Mental Health Notes

Before You Begin A Personal Recovery Plan

by Alicia Sparks, NAMI Affiliation Leader on June 5th, 2007

Yesterday I introduced you - or reintroduced you - to personal recovery plans. I also mentioned that it’s sometimes difficult to pinpoint your problems, as well as where you are mentally and emotionally in life.

Today, I want to point you in the direction of some tools I used this past weekend to pinpoint my own problems, as well as try to put in writing where I am mentally and emotionally right now.

With the help of these tools, I spent this weekend doing some heavy self-reflection. I’ve briefly mentioned these sorts of tools in other posts, but I want to highlight them again as tools for your personal recovery plan; especially since I now have personal experience with them.

From the DBSA website, I used:

• The entire Wellness Workbook
• Wellness Strategies
• Trigger Tracker
• Trouble Tracker
• “How is my treatment working?”
• Personal Wellness Checklist
• Symptom Management

Now, I know what you’re thinking: “How am I supposed to do that? Isn’t that a lot?” Well, yes, it looks like a lot, but if you can sit down with no distractions it doesn’t take very long - and, it’s time well spent.

After going through each tool DBSA provides, I chose the ones I thought would be most beneficial for me. I saved them to a folder in My Documents that I created especially for this type of stuff, then printed them out Friday night. On Saturday and Sunday, I read through the workbook and completed the worksheets that were relevant to me, and I based my answers on last week’s happenings.

So, this is what I suggest you do:

1. Go through the tools provided at DBSA, and choose the ones that you think will be the most beneficial for you.
2. Download, save (it helps you stay organized, and you’ll need these again), and print them.
3. Look over the worksheets and take note of the kind of information each one asks for.
4. With that information in mind, go about your week as normal. Make mental notes of feelings, thoughts, symptoms, side effects, etc. that are relevant to any of the worksheets.
5. Spend some time this weekend completing the worksheets.

You see, you don’t have to complete each form every day. I decided that once a week was best for me. Actually, you don’t have to complete each worksheet each week because some of them are designed for you to complete once to give yourself a reference, and then make changes along the way as necessary.

I can’t stress enough how these workbooks and worksheets helped me this weekend. I was able to organize and put in writing everything I’ve been feeling, thinking, and experiencing. These are important things to know when you want to begin a personal wellness plan.

Think about it: If you don’t know where you are now, how can you get to where you want to be?

P.S. Aside from working toward developing my own personal recovery plan, I intend to use this information as review before my next doctor’s appointment.

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POSTED IN: Men, Mood Disorders, Personal Recovery Plan, Resources, Schizophrenia, Self-help, Tips, Uncategorized, Women