I believe it is a peer specialist's role to bridge the gap between treatment team and patient. We as peers are able to see the more human characteristics of a person's experience with a mental illness. It is my goal to provide my readers with an identifiable and yet inspiring voice.
I have had the privilege of working with peers myself. And I found them to be very helpful. My writing is influenced by this experience. I can remember one of the peers telling me to be mostly positive in telling your story. The stories each of the peers I have worked with helped me to be hopeful that I could recover. And the presence of these people who were leading full and rewarding lives was an inspiration.
I hope to bring about positive change not only as a writer. There is much room for improvement in the mental health system. I believe positive change can only come from within. It will be a matter of opening lines of communication between doctors and policy makers with sufferers of these illnesses. We can not however bring about the changes we want to see simply from pointing our finger. As they say we must ourselves be the change we want to see in the world.
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