Does Wellness Belong to People with Serious Mental Illness?

When I trained at the Institute for Integrative Nutrition© in 2012, I was introduced to the concept of primary and secondary foods.

Secondary food was what was on your plate.

Primary food was everything else.

Relationships.

Career.

Home environment.

Physical activity.

Joy.

Spirituality.

Creativity.

Education.

Finances.

Social life.

It was presented as a 12-slice wheel — a whole-life model of wellbeing.

And I remember thinking quietly to myself:

Does this apply to someone like me?

Because at eighteen years old, I had been discharged from a psychiatric hospital with a serious prognosis. Social workers told me that if I wanted a “snowball’s chance in hell” at stability, I needed to stay on my medications and manage my expectations.

The expectations were clear: job instability, relational breakdown, poverty, relapse.

I left with discharge papers in one hand and a label in the other.

Years later, I was being taught how to design an optimal life.

The contrast was not lost on me.

What Is Wellness, Really?

The idea of wellness isn’t new. The World Health Organization defined health in 1948 as “a state of complete physical, mental, and social well-being and not merely the absence of disease or infirmity.”

Public health physician Halbert L. Dunn later described “high-level wellness” as an integrated method of functioning, oriented toward maximizing an individual’s potential.

Not symptom suppression.

Not containment.

Not survival.

Potential.

But somewhere along the way, wellness became marketed to the already well — the resourced, the stable, the high-functioning.

And I began to wonder:

Are we withholding the full wellness wheel from the 1 in 5 of us living with serious mental illness?

Labeled to Fail

I was not an easy psychiatric patient.

My body reacted dramatically to medication. I developed a life-threatening rash from Depakote. Other medication combinations left me dulled, foggy, or metabolically compromised. I had to become skilled at minimizing side effects just to remain alert and functional.

I quickly realized something:

If I was to survive — let alone thrive — I would need more than prescriptions.

So I built my own wheel.

Not because I was privileged.

Because I was desperate.

I studied mindfulness.

I walked in nature.

I talked to my plants.

I sought acupuncture, chiropractic care, and craniosacral therapy.

I read voraciously about recovery.

I found mentors.

I sought out an integrative psychiatrist who understood micronutrient therapy.

I tapered medications to the minimum viable dose required for safety.

I stayed in therapy.

I pursued parent coaching.

I kept learning.

Today, I still invest in support: therapy, family systems work, yoga, neurofeedback, and business coaching. Because mental health, for me, is not a one-time fix. It is an ongoing stewardship.

I will always need to be proactive in managing my nervous system, my environment, and my relationships.

That is not a weakness.

That is literacy.

The Question We Avoid

When someone carries a diagnosis considered “serious mental illness” — schizophrenia spectrum disorders, bipolar disorders, severe depression, PTSD with impairment — what do we realistically offer them?

Medication and monitoring?

Or the full wheel?

Are they gainfully employed?

Do they experience financial well-being?

Is their home environment nurturing?

Are they physically supported, or managing metabolic side effects alone?

Do they experience intellectual stimulation?

Who is tending to their spiritual life?

Are they socially integrated, or warehoused in systems that keep them compliant but disconnected?

We often celebrate wellness influencers while quietly managing those who struggle at the margins.

But wellness was never meant to be exclusive.

Learning to Surf

In my high school yearbook, my senior quote read:

“The greatest pleasure in life is doing that which others say you cannot do.”

At eighteen, that quote felt defiant.

Now it feels instructional.

I have learned to surf my nervous system.

I have learned where my sandbars are — the conditions that destabilize me.

I have learned what strengthens me — sunlight, structure, nutrients, relational safety, and meaning.

I have learned to build capacity instead of waiting for rescue.

I am not anti-medication.

I am anti-limitation.

I am anti-warehouse.

I am pro-wholeness.

Call me a decoder of madness if you like. I have been inside its undertow. I know what it feels like to be labeled fragile before being given a chance. I also know what is possible when someone is held in a vision of capability instead of collapse.

I Am Mentally Real™

I Am Mentally Real™ is my refusal to accept that wellness belongs only to the already stable.

It is an invitation to those living with serious mental illness to build capacity — biologically, relationally, spiritually, practically.

You deserve:

A regulated nervous system.

A body supported, not just sedated.

Relationships that hold you accountable with compassion.

A life scaffolded toward meaning and contribution.

Radical acceptance of what is — and structured effort toward what could be.

It is both/and.

You can honor your diagnosis without surrendering your potential.

A Question for You

If you live with a serious mental health diagnosis, which slice of your wellness wheel feels most underdeveloped right now?

Is it physical vitality?

Social connection?

Purposeful work?

Financial stability?

Spiritual grounding?

Naming the gap is the first act of reclamation.

If you are ready to intentionally build your own wellness wheel — with peer-led support grounded in lived experience and integrative strategy — I invite you to connect with me.

Wellness is not reserved for the well.

It belongs to you, too.