Recovering is slow process
Recovery was the topic of a workshop at the National Conference of the Canadian Mental Health Association that I attended this fall.
During the workshop I challenged the idea of recovery as being a false image. Recovery often implies a state of everything being exactly the way it was before something happened. But very few people get to such a state of recovery after they have experienced a major setback in life.
I prefer to use the word “recovering.” This is a process by which people move from what has happened toward what is happening now in their lives, and every “now” in the future, day by day.
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Recover from loss
If your house burns down, there may not be anything to recover, at least physically. You can’t recover the house that is gone. But in recovering from the loss, you deal with your feelings of loss and your need for alternate housing.
And this is a process of recovering, not a quick fix.
If your world falls apart due to illness, death or loss of a job, total recovery is unrealistic. You can’t go back to what was.
And if you focus on what should be happening in your recovery, as opposed to what is really happening, you will only feel disillusioned and depressed.
When you deal positively, step by step, with what is happening now and what you need to do in order to survive, you are on a journey of recovering.
One way of looking at recovering is examining the process when you need to replace flooring. This happened to me years ago. The softwood flooring in our vintage home wasn’t in good shape. I nailed down particle board as an underlay. I then arranged for carpet to be installed on top of it.
Without the particle board, the floor boards would have quickly worn through and ruined the carpet. But the layer of material I placed first allowed me to safely recover my floor.
To move safely and effectively beyond the past, you need to have a new layer of life experience, the protective and emotional equivalence of that particle board I used on the floor.
To lay this protective barrier, you need to let go of the past. This is something you may have to do repeatedly. Even when my floor was covered, I still knew those old boards were there, but I didn’t need to preoccupy myself with them.
Pain will fade
Every new experience in life acts as a layer of insulation, protecting against the old pains and memories. You can’t force yourself to forget. But as you gradually become focused on other things, old memories lose their pain.
New experiences are the key to effective living. You don’t necessarily have to do a bunch of new things. You only have to experience them differently, and find excitement, fun or interest in things that you used to take for granted.
