Reviewed by Monica Vilhauer Ph.D.
What is psychosis, and how can you regain your sense of pride and self-worth after experiencing it?
Perception is not always reality, especially when we’re overwhelmed by negative emotions. It’s essential to understand that we can’t depend on others to accept us and be proud of us; instead, we must cultivate that pride within ourselves.
Stigma places more importance on other people’s reactions to us than how we see ourselves. It’s crucial to recognize that we have the power to change our perspective and take pride in who we are, both during and after our acute illness.
In my journey towards emotional recovery, I emphasize three key components: trusting ourselves, believing in ourselves, and wanting to be ourselves. These components can be broken down into many more sub-components, but ultimately, they lead to a state of well-being and progress.
I lost my sense of pride when I lost my mind and was cognitively impaired after being an academic. My sense of autonomy was taken away, and I felt embarrassed and ashamed for how I acted during my breaks in front of my family and friends. I was so ashamed that for years, other people knew something was off about me, but I didn’t always realize it, and when I was aware, there was nothing I could do about it.
Being proud of being alive is a crucial aspect of recovery. It’s easy to take for granted that we’re alive after being stabilized on medicine after a break. Since we often live in an alternate reality during a break, we can make choices that can cost us our lives. I did several things due to my breaks that could have cost me my life. The scariest thing is that no one can reason with us, and we cannot even reason with ourselves.
No one can reason with you, and you cannot even reason with yourself. You can’t second-guess yourself, and everything is as real as the fact that I am typing now. And you are not just lucky to be alive—you probably made some essential decisions that led to you being alive today. Maybe you agreed to hospitalization, maybe you consented to medicine, or maybe you did not consent to anything. But it doesn’t matter as much as the fact that you are alive and breathing right now.
It took me a while to want to be alive again, so I did not feel proud of being alive at first. It took me a long time to sense that being alive is a blessing and an accomplishment and not something to take for granted. I emphasize this because I hope it takes you less time to feel this way than it did for me.
Being proud of being you as an individual is a significant aspect of recovery. I was utterly humiliated and ashamed of being me. I seriously thought of moving to a new city and starting over where no one I met could possibly know that I used to be mentally ill. The worst was not knowing who knew what had happened, or knowing there were people who silently knew I was becoming ill before my breaks happened, even when I didn’t. I’m glad I didn’t move, though. To make the decision to stay put meant I was facing inner fears and insecurities head-on instead of fleeing from them.
The biggest battle to win is caring more about how you feel about yourself than what others think of you. So much of the stigma in this illness is detrimental because it tells you to put yourself last, and put what anybody else in the world could possibly think of you as more important. We look to others as a mirror for how we see ourselves. Their approval means we can approve of ourselves, but that is a risky and dangerous way to find identity and self-acceptance. I’ve done that myself, but in doing so, I gave everyone else power over my life and my feelings.
You can’t wait for someone else to be proud of you, especially when you are an adult. Even when I was devastated over my schizophrenia diagnosis and embarrassed, my life was mine, and my parents were not shaken like I was—they still accepted me without judgment. While that was so important to me, at some point, I had to adopt that stance myself and not depend on other people to supply it.
No matter how bleak and meaningless your life seems, you have to remember this is your perspective on reality—it is not necessarily reality itself. In my teens, I was a very negative thinker as part of my depression, and I saw my perception as the only way to look at things. However, it was huge when I could understand that my interpretations were just one vantage point, and other people’s interpretations may be just as valid, or even more accurate.
I saw my life as condemned and unfixable. I didn’t even think a sovereign God could fix my life. I would open my eyes every morning, but did not have enough motivation to get out of bed or have any direction forward, either in a momentary sense or long-term. However, I am so thankful that, even though I was hurting so bad inside and had no idea what point there could be to my life, that I continued to wake up each morning and eventually get out of bed. Sometimes there was little daily structure in early recovery, but maybe I would wash the dishes for my mother, maybe I would walk my dog, maybe I would try to concentrate and read something, or maybe I would look presentable for company coming over. In other words, I could take little daily actions that gave me a sense of accomplishment and pride.
In the 14 years after my last break, I’ve assigned meaning to these times through helping others, and I’ve never been more proud of myself, in the sense that I want to be me. I embrace my identity now, and I’m proud in the sense that I totally own my recovery. I’m proud that I did not quit, and I kept going to psychiatry appointments and therapy appointments. Even when I wasn’t sure if they were making a difference, I did so out of the principle of self-care and trying. Over time, all my appointments I kept have made a huge difference. By finally caring more about myself than what the world thinks of my illness, I pulled myself out of the mire and rebuilt my identity based on what I feel is a fully authentic existence.
I’m a survivor, and you are too. The goals are positive self-talk, regaining your sense of pride in owning your recovery, being yourself and no one else, and authentically reshaping your future in a way that makes you even better than you were before.
