What happened when compassion replaced clinical objectivity, and creativity replaced compliance.
This post is about the time I was supported to create a new voice, to ‘job-share’ with my scary critical voice. It changed everything.
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In this article I explore how the seeds of my recovery began to take hold after I went to a community-managed mental health service.
For the first time, I found control, hope, meaningful connections, and eventually, life dreams.
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Trauma gave me shame, and shame sent me mad. This post explores how unravelling my own shame in a ‘mock trial’ helped me to heal.
Note: This post explores detailed impacts of child sexual abuse.
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One of the most difficult challenges I’ve had as a mental health consumer advocate is when people deny our lived experience. It drives me nuts. So-called recovered consumers. Last year I came across a person who used the term ‘so-called recovered consumers’. Worryingly, this person had influence in national mental health policy and she directly challenged the credibility and relevance of consumer advocates. She believed that no-one could really recover from ‘serious mental illness’, because that had been the experience of her family members. And so, her logic went, if people with ‘serious mental illness’ can’t really recover, then consumer advocates like me could never have been properly unwell to begin with. We can’t possibly represent the people who most […]
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Madness can bring a strange comfort. For me it often came with a seductive quality that lured me to relax and fall into the familiar comfort of its waiting arms.
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Asking someone to disclose trauma can be really hard. It’s even harder to be the person disclosing. This post explores challenges and ideas to help all of us speak more easily about the things that most need to be said, and heard.
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