The subject of spirituality and recovery is one that interests me immensely because I have actively experienced it. I had a breakdown in 1992, followed by a diagnosis of schizoaffective disorder. What came after was six years of re-current hospitalizations for both profound depressions and delusions. I spent years on antidepressant and antipsychotic medications as well as mood stabilizers, even though I am not on them anymore, I am thankful for having them at a time in my life when I really needed them.

I have been both medication and symptom free for several years now. I know the prognosis for recovery from such a serious diagnosis is uncommon and this is the reason why I feel so compelled to tell my story. I can't help but feel that since I've come full circle with this illness that there must be others that can do it too. Will I relapse in the future? That may happen. I have no assurances of tomorrow, but then who really does? What I want to relate is how integral my spirituality has been to bringing me to the recovery that I am so grateful for today. Without it I don't think I would have had any hope to sustain me through the darkness.

One of the first things I did to help myself cope with my mental illness was join a support group that I later came to co-facilitate. The acceptance, encouragement and information I found here helped to remind me to focus on what I could control and not dwell on what I could not. This group did much to help me nurture the strength of my spirit to shield me during my sudden, recurrent relapses. It did this by keeping me connected in the face of the overwhelming detachment and hopelessness that characterized my disease.

What has come to ring more and more true to me throughout the course of my life is that we are all a unique combination of physical, emotional, mental and spiritual. To ignore any one of these aspects of ourselves is to compromise our sense of wholeness or health. If you are reading this article right now struggling with a psychological disorder and hoping to find a key to unlock the darkness, the best I can do is offer you the one that worked for me. It is a commitment to balance. I know it is difficult to achieve balance when you're ill. I experienced many times when prayer went dry and God went missing, but it is at these times of intense darkness that the spirituality or faith that we have invested in can help us the most. Words that helped me during one such time were "There is no such thing as false hope but there is such a thing as false no hope." For me, paying attention to my spiritual needs brought me the necessary peace to put me on a path to wholeness and health. I have come to see very little difference between the two. In my commitment to balance and maintaining a sense of control, I changed my diet to a more healthy one and began to take vitamins and herbs known for their positive effects on the mind. Then one day I read in a scientific journal that exercise could create new neural pathways in the brain. Did I dare hope? Despite and because of a constant heavy feeling in my head that I couldn't shake, I started an aerobic program at the gym. This was really hard and I felt worse instead of better at first and I even quit once, but I went back.

On another occasion I read that scientists are now discovering that our thoughts can actually affect us on a cellular level, so I began to listen to positive tapes and music and read uplifting material. Unwittingly, I had begun charting a course toward health that would have been impossible without my spirituality figuring very heavily into that equation. Nonetheless, even though I was actively paying attention to all aspects of my health and keeping them in balance, I did not improve overnight. I often still found myself waiting on God in the darkness, sometime just waiting in the darkness, the course of my illness relatively unchanged.

Then the day came, when what I reflect on today as being the real turning point. It is the day that I made the distinction between healing and cure and found a sense of real peace and acceptance for my life. I accepted, and I mean really accepted, the fact that I might never be outwardly cured but that through Christ, I could have an inner healing. Changing my focus from one of control to one of surrender is the shift I needed to open the floodgates to recovery. I started to see faith as more of an attitude of heart than the impossible mental effort it had become. Just this simple change of focus provided the new vision that I have come to acquaint so intimately with healing.

The Christian path has been my spiritual path to recovery. At the darkest times it led only to a renewed ability to find beauty in a moment, because the illness had submerged so much of the rest of my time in pain. When things got better, it led me to a deeper sense of meaning and significance that I might never have truly experienced without the challenge the illness provided. Eventually it even helped me bypass the oppressive influence of stigma that seemed to come at me everywhere in society. Even so, it was a difficult course to take and I wouldn't want to go back through it, even though it helped me emerge with new eyes and an empathetic heart for people in pain. The Bible says, "Blessed is the heart that gets broken but keeps holding on for a new day, for that's what it means to live by faith." Keep holding on for a new day. Dare to hope.

Even if you feel that all you have to offer in grappling with spirit in your life is brokenness and doubt, don't give up. Dare to hope. God sees beauty in ashes. God can make something beautiful of your life. It's my prayer that something in my story helps anyone struggling as I was to get back in touch with the healing power of spirit in your life and to ultimately make you stronger in the broken places.

Here is a verse of a poem by Leonard Cohen that I hope may encourage you if you are tempted to get down on yourself because of your illness:

Ring the bells that still can ring
Forget your perfect offering
There is a crack in everything
That's how the light gets in.