In my years as a mental health professional, I repeatedly have heard clients describe themselves as bipolar, depressed, schizophrenic. It pains me to hear people describe themselves this way. You are not your mental illness, you have a mental illness. We must be careful in choosing words to describe our conditions. You are so much more than your diagnosis, so much more than your disorder.

One in five people live with mental illness at any given time, but in order to move beyond that diagnosis, we have to begin thinking ourselves not as victims of our disorders but as victors of our conditions. Every day we must celebrate little victories, even if that little victory is simply dragging ourselves out of bed and into the shower. In our efforts to overcome our diagnosis, we must learn to celebrate ourselves as victors of our lives, not as victims. Victors choose to embrace life, regardless of what hand they were dealt. Victims choose to succumb to the symptoms of their disorders, reveling in self-pity and woe. It is so much easier to be a victim, to say “Why me?” when thinking about our mental illnesses. Instead, consider, “Why not me?” I truly believe those of us living with mental illness are stronger than we believe, stronger than we give ourselves credit for. Living with mental illness requires battling daily the symptoms that want to keep us in bed, to keep us inside, to keep us lamenting our conditions. If we want to be victors of our lives we must embrace the bad of our lives as well as the good.

Yes, living with depression and anxiety hurts. Yes, the symptoms at times are unbearable. But we can choose to rise above our symptoms by practicing self-care, self-compassion and self-love. We can learn to live with our diagnoses as merely a part of who we are,  part of a whole that includes so much more than the symptoms that we can sometimes let dictate our lives. We are not just our mental illnesses. We are people first, diagnosis last and so much in between those two.

In overcoming mental illness and navigating the road to recovery, we get a second chance to become the people we always were meant to be. Recovery offers a chance to become whomever we have dreamed of being while stuck in the quagmire of mental illness. But first we must let go of the diagnosis and labels that we may have let define us for so long. Cast aside those labels and become the person you always have wanted to be. Recovery is about becoming you. Be more than your mental illness.