Peer Support
In 2018 I was trained by the Canadian Mental Health Association as a peer support worker. For me, peer support is all about utilizing lived experience.
When I was in peer support training, we would sit in a circle and discuss the tenets/philosophy of peer support, as well as what being in recovery and being a peer support worker mean. There was one particular concept I had a hard time accepting.
I wasn’t in the greatest of headspaces at that time, and remember writing strange grandiose reflections in my journal that my mentor would review. Musings about free will that were a scattered mix of poetry and self-help sermons. Although embarrassing, it was an important step for me to take. I’ve always had a hard time writing, as until that point I’d been too critical to keep words on the page with these topics.
One of the themes I started writing about after that was free will. The idea of “self-determination” was hard for me to accept—the idea that we all have the power to change our situation. That we have free will. I find this relates to mental health in a strong, albeit a possibly controversial way.
At the time I was very skeptical that we had any sort of free will. I believed that life was imposed on us. I didn’t choose to be born, because I would have had to already be born in order to choose. I thought that in life we have the illusion of choice and nothing more. Are we choosing if there aren’t any viable alternatives to what we’re choosing? If we are dealt a bad hand, how can we be expected to play well? Is it not completely out of my control as to what’s been deemed “well”? During peer school I was beginning to wrestle with these issues outside of my head and on the page. It’s a process I continue to this day, to try to make sense of these big issues.
I find it really helpful to externalize our thoughts and ideas, and work through them in a tangible way like through writing. There’s a certain clarity that comes from having something outside of ourselves to reflect with, to mould and react to. It can be an uncomfortable process, as we’re confronted with what we might not be aware of, but I find it very rewarding and good for my mental health.
As for mental health, I think that believing in choice is a double-edged sword. If we say we have a choice and that there is a division between good and bad choices, we must take responsibility for the bad choices that we’ve made, that we had control over. This can be really painful. But on the flip side, if we say we have a choice, we have a way out of our situation in that we admit we have the ability to make choices that we want for ourselves and others. We’re empowered.
As for what is and isn’t out of your control, that’s for you to decide. It can be really harmful when people tell us that something is in our control when it isn’t. Peer support is all about valuing the perspective of the person living with what’s being talked about, and recognizing that each of us knows ourself best in determining what is and isn’t feasible to change or not change. As friends and family members we can come alongside people and talk through potential possibilities, but it’s important to recognize the fact that it’s up to the person themself to live their life how they can.
When I started writing about free will, I was grappling with a friend’s suicide. I didn’t want it to be, in any way, his fault that he didn’t pull himself out of his misery. I wasn’t mad at him; I was mad at the world for allowing or creating such disparity in mental anguish. As for myself, I didn’t want to face the pain I’d been handed, and hadn’t come to terms with the decisions I had made that had helped lead to that pain. I was unsure about my future, unsure I deserved a decent one.
Peer support taught me that recovery is about self-acceptance and allowing yourself to dream. Daring to want something out of our lives. If I had to describe peer support quickly, I would call it sharing lived experience to instill hope.
Peer support helped me realize I was not alone in this fight, and that other people faced similar struggles of being held back by their past with health troubles. I learned to focus on what I can control. To focus on what was strong, not what was wrong (21). This provided the perspective I needed to move forward in my life. I may not be able to control a lot of things, but I can control how I react, how I interpret what comes towards me.
It’s way easier said than done, but focusing on the future and learning to be realistic with the past is a fantastic form of self-care. I learned that recovery is a process, not a destination. That I would face some serious ups and downs throughout life that others wouldn’t have to endure, but that was o.k. because maybe the highs I have that they don’t would make up for it.
