‘The Surf of Life’ and the Raw Truth About Life in Recovery
Godelieve van der Leij has extensive lived experience in international business and recovery. Through her website and blog, both named The Surf of Life, she aims to support others throughout their recovery journeys and bridge the gap between business and mental health care. She is also actively involved in the Recovery Movement in the Netherlands.
For those of you who have not read my previous articles, I was diagnosed with a mental disorder in 2013, at age 31, but it wasn’t until eight years ago that I really started working on my recovery. This journey took me through many different worlds, and through my articles, I would like to share my experiences with the rest of the world.
By recovery, I mean learning to live with a new reality. A world of recovery colleges, volunteer work, therapy, and medication. A world without a day job, without money in the bank, without vacations, and without a car. This eight-year transformation, though, gave me several insights about life I otherwise would not have gained.
The raw truth about life in long-term health care?
During my social declassification, I noticed a few things changing as I adjusted to a lifestyle that had always been foreign to me. My peers in long-term health care, though, oftentimes don’t know any better. This is all they know:
Stress about a lack of money due to unemployment
Stress about relationships because everyone around you is struggling too
Taking risks you wouldn’t take if the above were a little more in place
Having a hard time making the ‘right decisions’ because you don’t have the means
A focus on what matters most because you have so many ‘issues’
A lack of direction in life in general because you are in ‘survival mode’ most of the time
I believe in the future, though; I have faith that one day I will be in a better place. Because I know there is a better place, and I believe that I will find a way to get there. But I am one of the happy few. Most of my peers don’t know any better; they grew up with a mental disorder, came from broken homes, were homeless at a young age, struggle with addiction, never finished school, or have a history of detention. Hardly ever can you blame them personally. They were just born into that world, or life happened to them. So when we have conversations about the future, or I encourage them to chase their dreams, I get a negative response. They don’t ‘see’ what I see because they have never experienced that world out there, which I know exists. It is the world ‘not for them’, they believe; they don’t even dare to dream about it.
What do I mean by ‘multiple culture shocks’?
I have talked about the multiple culture shocks before. What do I mean by that? Well, among my ‘old’ friends, I am the ‘mental patient’ who fell off the grid somehow. In my new world of unemployment, I was the ‘expat’, the ‘college graduate’, different once again. And today, in long-term mental health care, they call me ‘elite’ or ‘white privilege’, one culture shock after another for me.
But through the years, I have learned to adjust, to blend in, so to speak. There’s a whole subculture in this world of borrowing, trading, sharing, and splitting. If you don’t have much, you have to find a way to get what you need. You have to find your herd. Luckily, I knew how to do this. I had been an exchange student; I had been a backpacker; I had learned to fit in in a place I was not originally from. You live by the day and see who you can team up with to get what you need.
It’s been eight years now. And I have gotten a little bit more comfortable in my new life. But I have a long way to go if I ever want to get out of this world. I want to spread my wings again and visit my friends around the country and the world, for that matter. Running around in circles in the town I was born in has never been part of my dreams or plans.
What does ‘reinventing yourself’ mean?
When I talk about recovery, I talk about transformation; when I talk about transformation, I mean reinvention. I have had to reinvent myself over and over again over the past decade or so. Moving from city to city, from one continent to another. Not to forget learning to live with a mental illness for over a decade. My story, though it seems to be about ‘mental health’, is really about life and getting over the bad times. And when you put it like that, everyone has a story.
Why can I be called an Experience Expert in Recovery today, then? Of course, I went back to school for it. But the ‘Recovery Movement’ really talks about ‘lived experience’, of which I have plenty after all these years. The Surf of Life is not a Hollywood movie; this is my life, and I am the main character.
Don’t worry, though; long-term health care can’t be romanticized or glorified in any way. I wiped out in life over and over again. Life will never be the same again. But the recovery time gets shorter and shorter; every time I wipe out, I notice. Recovery gets ‘easier’ as the years roll by. I have become ‘good’ at recovery. An ‘expert’, because I have had to do it so many times over. I know the drill, so to speak.
Many people compare life to surfing waves these days. It looks nice from a distance, right? Surfing. But there is a difference, though, between surfing the waves of life and ‘The Surf’ of life. Surfing is a sport or pastime of riding a breaking wave. A wave, in turn, can simply roll through the open ocean, whether it breaks or not. ‘The Surf’, however, is a set of waves crashing upon the shore. There’s foam, there’s spray, there’s the roaring sound of nature. That is a whole different experience. How do I know? I used to surf a little bit when I was younger, during my travels around the world.
I believe that is what recovery from life-altering experiences is all about. Everyone has a story about a breakup, losing a job, or getting ill at some point in their lives. But what if your waves of life crash in a transformative way? In such a manner, you are forced to completely reinvent yourself and build your life from scratch. That is what my experience is all about. And I suppose that is why I can support people during their recovery process from any life-changing event, not just in one specific area of life.
How do you build ‘bridges’ through your experience?
As an Experience Expert in Recovery, you are taught how to transform your knowledge and experience so you can support others during their recovery process from life-altering experiences. In my opinion, this can truly make a difference in today’s mental health care system. I receive care in a first-world country where a lot of care is offered, and still, only half of the people who need it get help. Plus, most of them, once in the system, never get out. No wonder the system can’t handle it, and there is so much discussion about how to change the way we organize mental health care right now.
I believe that, since I speak the language of many, many different worlds, it is my job to build a bridge between these different worlds. Between client and health care professional, for example: stop asking the wrong questions. Like, what do you need? How do you feel? Stop solving problems. Stop giving advice based on theories. Try to figure out what the real issue is by listening for a long time; look for patterns and inconsistencies, challenge what someone is saying, and don’t come up with a ‘solution’ right away; that is wrong most of the time anyway. Figure out together where the pain lies. Human to human. That is what I value most about peer-to-peer work: you are equals; one does not stand ‘above’ the other. And it is not just about sharing stories, but also about sharing lessons learned from these stories.
So, through these articles and through my various platforms, I try to give people a little insight into ‘the other world’, the world you probably know exists but have no idea about. Not really, at least. That is the difference between being ‘booksmart’ and ‘streetwise’. The difference between having a diploma and ‘lived experience’.
Yes, I do live in a tiny studio. I have been declared 100 percent unable to work due to my illness, but I do whatever I can to contribute to the Recovery Movement on a global level because there are one billion people worldwide living with mental health conditions. But also, after all that I have been given in life, I do have a master’s degree; I did work for some of the world’s largest corporations; I did travel to 50 countries by the time I was 35; I feel like it is my job to share my experiences so others can maybe feel supported during their own recovery process from life-altering experiences. If only to make them realize they are not alone.
I hope you understand a little bit better what The Surf of Life is all about now. Disruption, transformation, and getting back up on your feet after a true crash in life. I hope one day (sooner rather than later) more people will stand up and join the Recovery Movement, so fewer people have to suffer for a long time during their recovery process from life-altering experiences and feel like they are alone. In the end, I hope we can lift the Recovery Movement out of mental health care and integrate it into our daily lives. Because I believe that, essentially, it is all about how to ‘get over the bad times’. No matter what that means for you, in your life.
Read more from Godelieve van der Leij
Godelieve van der Leij, Experience Expert in Recovery
Godelieve van der Leij is a former IBM and Nike employee. After being diagnosed with a mental illness in 2013, she began working on her own recovery and became involved with the Recovery Movement. This experience inspired her to share the idea behind The Surf of Life, which compares life to a series of waves with its inevitable ups and downs. She is the founder, content manager, and author of the website and blog of the same name, which aims to “give people faith in their abilities to overcome.”
