It’s not about thriving. It’s about staying.

There’s a lot of pressure in mental health spaces to “recover.”
To get better, get back to work, go to yoga, post about gratitude, become some shining version of who you were before the illness.

But for people with schizoaffective disorder, survival itself is the win.
And survival doesn’t always look like growth. Sometimes, it just looks like not dying.

🔹 Survival Looks Like…

  • Taking your meds even though you hate the side effects

  • Getting back into bed instead of hurting yourself

  • Saying “I’m not okay” before things spiral

  • Calling a hotline at 2am

  • Texting someone just to prove you’re still alive

  • Sitting with the feeling instead of acting on it

  • Deciding to stay for one more day—even if you don’t know why

It’s not pretty. It’s not inspiring. But it counts.

🔹 It Doesn’t Mean:

  • That you're stable

  • That you're symptom-free

  • That you know what you’re doing

  • That you’re happy

  • That you never relapse

It means you’re still here. That’s all. That’s everything.

🔹 The Point of Survival Isn’t Just to Keep Breathing

It’s to give yourself the chance to feel something again.
To hear music. To see light. To hold someone’s hand. To write a line of poetry. To pet your dog. To laugh again—maybe, one day.

You stay alive not because it always feels worth it,
but because you never know what could still happen if you do.

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