Recovery and bipolar disorder: A CREST.BD Community Consultation Day

Recovery & BD: A lived experience

perspective

Presented by Victoria Maxwell, BFA BPP*

June 29, 2010

*Bachelor of Fine Arts / Bi-Polar Princess

…goes beyond illness management and restoration of self-esteem to reclaiming our joy, our purpose and living our lives

to the fullest potential

RECOVERY:

“…the goal is to become the unique, awesome, never to be repeated human

being that we are called to be.

…one of the essential challenges facing us is to ask ‘who can I become’ and

‘why should I say ‘yes’ to life’.”

From Dr. Pat Deegan:

The Wilderness as a Model for the Journey of Recovery:

Moving from being lost in the wilderness to

(no direction, high anxiety, hopelessness, only surviving and subsisting not living)

Walking in the Woods

(direction, purpose, prepared, a refuge, an adventure, a journey you enjoy)

The Healing Tapestry

“The 'Come-Back' Trail is an On-Going Road Trip.”

“The 'Come-Back' Trail is an On-Going Road Trip.”

The Healing Tapestry

Although shown as a circular progression, it is more accurate to picture it as a woven tapestry. When one part of the tapestry is restored, all aspects of the piece shift.

The Healing Tapestry

Acceptance

InsightMeaning

Healing Action

Self Esteem

Journey of recovery

Additional Threads within the Healing Tapestry:

Acceptance & Letting go vs. Giving in / up

Conflicting emotions interwoven

Anger & Grieving doesn’t preclude action

Takes TIME…more time than we’d like

The Healing Tapestry

Acceptance

InsightMeaning

Healing Action

Self Esteem

Journey of recovery

We have the ability to create…

Meaning

Journeyof recovery

•New relationships to our past experiences, our present & ourselves

•These new relationships can create meaning & joy in our life

• it is a highly personal form of reframing

“He who the knows the ‘why’

for his existence,

will be able to bear almost any ‘how’.”

- Viktor Frankl, psychiatrist & neurologist,

(1905-1997), Man’s Search For Meaning;

founder of Logotherapy/Existential Analysis

The Healing Tapestry

Thank you!

Email me at:victoria@victoriamaxwell.com

or Visitwww.victoriamaxwell.com

or my Blog at:www.psychologytoday.com/blog/crazy-life