Introduction to Faces of Recovery

Welcome to Faces of Recovery, a video series and forum for individuals who have been diagnosed with mental illnesses to share their stories of recovery. Recovery is not only possible, but highly probable when given the proper support, hope, and peer models.

When an individual enters the mental health system with pronounced symptoms, he or she is typically given a serious diagnosis and a bleak future. Recovery is neither mentioned nor expected, yet recovery begins to happen the moment a person learns that recovery is possible.

People in recovery live full and meaningful lives outside of the mental health system and outside of their diagnoses. If it weren't for the actual faces of recovery, the stories they tell, and the lives they model, many people would never know that mental health recovery exists for them as well.

If recovery were expected and hope instilled, the mental health system would have a new, highly productive role in our society. As a result, our society would see mental illness in a whole new light and the stigma would eventually and naturally disappear.

This forum highlights the actual faces of recovery in hopes of showing the world, including the mental health system, a better way to view mental illness.