Recovery is not linear, and that’s okay

Author: Phil Parkes, Network Co-ordinator, Expert Citizens

For those who have read any of my previous stuff, hi again. To those new to my writing my name is Phil Parkes and I have been with Expert Citizens for the past 7 years, 5 years as a volunteer and I gained employment with them 2 years ago as the network Co-ordinator. I work closely with our members who volunteer their time with us and I also go out into the community to network with other like-minded organisations. Expert Citizens are a community interest company built by and for people with lived experience, we exist because we care about people and the world we live in. Our belief is that we can all make a difference and that everyone has potential.

To start things off I want to acknowledge that I have been on a rollercoaster journey in the last 7 years with many highs that I am proud of and also many lows that tested me. I have reached a point in my life where I should be in a great place with my mental health. I have an awesome fiancé who I love dearly, I absolutely love my job and the people I work alongside, I have recently moved into a nice house in dare I say a nice part of town and I am financially stable for the first time in my life.

A bit of context for people new to my story. I grew up in what could be described as a broken home. My mum and dad split up early and my brother and I were living with my mum in someone else’s house alongside the rest of their family.  It was not a great experience. My mum had to contribute to the house so we could live there, and her job forced her to work away for extended periods of time, leaving me and my brother in the care of a trusted person who I will just say was not very pleasant. This led to years of mental and physical abuse in my formative years, and my adult life up until 7 years ago was not much better. I was in and out of hostels or street homeless, only managing to hold a tenancy for about 4 years in total and I developed an alcohol addiction.

In 2015 I decided I needed a fresh start. I moved into another hostel and started to put together a plan. That plan was to work in adult social care, and I did a college course to prepare myself for it. Whilst I was doing the course I found out about Expert Citizens and started to volunteer with them, I was still in addiction and still technically homeless, but it provided the drive I needed to continue putting my plan together. I did a variety of things from researching and evaluating to contributing to national policy in consultations.  My plan changed a few times over the years but eventually I found myself where I am now. Clean sober for three and a half years, doing a job a thoroughly enjoy and holding down my own joint tenancy with a fiancé I intend to marry next year.

This is where it gets a bit tricky. Given all that I have said and the journey I have been on, I really should be happy with life, should I not? The truth is I am not, and I don’t know why. I find myself on almost a daily basis struggling with everything. I even created a sort of diagram where I put the good things in my life around myself and tried to just remove myself from the picture to prove the other things could continue without me, after writing it down I see the major problem with that!

I have come to the conclusion that life, and your mental health in particular, doesn’t care what your journey has been and for some, including myself, the destination is still a way away. Even though you have achieved great things that you should definitely be proud of, does not diminish the fact that recovery is far from linear and dark patches can happen along the way. For me the self-acceptance that I can have contradictory thoughts of me being worthy of a life and me being worthless at the same time. I can be proud of my achievements, yet because of my challenges with my mental health I feel I have achieved nothing, which is a strange concept to comprehend, and it’s really tiring to carry this around every day.

I wanted to write this for all the people who may be feeling this way, to let you know that you are not alone. It is ok not to be ok, if we want to use a cheesy line. I am proud of my achievements and where I am today, but I am also proud that I can see that the journey is far from over. Recovery will test you every step of the way and it is more than ok to say when it’s getting a bit too much. When you admit that, you are not admitting defeat, far from it, you are admitting that despite your intention of doing it all on your own (which if you are like me was born through trauma), that we sometimes need to ask for help. I just hope that like myself you find people to hold you up and support you in your journey, and most of all you allow yourself to be helped and supported. Right now, I’m seeking help through different forms of therapy and allowing myself to lean on my partner and colleagues at work, without whom I don’t know where I’d be. You are stronger than you think and asking for help is a sign of that strength, lean into it whenever you can and most of all stay safe out there.