Amy's post raised some important points for me, but I'm not sure where it's left me. The balance of doing what you love and looking after yourself is a hard one to strike, when what you are interested in and what you struggle with is one and the same thing. How do you separate a genuine interest from the intrigue illness gives you? Getting involved whilst you are ill is about connecting with others who understand and trying to understand your own suffering. Recovery means letting go of the illness; but does that include letting go of the interest altogether? How do you know if you'll still want to focus your life on this when you are no longer ill and how do you know whether that is a bad idea?
I've always been interested in Psychology since before I was ill - I remember choosing Sociology GCSE because it was the closest thing I could study at that point and I knew I wanted to do Psychology A-Level. What I don't know, is if my focus was specifically mental health before I got ill. And apart from that - whether my illness affected my interest or not - will it affect my involvement in it now that I have been ill? Will I be able to cope with the stress of seeing that struggle and pain, day in and day out?
Quite honestly, I don't know. I want all the answers, but I guess there would be no point to life if you knew what was going to happen. I'm not recovered and until I am, then no doubt these things will effect me. I can't know how long it will take and I can't know what path I will eventually take. All I can do is work towards the one I have chosen right now.
Who knows where the path will take you?
No comments:
Post a Comment