recovery and bipolar disorder: a lived experience perspective
DESCRIPTION
Actress and mental health educator, Victoria Maxwell, provides insights on the intersections between stigma and recovery, and discusses the possibility that addressing stigma can improve outcomes, wellness, and recovery and quality of life.TRANSCRIPT
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:[email protected]
or Visitwww.victoriamaxwell.com
or my Blog at:www.psychologytoday.com/blog/crazy-life
