The Story of My Recovery from Stigma of Substance Addiction and Mental Illness

This is the story of my mental illness and the stigma of substance abuse and the correlation of both. The other boys shouted and participated in different activities in class and played during the break. At the same time, I used to listen and observe playing and shouting and enjoying them from the windows of my classroom with a dull mind. When the other boys lifted their hands to respond to the teacher's interrogations and questions, I used to hold my sigh, attempting to be invisibly terrified. I was terrified of being called upon my name by the teacher, and I might be asked to deliver my point of view. I would not say I liked school. I could not appear to get the judgment out of the mathematics and structure. I could not concentrate sufficiently to understand or learn anything, even for a few moments due to my mental illness controlling me. When the teacher delivered lectures and tried to understand us, all I appeared to listen to was a heavy ridiculous noise. The script and pictures on the chalkboard just proceeded my top swim. I did not make it, and I thought myself silly and dull at the same time.

Now I tell you the exact part of my story when I got addicted to the substance that ruined my childhood and got a mental illness. The childhood that was meant to learn to play, to make childhood friends, to do school works, to enjoy tastes of chocolates, to make new senses, and to enjoy the love and pressure of family and peers. But that substance ruined my childhood. And I could not do anything and saw my future in darkness spreading around me.

I do not memorize precisely how and why; just while I was in my initial teenage, I found that I could get a continuous sound that made me happy by inhaling the gasoline from my nostrils. For a few magnetic moments, I helped to reduce the persistent discomfort and confusion due to the mental illness that was in my soul and body. From that day on, my life was bound up in trying to get even more numerous releases from pain, anxiety, and discomfort within my soul and body. Within the successive few cycles of the repeating years I found, adhesive, liquor, pills, drink, sensuality, and merely about every other source to calm and regulate my emotions and reflections. By the time I was sixteen years old, I was a mature drug addict who was highly drunk and drugged on some substance or other almost every coming day.

I nevermore tried to visit the school, and no one showed to consider me worth going to high school. Alternatively, I entered the treatment service for my mental illness when I was seventeen years old. I am yet unable to state precisely why I got chosen, but I understood I necessitated some kind of extreme transformation in my life. Soon after ending the Boot Camp, I was broken the habit of drug use a little bit but not completely. The army specialists told me then that I was pessimistic and in pain only. I assumed that just suggested I was weak, stupid and a loser who can not do anything for his future except dependence. They did not suggest any solutions, medication, or even recommend that there was anything that could be taken in to account for the remedy of the pain I was carried in my soul and mind. Before long, I was removed from the facility and came back home without any meaningful results.

I struggled a lot economically and did light jobs, which supported my troubled life with mental illness and drug addiction. I served in labor, very low pay, and a few engineering works for the next couple of years. I ultimately converted to a welder, which paid me higher money, but I “had” to be addicted to the substance and use the drug every day during the whole day. I would take momentum to get advancing towards my addiction and drink alcohol and smoke marijuana to remove the panic and stress later in the day. Conclusively, I continued having blackouts daily and I forgot my job and eventually lost it. I became a fat man and soon starving near death and my mental illness was getting worse. I would get injuries on my bulky fat body before an actual accident happened. I was becoming terrible and having terrible recovery from mental illnesses but did not know how and where they came from. I wanted to stop drinking and abusing drugs every day, but could not stop – I did not.

I went into medication for my mental illness in 1984 for my habits of drug abuse and drinking. I was frightened of dying because I had no sense of what to anticipate and I did not actually consider that it would help me get out of my pain and troubles. I completed therapy against my mental illness and threw mine personally into the will of Almighty God entirely. I was not managing my everyday job and did not have any source of income and was terrified of reverse so I would visit several conferences and sessions a day. It was very challenging because my body was producing stern panic drives. I am unable to clarify how I tasted the pain in my soul and mind. I have no words to express what I bore during the relapse prevention period. I was overpowered with stigma and started listening to my mother's punishing voice describing me that I was wicked and did not merit to exist in this world. Ultimately, I seemed on the opinions and tried self-murder. Luckily, I failed to do suicide and next I was discharged from the treatment facility I was sent to the county's mental illness department where I was diagnosed as possessing prolonged extreme depression, Post_Traumatic_Stress_Disorder, panic attacks, and various other mental illnesses. A rehabilitation plan of medications and therapy for my mental illness was launched instantly.

I seldom assumed secure enough from the addiction and my mental illness at the treatment facility and meetings and sessions of relapse prevention to willingly participate and discuss my mental illness or the point that I was using antidepressants and remedies to manage my mental illnesses like stress and depression. Many of the peoples at my treatment facility and relapse prevention gatherings solely did not realize that sadness, as I feel it, was a severe mental illness and that I wanted to get my prescriptions to continue working. Some would convict me as involving in self-destructing behavior and others advised me I was not serious as long as I was getting medicines. I felt like I was “pretending” my own recovery plan from mental illness because I could not willingly follow the accurate fairness talked about in the clear picture. Others could participate in sharing past harsh experiences and whatever was going on in their times at gatherings but most of my life was bound up settling with my mental illness, and those topics were doubtful to be discussed publically. However, I had lots of motivations to like the rehabilitation center for mental illness and addiction and relapse prevention plans and employ them completely to do precisely what it was they were meant to do, which was to hold me honest about what I was doing at that times, kept me clean and steady, and they really do work!

It was surprisingly intricate attempting to understand what I was holding those first two and three years of recovery from mental illness of my mental illness. Professionals would suggest to me how I felt and I would be given prominence. I had no expertise in being a serious grown-up. I did not comprehend what ” being normal” meant before others. I did not know what the prescriptions were assumed to do or how they were assumed to believe. I frequently appeared like I was pretending my mental illness was all one big fraudulent business scheme. I had a challenging experience considering that the prescriptions were liable for stopping the distracting sounds which used to surround my soul and mind. Those sounds were the main reason I attempted suicide once. The concept that anyhow I should be apt to create imagination my way out of the illusions, grief, emptiness, and fear drives bothered me most every day. I felt extremely isolated.

During this time, I started to develop modern cultural skills by attending 12 Step sessions. I went through monthly sessions about my mental illnesses and spent several hours at the library studying my ailments and drugs. My new friends were all in recovery from mental illness, and we tried our very best to promote reliable and trustworthy connections, which was very new and unfamiliar to me. Working the Twelve Steps had the added benefit of resulting in far happier unions. I started to cultivate a new faith.

My signs of mental illness gradually started to fell, and I enrolled in a nearby community college to find a new profession. I had my symptoms of illness very clear other others and missed one year, but I still got to complete it. It just took a little longer. I have had to take a variety of adult learning classes to master the foundations of simple writing, pronunciation, and mathematical problems. I kept myself steady, my signs of mental illness were controlled, and I finally got a career. It was a very imaginative role in an artistic setting, and I enjoyed it. Three years later, I was in a heavy industrial accident. I was rendered a mental illness patient and was forced to live in constant pain. I was unable to work and then had to file for Social Security Disabilities. My life had come crashing down around me. My darkness reentered into my life, and I eventually withdrew into a life of near-complete desolation.

And when one of my rehabilitating mates from mental illness joined Dual Treatment Anonymous. He participated in the organizing of many gatherings in the community where he stayed. He wanted some digital printing work done for his DRA groups, and I managed to have a laptop and printer on hand. I told my friend I would do his data entry work and printing, but he would have to leave it with me for a bit. He handed me some bumpy copies of DRA writing, a replica of The 12 Stages and Dual Diagnosis text, and the accompanying Worksheet, which was then completely new. I was swept away by what I have been hearing as I was typing and formatting. I had never thought of “dual recovery” or “no-fault ailments” previously. It made me more understanding to manage all mental illnesses as part of a single 12-step program. It was like switching on a light switch in the middle of a dark room. So after Eleven years of abstinence in the facility. I soon began using the First Phase of DRA to manage my mental illnesses. Accepting my mental illness as thoroughly as I did my drinking and addictions, and using the same methods that had served so well for my abstinence, was one of the most liberating sensations I had ever felt. Understanding “The Twelve Steps and Dual Diagnosis” for the first time was amongst the most decisive turning points in my life.

I soon joined my first DRA gathering. Afterward when my life began to take a turn for the betterment of my future. Dual treatment and the DRA principles have helped me to keep myself steady and cope with my mental illness in a much more positive style. Now I work with the DRA doing maintenance work such as maintaining their company portal. The Community of Dual Recovery Anonymous has given me a sense of mission and understanding. My intention is that the helping word and concepts of DRA and dual healing become accessible to anyone who lacks them. The letter was a life changer for me. 

Now take a look that how you can manage your mental illness;

All these feelings immediately go away if you stick to your professional assistant's plan given to you against your mental illness and addiction. Because he or she has the experience and knows all the process. Your professional is thoroughly trained and has expertise in controlling the feelings, leading you to relapse. Being optimistic can save your life. A happy person knows what to do if these kinds of emotions and thoughts emerged into the brain. A happy person always moves forward with a proactive approach and always has solutions to the most apparent problems. So we can support the hypothesis “being optimistic in the days of recovery from mental illness means getting the key to success.” So, hope for recovery from mental illness and discover ways to heal yourself from any mental illness you are facing.

Another advantage of being hopeful during the difficulty is growing imagination with growing good personal traits. Both “the personal traits and the difficulties” are directly proportional to each other. If problems increase, you can say that your personality gains good and ripened personal traits. So, always try to imagine positive things or outcomes from traumas and dark days. In an article for Scientific American, investigator and mental illness specialist Kasey Killiam explores how the stress of traumatic incidents can contribute to self-improvement.

“Tragedy reveals a human weakness in an uncertain environment and thus can lead everyone to feel very vulnerable or powerless. Although, ironically, it can sometimes increase self-esteem and make us think about ourselves as more capable. A car accident rescuer, for example, claimed that the experience inspired her to regain control of the situation with stronger resolve and stamina. People seem to feel inspired by the realization that they can conquer potential obstacles because they overcame a previous one.”

Since the discussions are taking place deep inside the person's head, these thought changes can be gradual. The belief that medicines are healthy and staying sober is evil may be able to develop and evolve. As this continues, people will continue to explore abstinence limits and help implement some of these concepts in real-time. This story of my mental illness ends here.