Three years ago I called this blog ‘Learning to Thrive’ because I felt I’d taken what I could from the recovery strategies I’d tried but still felt as though being ill ruled my life. I wanted more. So often professionals had quoted that ‘if you do as you’ve always done you’ll get what you’ve always got.’ I realised that this is as true of repeatedly trying to follow recovery advice that hasn’t worked for me in the past as it is of using the same coping strategies such as self harm or avoiding eating over and over.

I began a process of noticing my own experiences without out getting sucked into labelling them as symptoms. Never mind if it was a healthy response, something my team would approve of or something that might frighten people and cause them to force me back to hospital for my own safety if I shared it, what was I actually experiencing.

I began bringing this questioning attitude to the advice on how to be healthy I was trying to follow. Why did I judge some of my experiences as showing that I was sick. Were the suggestions I’d been given helping me change things. Sometimes they were. In those cases I found that the initial change might be really hard but after a few months I wanted to maintain it because I felt better. I began daring to say that those strategies that left me feeling worse or took all my energy to maintain so the rest of my life ended up on hold simply weren’t working for me and couldn’t help me live as I wanted to.

Instead of beating myself up for being a ‘bad patient’ or not having tried hard enough with these strategies and succumbing to despair I told myself that everyone is different and this just wasn’t working for me.

I dug deeper asking where these pieces of advice on what was healthy had come from? Did I agree with it? Were there other ideas out there about this that felt like a better fit for me? Each time there were.

There is an ancient Greek story about Procrustes, a rogue smith who made an iron bed. He would invite passers by to spend the night in the bed. If they were too short for it he took his smith’s tools to stretch them out to the ‘proper’ size. If they were too big for it he chopped off those ‘extra’ parts of them.

The model of being well I had learned from mental health services and in hospital had become my iron bed. When I stopped fighting to shape myself too it and focussed on learning to care for myself in the shape I am I was finally able to live my life.

Although I still deal with many of the issues I was dealing with three years ago my life is very different. I do feel that I am thriving. My mental health team have congratulated me on the work I put into my recovery. I keep growing and changing as I explore my goals and projects.

I’ve decided to post some of the things I discovered while questioning what I thought was healthy. However my strongest recommendation about these and any other recovery advice you are given is to take what is useful to you and leave the rest.