I am Ali

Hi all, I go by Ali.

I come from a trauma filled background. I eventually developed a range of experiences from hearing voices and seeing demons to dissociative black outs. Anxiety kept me isolated, the trauma kept me in my own world, the dissociation and hallucinations confused me. In high school I learned the ins and outs of Psychiatry, the good and the bad, and set myself on a path for medical school success. At age 21 I got a position as a counselor at a respite house, where I still am a year later, and have learned compassion and a growing understanding of the power of community. I work for 2nd Story Peer Respite house. We are voluntary, with a 2 week stay (we'll be lengthing that soon enough). All of us "counselors" are peer workers, meaning we've been through psychiatric distress ourselves. We are a regular house in a regular neighborhood, those who stay with us are our guests not clients or patients, we don't hand out or deal with medication (we trust the guests to handle that on their own, we give them a key to lock up their medication in their rooms). This community has both saved and changed my life. We operate with a foundation in Intentional Peer Support.

I'm still in college, but with a different mindest. I'm mindful of what I've termed "clinical arrogance"--i.e, doctors with no mental health experience believing they understand what someone is going through. I've learned if someone has experienced something I haven't, a textbook can't tell me what they need, only they can tell me what they need. We believe at the respite house, and my own personal belief, is that no one is incapable of taking care of themself, no one is fragile. We all need support sometimes, empowerment and encouragement, but we don't need to be spoon fed, we don't need to fall into a pit of learned helplessness, which is easy to do in an enviornment where we're constantly told we're disabled, sick, ill, crazy.

That's my story, and many others, so far.