Experts By Experience

Having experienced mental distress at uncomfortably close quarters we each have unique and priceless insights into the issues surrounding it. It’s the kind of knowledge that can’t be gained from textbooks, the television or by working on mental health wards. We have lived it, day in day out, in many cases year in year out. Whether as carers, as close friends or as the person with the ‘mental ill health’, we have spent a period of our lives eating & breathing mental health.

We know what has helped us, and was has most definitely not.

We’ve been on the receiving end of other people’s attitudes (both within the mental health system, and society at large).

We’ve discovered our own coping strategies, and despite sometimes overwhelming experiences we are surviving (maybe even thriving, at times).

Often we know more about our own ‘disorder’ and medications than the people treating us (in real terms, at least).

We have intimate knowledge of the holes in the system meant to support us, and we might even have some ideas on how to fill them.

We don’t tend to be bogged down in bureaucracy and what is feasible – we know what is needed, regardless of politics or hidden agendas.

Some of us even have positive experiences that we can share (it does happen, apparently!).

We have a voice (although after years of being ignored it gets a bit quiet sometimes), and we shouldn’t be afraid to use it. We are the experts – it’s time they started taking their lead from us.

Rachel Waddingham © 2003