Our lived experiences make a great impact to others living with MENTAL HEALTH CONDITIONS, and help break down stigma - SHARING OUR STORIES ARE IMPORTANT.
VIDEO RECOVERY STORIES
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Sahar Vasquez's inspirational lived experience journey of comirbid mental health conditions. Sahar is the country representative of Belize on the Global Mental Health Peer Network's Country Executive Committee.
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MATTHEW JACKMAN. Matthew’s service user and carer journey began aged three as a result of having to care for his younger siblings having lost his mother to mental illness six years after experiencing severe post natal depression. He developed family and carer advocacy skills when coming into contact with mental health services for his teenage siblings to ensure they were provided with the best opportunities for recovery. He is passionate about human rights, social justice and its intersection with family and carer involvement at all levels of mental health services and broader systems. Matthew brings professional and lived experience skills and knowledge acquired through clinical roles at the Victorian Institute of Forensic Mental Health and Victorian Prisons as a Senior Social Worker/Counsellor, Group Therapist, support to the Consumer Consultant team and now the Family and Carer Advocate.
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KATHERINE PONTE. I was diagnosed with depression and then bipolar disorder over 15 years ago while a graduate student. Like so many of us, the stigma associated with mental illness kept me silent and in denial about my condition, making it only worse. Bipolar disorder impacted every aspect of my life. I felt alone and isolated. At times, I thought my life was over. At my lowest, I experienced suicidal depression. I lost hope. Accepting my family’s loving support and connecting with other people were critical to my recovery. The example of others taking on similar challenges gave me the hope that I could too. I was awed and inspired by the great courage and strength of our community. Once I finally achieved recovery, I realized that too many people like me continue to suffer in silence. But there is hope.
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Interview with Albert Ekema. Albert Ekema is from Cameroon. He was diagnosed with Schizophrenia at the age of 13 years and he will be turning 39 in December 2018. He has known numerous hospitalizations and has experienced so much marginalization, stigmatization and abuse, he doesn't even believe he could still be around at this age. Marie Abanga is the founder of the Association Hope for the Abused and Battered, with one of their focus area being Bringing Hope to those living with a mental illness or mental health challenge. She lives with PTSD herself, is on the executive committee of the Global Mental Health Peer Network representing Cameroon, is a lawyer, a psychotherapist, CBT Certified with distinctions and much more. She met Ekema while working at the lone psychiatric ward in Douala - Cameroon, and her spirit moved her to welcome Ekema into her home where she lives with her 4 sons.
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BBC Our World - Uganda - My Mad World. In Uganda few people are willing to talk about mental illness. Those who suffer are frequently isolated, shunned by their community and rejected by their families. Our World meets a man who has broken the silence. In this BBC documentary (2015), Joseph Atukunda, the GMHPN Executive Committee member representing Uganda, speaks about his recovery story and what it is like living with a mental health condition in Uganda. |
written recovery stories
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My life as a mental health consumer, carer, clinician and living experience academic: From personal madness to global mental health advocate.It was August 26th 2017, I lay in the back of my car ready to enter the spiritual world through the same means my mother had taken in 1999. I survived, a word that reflects my personal and family resilience having experienced a history littered with childhood abuse, violence, neglect, bullying and abandonment.
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We need to talk about it – NOWHi! My name is Sara. I will start by stating that I love my parents deeply, however this is how I would have described them throughout my childhood…….a criminal with a love of women and a tendency towards depressive episodes; and, a narcissist with a love of diamonds, an equal fondness for ignoring reality and the most unashamed liar I have ever known. My life hasn’t exactly been what many would assume - I was first arrested at 10 and again at 25 for the suspected attempted murder of my drug dealer (yes, this really happened)! You see, I somehow fell through the cracks growing up, as outwardly, I was part of a nice normal family and things like this don’t happen to us, and if they do, they certainly don’t get spoken about……. until now.
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My JourneyMy name is Shayne. The challenge of mental illness started for me at a young age when I got diagnosed at the age of 14 and was hospitalised at the same age in a rehabilitation centre. My mental illness was a great challenge for me as people didn’t understand me and everyone around me was pushing me away. I experienced a lot of stigma in college and high school during the time when I studied graphic design for 5 years, inspired by Fashion design. At the time I was smoking "weed" but fortunately realised I needed help and went to rehab when I was 17. From the beginning I took my recovery seriously as I acknowledged that my mental health and managing my mental illness was my responsibility. Recovery is a life time commitment and I had to take it slow in the beginning and work on my family relationships that I had ruined through taking drugs. I faced many challenges but I took my recovery seriously and educated myself on my condition. I got along very well with other people with mental illness and valued them for what I have learned from their experiences of being misunderstood - this was amazing for me and helped me advance towards the future. I became confident and made an effort in mended the relationships with my family, where my family started trusting me. I continued to attend narcotics anonymous meetings for 5 years and got more actively involved by setting up meetings, running the meetings and attending meetings regularly in my spare time. I kept occupied and active; I would read books on weekends, work in the kitchen in the rehabilitation centre I was staying at; and what inspired me was achieving something with other people.
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Unfortunately, I had a relapse, not using drugs again but I started hearing voices and just rambled on. Luckily my facilitator noticed and they addressed the issue with me and I got back on my feet again. It took me 6 months to get back onto my feet. I've been living at the psychosocial rehabilitation centre for 10 years and I love it here and I love the people here. I've come a long way in the past few years - I chose to take my life seriously, established a good relationship with my family, and developed my interest in fashion design - hoping to find work in the fashion industry. I take my responsibilities and commitments seriously as part of and moving towards the future.
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