By Leah Harris
“Recovery is a process, a way of life, an attitude, and a way of approaching the day’s challenges. It is not a perfectly linear process. At times our course is erratic and we falter, slide back, regroup and start again… The need is to meet the challenge of the disability and to re-establish a new and valued sense of integrity and purpose within and beyond the limits of the disability; the aspiration is to live, work and love in a community in which one makes a significant contribution.” — Pat Deegan, Ph.D.
I am the daughter of two people diagnosed with schizophrenia and bipolar disorder. They did not recover. They died tragically and young, as far too many people with these diagnoses do. I mourn their loss every single day of my life. And yet I am an unwavering advocate for mental health recovery.
As an adolescent, I attempted suicide a number of times. I also experienced periods of believing I was the secret Messiah, seeing divine messages on the sides of buses and in TV commercials. I once barricaded myself in my room with knives, necessitating a call to the police, who took me away in handcuffs in the back of a squad car. At age 16, I was diagnosed with bipolar disorder, and was told in numerous direct and indirect ways: You have a genetically inherited biological brain disease that you will have for life. You will not be able to manage this disease without lifelong dependence on our systems of care. You will have to put your dreams on hold and avoid all forms of stress in order to be able to manage your illness successfully.
The outcome of these hopeless and disempowering messages was that at eighteen years old, I found myself sitting in a squalid group home, where I was told I would remain for life. I had no high school diploma and no job. I was on the direct track to poverty, chronic disability, and premature mortality.
With the support of my family, I managed to escape the group home. A particularly empathetic and supportive teacher helped me to get educational accommodations. Not only did I graduate from high school, but I went on to college, then obtained a graduate degree from Georgetown University. Yet even with these successes, I felt like a fraud. I hid my psychiatric history from everyone I knew, ashamed, and continued to struggle deeply, even as I “performed” and “achieved.”
In my mid twenties, I heard a different message for the very first time: People can and do recover, from even the most serious mental illness. The idea that I could recover was a revelation to me. It gave me a sense of possibility going forward that I had never felt before. My life was forever changed, for the better.
My eulogy, which I read at my father’s memorial service. 
