Recovery from mental illness does not mean that one was not “really mentally ill.
” At times people who have successfully recovered from severe mental illness have been discounted as not “really” mentally ill. Their successful recovery is not seen as a model, as a beacon of hope for those beginning the recovery process, but rather as an aberration, or worse yet as a fraud. It is as if we said that someone who has quadriplegia but recovered did not “really” have a damaged spinal cord! People who have or are recovering from mental illness are sources of knowledge about the recovery process and how people can be helpful to those who are recovering.
