lamenting over what I ‘haven’t got’ or ’could have had’.

I’ve just got to pace myself and realise that I’m in the same position as millions of other people. I also realise that I don’t come from an ‘ordinary’ family, and there is no such thing as ‘average’. Although it is good to keep your feet on the ground, there are outstanding qualities in everybody that should be celebrated. And I think it is important to just to have that belief you can cope. Probably the most outstanding person in my life has been my partner, who has stood by me through all my discontentment and confusion and worry. I give something back though and he always says that the good outweighs the bad, as do most of my friends and family, – so I can’t ask for more than that.

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Story disclaimer

The stories presented here are for information only. They are meant to inspire hope and show that recovery can and does happen. The stories highlight various examples of recovery and we do not advocate any of these experiences as the ‘right’ way to recover. Recovery is an individual and unique process, each person must decide for himself or herself what will work for them. Please carefully consider any decisions you make about your own recovery and consult with someone you trust if you feel unsure.

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