by Joseph Merlin Bowers

For more than twenty years, I suffered from episodal psychosis. I would experience a psychotic episode, get better and be fine for a while. Then would come another episode. The correct diagnosis was probably Bipolar I with psychotic features. Because of the psychotic features, I have spent more than two months in a state mental hospital twice, time is two different jails in different parts of the country and been in two different hospital psych wards.

Despite all this, I have earned a B.S. degree, been married to the same woman more than forty years, supported and raised a family of three children and held down  fairly demanding good jobs-one long enough to earn retirement. Today I am retired with enough money coming in and live where I want to. I play golf, fish, ride bicycles and volunteer at a drop in center for people with mental illnesses. I am very happy with where I am living and with what I am doing.

A speaker I listened to once claimed that he was successful because he was living where he wanted to and doing what he wanted to do. So, I think, it could be said that I am successful. Clearly, my wife deserves a lot of credit for how well things have turned out for me; but I give myself some credit as well.

I can envision my epitaph saying something like, “He did OK all things considered.” loathing my disease as I do, for most of my life I have despised the “all things considered” part. I wanted total victory over my disease and my epitaph to read simply that “He did well.”

It can accurately be said that I am in recovery from a serious mental illness as I have been mostly symptom free more than 29 years now, but it would be false to say that I am “recovered.” No one ever fully recovers from a serious mental illness. I will never out live the reality that if I don’t take proper care of myself, I might suffer a relapse. In fact it could happen anyway so far as I know.

Lately I have come to accept that making concessions to my mental illness like taking an antipsychotic and regularly seeing a counselor is no different than a cancer patient doing radiation treatment or chemotherapy and regularly seeing a physician or someone with heart disease or diabetes taking medication and watching their diets. All of us with serious diseases have to make adjustments. Why should I demand of myself that my situation be any different? Why should I feel that short of total recovery requiring no adaptations or concessions, I have failed? I have not. I’m trying to accept that now.