Email | Print

Happy anniversary! I'd like to congratulate you for starting on the road to recovery. If, like me, you count every year you've been out of the hospital, take heart. Good things are in store. I've been in recovery for sixteen years, and hospital-free for twelve, so I'm here to say victory is sweet-and possible.

Though I've been successful at living life on my own terms-even with the diagnosis of schizophrenia-I won't dare attempt to tell anyone else how she "should" manage her recovery. I don't have a list of rules; success is not a one-solution-fits-all prospect; and everyone has their own values and goals and techniques for living and coping well. However, I'll tell you this: one prime movement in my odyssey to accept the illness and to have insight into the symptoms and to stay in control was making the decision to keep taking the medication that regulates my brain chemistry.

I'll quote the first of the twelve steps (from groups like Alcoholics Anonymous), and replace "alcohol" with my diagnosis. "We admitted we were powerless over schizophrenia."

At 27, I was in denial. I worked at my first job, had my own apartment, and, from all outward appearances, looked like I was on top of the world. That's when I made my big mistake: thinking I was invincible, that I couldn't possibly have an illness, that I could conquer things without medication.

My doctor supervised an unsuccessful drug holiday and I relapsed, winding up in the hospital for two weeks. When I returned to work, my career at the firm was toast. Today, at 38, I admit I am powerless over schizophrenia. How did I go from being that young girl ruled by her emotions to the confident woman I appear now? When the road was long, I didn't give up. Time after time, I hear people say, "I never gave up hope, even when I was a lot sicker. I always had hope."

Positive expectations cue us to seek a favorable response; it's the best kind of a self-fulfilling prophecy. Yet things don't always come up like roses. Our best-laid plans can go awry. We may have to shift focus or change goals. That doesn't mean we are less than others, or not equal to the challenges before us.

When I was in my twenties, I wanted to go to journalism school at New York University. That didn't happen. If I gave up hope of ever seeing my name in print, I wouldn't be here today with numerous bylines. I just had to find my "target market" of readers I wanted to write for. The illness, at its best, is a built-in system of checks and balances. It allows me to know my limits, and know them in a good way, not a limiting way. Instead of being reckless, I can focus my attention on getting better.

I once thought I had to rise up to show others I had arrived. It didn't work out because I wasn't in touch with the strength of the illness to defeat me at every turn. When you ignore something, it doesn't go away. Being conscious of the illness allows me to take charge of it, and not let it get the best of me. I'm able to do what's healthy, not self-destructive.

The irony in my having become ill is that I've been given the ability to discover what's important to me. It's the chance to focus on my life's purpose. I fought long and hard to come to terms with the faulty brain wiring. Yet my different mind that is so mixed-up is the same mind that can intuitively mix thoughts and ideas into beautiful editorials. At 38 years old, having found my voice as a writer and as a person with mental illness, I'm tempted to wonder: is it the medications that change us, or does our personality mellow over the years? A folk singer asked, "Is it peace or is it Prozac?" Dr. Peter Kramer's book, Listening to Prozac, debated achieving personality makeovers by popping pills.

I believe the medication aids us in revealing our true selves, the ones concealed by the illness. And I'd like to give you some inspiration. It begins with words I claimed from a tour guide in Italy and turned into a metaphor for recovery. He took us to a museum in Florence and stopped us in front of David, a breathtaking sculpture chiseled by the great artist Michelangelo. Here I learned Michelangelo could "see" inside the marble and didn't need to use a wax mold to form the figure like other sculptors did. In Italian, cenza cere means "without wax," and that is how Michelangelo created this glorious work. I understood then that, years ago, when I started in recovery, I was a person already under the marble waiting to be chipped away. Remember this when you think it's taking a long time to find yourself or make something of your life. Imagine the years it took Michelangelo to create the Sistine Chapel! What would have happened if he gave himself a deadline of Friday by five o'clock?

Recovery requires a level of honesty and self-acceptance that most people, even those without illnesses, would shy away from. Again, I congratulate you for taking the first steps in finding yourself and finding your way back in recovery.