- Courage is telling someone you are hearing voices in your head.
- Courage is deciding to stop self-medicating and ask for help.
- Courage is allowing someone to drive you to the hospital so you can voluntarily check yourself into the psych ward.
- Courage is walking into a room of concerned relatives only weeks after your psychotic break, even though your body feels like it consists solely of egg shells shaped like bones.
- Courage is getting up and taking a shower, after days in bed.
- Courage is learning to let negative thoughts just float out of your head.
- Courage is talking yourself into going to the gym just for today.
- Courage is getting out of bed, exercising and collapsing back into bed thinking, “I tried.”
- Courage is searching for a new psychiatrist that your insurance will cover after relocating to a new city.
- Courage is believing that this time, this new medication will lighten your depression.
- Courage is finally feeling good enough to change your hair style.
- Courage is saying “no” to a beer when all your buddies are drinking.
- Courage is saying: “I was sick, but now I am better,” on a job interview.
- Courage is clenching your teeth when a colleague calls someone “crazy.”
- Courage is asking an acquaintance to lunch.
- Courage is explaining to your friends that you have a mental health condition.
INSPIRATION AND EMOTIONAL COURAGE: MENTAL ILLNESS, ADDICTION, AND RECOVERY 