Recovery

Well there has not been a lot in the news lately about mental health. My recovery started in 1989 when I was sent to the state hospital for a crime that I still do not like to talk about that involved mental illness and alcohol.  I never understood where I was because I was mentally ill.  Did not understand until they started giving me medication.  Stellazine was the first and when they told me I was sentenced one day to life that really freaked me out.  I was trying to understand what happened and what was going to happen.
I knew from the streets that I needed to learn typing as I took in on the streets but it was accelerated class and to fast to learn.  When the state hospital told me I had to go to school that was my chance to learn how to type from scratch and I did.  It of course took time but that is what I had.  Also in there we went to groups that taught about mental illness and how to take care of yourself.  They taught us a schedule for when to take our medication and to always take it about the same time as then a person gets use to that schedule.
I was talking to one of the counselors and she asked what I wanted to do with my life and I told her I wanted to learn computers.  She introduced me to a person that worked in vocational rehabilitation and he started teaching me word perfect.  Also well I was there I started getting all the papers necessary for me to go to college when I was released from there.  Learning word perfect helped a lot in my first computer class I took in college.  The state hospital was hard to do time there was so much that was like the streets.
I called my family to much I was missing be out and free.  More that when I was in prison the state hospital was a place I do not want to go back to. I listen to what they said and I did the work to learn how to stay out and maintain my mental illness. I did have one relapse when I was set free.  I had just started college and the first day I relapsed.  I had to go back to the state hospital for a weekend although when I went I did not think they would let me out for awhile but they increased my medication and I was back that Monday.  I had to change some classes because I had missed the amount of days that they allowed.
To me recovery is being free  and taking care that I take my medication and enjoy my family especially my grandkids. Also remain symptom free. I guess I am lucky in the fact that my mental illness is paranoid schizophrenia.  Because I do not have any negative symptoms I know from reading stories that means that I would not be able to do the things I do and enjoy doing. So a big part of recovery is being both positive and negative symptoms and bay. I of course went to AA and did urine screens.  For me drinking again means going back to prison a place I do not want to go. I could also end back at the state hospital. It is something I will not do in this lifetime again. I do not miss doing stupid things and ending up in jail.  Since I been out since 1994 I have not been stopped my the police.  They used to stop me and my friends that looked like me a lot so that I also do not miss.
 I'll leave with learn what works for you.