Why I'm Grateful for My Recovery Progress This Year

It's that time of year where we all try and remember the importance of gratitude, so I want to take a moment to reflect on why I'm so grateful for the recovery progress I've made in the last year. Recovery is never a linear process, which means I've had my share of backslides, but I've also taken several important steps forward, and that should be celebrated.

What My Recovery Progress Looked Like This Year

The most important (and terrifying) step I've taken toward recovery this year is finally letting go of my bipolar diagnosis and recognizing it for what it was: a misdiagnosis. This was a long time coming, but my identity had gotten so entangled with my mental health that it took many years for me to finally accept the truth.

Losing my bipolar diagnosis meant I was floating in a void of symptoms without a name for what I was experiencing to act as a life raft. But it also meant I could see my experience more honestly without the unnecessary lens of "bipolar" warping my understanding of what I was going through. I learned that my emotional episodes are not random after all, but are typically triggered by perceived invalidation or an overreaction from my extremely sensitive fight/flight/freeze response. Realizing this has led me to finally wrestle with my childhood, which I'd always blown off because it was, in nearly every respect, normal and happy. But I'm learning that things can be both good and bad, healthy and unhealthy, loving and traumatizing at the same time. Even though it's incredibly difficult to hold those realities in my mind at the same time, I'm so grateful that I'm working on it, because I think it is bringing me closer to healing and happiness and understanding.

To hear more about my recovery journey over this past year, check out the video below. What about you? What aspects of your recovery progress are you grateful for this year? Share in the comments.