Building Your Mental Health Recovery Foundation

When you’re living with schizophrenia and schizoaffective disorder, a strong recovery foundation can help you move forward in your mental health recovery journey and help you be better prepared to work toward achieving your life goals.

It’s All About Planning

If you are new to mental health recovery, you can begin the process of building your foundation by learning about your mental health condition and developing a recovery plan with your doctor or treatment team.

If you have been living with your condition for many years, it might be a good time to take a look at your recovery foundation and see what you can do to make it easier for you.

Parts of Your Recovery Foundation

A foundation is a base that can give you stability and keep you grounded and healthy. Some things that can contribute to a solid mental health recovery foundation are:

A recovery plan
A safe and comfortable home or housing situation
Taking care of your overall health and wellness
Seeing your treatment team regularly (for example, doctor, therapist, case manager)
Medication options that work for you and are taken as prescribed

Supportive treatments (like psychotherapy)
A trusted support network (such as friends, family, peers, spouse)
Routines that help keep you healthy
Being prepared for relapse and crisis situations

Work with your doctor, treatment team, and members of your support network to make sure you have tools and resources in place to build a strong recovery foundation.

What’s next?

Overall Wellness