What is recovery?

What are we actually trying to recover from when we "try to recover from spiritual abuse" or "a bad spiritual experience" or something like that?

What do we try to accomplish with "recovery"?

Does recovery mean going back to where we were before the abuse/illness/negative experience occured?


??

I think it is always useful to look at a dictionary when such questions arise.

Recovery can mean two broad things: either our struggle to overcome a disorder or a problem (real or perceived), or the return of something that we haven't had in our possession for a while. Whether issues are material or spiritual, it should not matter much. To recover from a spiritual abuse or bad experience means to take the time to determine what it was that constituted the problem, gather one's inner strength and resolution to deal with it, and the physical effort to actually go through the steps needed to accomplish it.

In a sense, it is also retreiving ourselves from a situation in which we did not have our life in our own hands.

For me, recovery has strong medical connotations as well: it means that I've "diagnosed" certain problems that arose due to association with ISKCon, and some of its members and teachings, and that I have given myself spiritual "sick leave", ie. taken the time to try heal as many of these wounds as I could to function "normally" (whatever that means). It also means I can expect some period of low immunity and, probably, some scars.


I think this is very individual; my answer is above.


I wouldn't think that is possible... we are always different for the experience -- more mature, more skeptical, more careful next time, or even more determined.

More importantly I think is what do you want to achieve in recovery? From spiritual abuse, or a bad experience, etc. Do you want to go back to the time before the abuse started? Or do you merely want to find a balance when you are feeling unbalanced.

Generally, I think recovery implies going back to a previous state. Similar to Data Recovery with a computer. If you were not healthy to begin with before you got totally messed up, then not only recovery is needed but learning how to be healthy. Some drug addicts go into recovery, but they can't recover because there is nothing to go back to. There dependencies are always there even after becoming clean, so it requires inputting some positive way of thinking and living for the "recovery" to take effect.

But put it this way, when you were a little bitty baby, you didn't have many problems, so you can take recovery to that stage if you like. I think also one type of recovery might be something like "past life regression" work. Going back to a previous life when you were a remarkable person.