I recently suffered a severe concussion and developed post-concussive syndrome. It laid me low, and helped me to fall backward into recovery.

Common definitions of recovery:

a) a return to a normal state of health, mind, or strength

b) the action or process of regaining possession or control of something stolen or lost

Common definition of rest:

a) cease work or movement in order to relax, refresh oneself, or recover strength

Recovery is taught as a temporary experience, with a definitive arrival at full recuperation. Because of the indefinite nature of harm in capitalism, we are perpetually in need of recovery. Some part of us will be whittled down in withstanding, coping with, resisting or capitulating to the various demands and violences endemic to oppressive systems of control. The very condition of capitalism prevents a “return to a normal state of health, mind, or strength.”

Capitalism is the modern system of control and disembodiment which necessitates perpetual reconstitution of the self. It feeds upon a compartmentalized, exhausted, and alienated existence. Unintegrated, we fail to grasp the magnitude of the soul’s need to be fully known, explored, and nurtured by us. Unintegrated, our disparate selves can be placated rather than healed. Unintegrated, why would we ever need deep rest?

Approaching each day with the practice of recovery can provide permission (which we often seek because we are programmed always to be Doing) to “take time,” take the "liberty" of rest and recovery. Time functions as currency and commodity in a system that manufactures time-scarcity to create value. In this capitalist temporality, time is a sort of wealth and access to the self through rest comes at a premium. Most of us will say we don’t have time (currency) to practice recovery. Most of us do not possess the cunning nor privilege to resist financial and social coercion against pursuing it.

Liberatory recovery can mean a daily and holistic practice of release from the script of time as currency, release from the need to prove value or assert dominance to survive. Liberatory recovery requires a mindset, an internal framework that acknowledges the harm of capitalism upon the self, and upon a fragmented collective.

A recovery mindset and practice insists on time, space and cognitive presence for something other than capital or intermediaries that serve capital. It can return back to us what is fully ours, which we have lost sight of and have put aside or placed wholly in service of our survival.

A recovery mindset transforms brief breaks and “free time” into contributions to our ongoing psychic, physical and spiritual well-being. A recovery mindset makes these breaks non-negotiable. A recovery practice behooves us to delve deep in that time we set aside, because the survival of our spirit and body depends on it. A recovery mindset redirects focus from capital and accumulation to the wholeness of self and the connections that enrich and enliven it. Prioritizing personal and interpersonal sustainability in the face of capitalist coercion asserts the inherent value of the body and the soul, their right to simply exist. A recovery mindset can work to decouple value from capital. 

The contemporary rest movement is for many risky and aspirational. In the course of our lives, we become injured and capitalist agents and structures make allowances for temporary respite. As long as we return to our positions at capacity, because there is no “free lunch” in capitalism.

The very concept of no “free lunch” in modern economics implies a cost for lack of participation in the pursuit of capital. For racialized people, especially without financial privileges, claiming rest and practicing perpetual recovery in capitalism will always be linked to increased precarity.

The cosmic and political test is to press beyond crisis-oriented rest, which serves a return back to business-as-usual. This is a test of capitalism and cannot be overcome without systemic collusion (transformation) or dissolution (rebirth). Yet, an affirmation is percolating and settling: I must attempt to maintain a perpetual recovery practice which prioritizes my physical, psychic, and spiritual health. I must have compassion when I falter in this practice because the burden of my health doesn’t fall solely at my feet. Quoting Maxine Waters, I am reclaiming my time.  

On positionality and the contemporary historicity of recovery as survival

Capital “R” Recovery carries varied meanings and has been used to define certain subcultures of survival. Perpetual recovery frameworks are already practiced by people walking through substance abuse, eating disorders, sex and other lifestyle addictions. Recovery in these communities are typically in the context of specific life events. Life events for which general conditions under capitalism of alienation, economic stress, material lack, spiritual disconnection, cultural genocide, etc. are contributing factors.  These existing recovery communities, in their prioritization of ongoing recovery as a compassionate strategy for survival, are in a liberatory practice.

I have limited experience with more prominent substance abuse, senior healthcare, and end of life related concepts for ongoing recovery practices. I have not proactively borrowed from their models for practicing recovery though elements of those models have penetrated popular culture. See: self-care. See: accepting what I cannot change & the courage to change things that I can.

I am speaking from my own lived experiences of recovery as a strategy for survival. My Blackness living through dehumanization in global anti-Blackness recommends me. Survival of genocidal violence recommends me. Experiences of temporary disability recommended me. Other seismic life events, and their interactions with my Blackness in capitalism recommend me. I am writing for those who don’t already belong to recovery communities, those who cannot recognize the need for recovery as a life practice despite their suffering. I am writing for those attempting the Strong Black Woman archetype demanded and punished by white supremacist capitalism.

I arrived at recovery from a specific place and I have arrived in good company.