A Peer On Peer Perspective In Psychiatric Health

By Jeffrey V. Perry

We are often self-defined by our roles, titles, or even by the labels we are given and even the ones that we assume. It is when we can redefine ourselves through our actions to determine more of what we are really about. It is without clothes or cover, like Adam and Eve in the Garden of Eden, after they had confessed to eating from the tree of knowledge of good and evil, that they understood their bareness, or who they were. We too become us without our covers. I am not a black, middle aged male, college educated person with a psychiatric diagnosis, before I am who "I am." I must be the first to define or refine what limits that I will place on myself by the actions and challenges that I choose to undertake, even if the deck is stacked against me, or if I am strongly advised that I am limited by the history of another who has shared my plight. I may find these limits to be true or may find them unfounded, not by only the low expectations set in place on another. Never underestimate the power of doing.
Psychiatric health I have discovered to have cause and affect dilemmas, based around labels and expectations, coupled with a disease that itself suggest that one is unable more that another. Psychiatric un-health is when we ourselves cannot continue to operate our own personal and social lifestyle. Yes, we may be unable to continue to work because of this, but this is just a side-effect of the disease and not the disability itself. Most people will not interpret this without having been through this first-hand. This is why many psychiatric professionals are still sitting on the sidelines waiting before encouraging the use of recovery-based practices. For this reason, and maybe this reason alone "peers" are going to work more than before. Unfortunately, they are working mostly, being used mainly as the role models to show other recipients of psychiatric services and their providers the way to understand and achieve a new sense of psychiatric recovery, based on the individual; not the symptoms, the diagnosis, the disability, one's race or ethnicity, religion, gender, and of course, educational background. Anyone, given the chance can succeed or fail, just as much as the next person. This is why, we must be able to offer every psychiatric recipient (or any labeled group) the capacity to move forward in life, while defining and redefining their own recovery. Maybe then, we will realize how irrelevant all those labels do become.
This book is a compilation of my writings, in prose and poetry, how psychiatric health and other social dilemmas can be viewed through a peer perspective, or through the eyes of the ones directly impacted.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Jeffrey V. Perry
• Release date: Nov 10, 2012
• ISBN: 9781301283682

Jeffrey V. Perry

Jeffrey V. Perry, Writer, Poet, and Author Jeffrey is a fifty-four (54) years old, Afro-American male, born in North Carolina in 1955. He has had several creative writing classes over the years, and understands the academics of literature. He attended Dartmouth College, undergraduate, and holds a Master of Science in Management. His titles include: The Positive Prime, a book of Poetry Publish America, Inc, LLP, 2007, Conversations with a Soul Brother (includes essays), Outskirts Press, 2008, and Welcome Home, Soul Food, Legacy of an Ex-slave,in 2009, and Obedience to Poetry (2.0)and Alternating Views 2.0 in 2010, all published at Harlem Book Fair Publishers (now Wordclay). He has published several essays, which are included in his collection, Alternating Views 2.0, from the Mental Health News, "Quality Life Promotes Recovery" and "The Economy's Effect on People: a Peer Perspective,' and is published in other NYC area mental health journals.

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Introduction

We are often self-defined by our roles, titles, or even by the labels we are given and even the ones that we assume. It is when we can redefine ourselves through our actions to determine more of what we are really about. It is without clothes or cover, like Adam and Eve in the Garden of Eden, after they had confessed to eating from the tree of knowledge of good and evil, that they understood their bareness, or who they were. We too become us without our covers. I am not a black, middle aged male, college educated person with a psychiatric diagnosis, before I am who I am. I must be the first to define or refine what limits that I will place on myself by the actions and challenges that I choose to undertake, even if the deck is stacked against me, or if I am strongly advised that I am limited by the history of another who has shared my plight. I may find these limits to be true or may find them unfounded, not by only the low expectations set in place on another. Never underestimate the power of doing.

Psychiatric health I have discovered to have cause and affect dilemmas, based around labels and expectations, coupled with a disease that itself suggest that one is unable more that another. Psychiatric un-health is when we ourselves cannot continue to operate our own personal and social lifestyle. Yes, we may be unable to continue to work because of this, but this is just a side-effect of the disease and not the disability itself. Most people will not interpret this without having been through this first-hand. This is why many psychiatric professionals are still sitting on the sidelines waiting before encouraging the use of recovery-based practices. For this reason, and maybe this reason alone peers are going to work more than before. Unfortunately, they are working mostly, being used mainly as the role models to show other recipients of psychiatric services and their providers the way to understand and achieve a new sense of psychiatric recovery, based on the individual; not the symptoms, the diagnosis, the disability, one’s race or ethnicity, religion, gender, and of course, educational background. Anyone, given the chance can succeed or fail, just as much as the next person. This is why, we must be able to offer every psychiatric recipient (or any labeled group) the capacity to move forward in life, while defining and redefining their own recovery. Maybe then, we will realize how irrelevant all those labels do become.

This book is a compilation of my writings, in prose and poetry, how psychiatric health and other social dilemmas can be viewed through a peer perspective, or through the eyes of the ones directly impacted.

I WOULD LIKE TO ACKNOWLEDGE AND THANK ELWOOD GENE EDWARDS, PHD, FOR HIS PROOFREADING AND EDITING OF MY WORK.

REACHING GO

(Road to Recovery)

When I was young,

We would play Stop and Go,

A game of one-step at a time

Sometimes, most of the time-

"One, two, three red light

One, two, three green light"

Then, I did think,

This game was not much!

I remember it was just important

For me to go fast

Then faster until I got tired,

I then would just go slowly. So

I learned to pace myself.

One of life’s lessons:

It is to learn what you know!

So I have to relearn go.

Life seemed to always go fast,

While always I can keep up,

Ever surpassed even my best pace

Work is a skill of time.

Achieving, meeting the challenge

Before, you fall behind.

Failure, like success

Is not an option

My mother said, Do!

I find it was just that!

Still I could do more,

So the more, I have tried.

It hurt to lose

Even in just one game!

Not ending up on the top,

Was it ego, pride?

On the other hand,

Did I just get tired?

Did I not succeed?

Maybe not just all the way!

But even Casey at the Bat

Should be given another day.

Maybe Casey should pray

For new pages to say that

The Casey in me never wanted to turn the

page

For new innings, where a bat becomes the

rage,

Never turn, not return the wage.

Falling down is just getting back in the

race.

Like the sprinters in the blocks where each

takes a place.

You must stand them up to play TOPS

There is always that chance for go, to

learn to STOP

Learning what I know!

Again I am reaching for Go

Reaching go is not that much,

I go because the game is such.

Red light, green light and such!-

Do It!

"Reaching Go, and staying there!’

RED LIGHT

RENEWED BELIEF – RECOVERY

Recovery is a renewed belief in the human experience – A belief in

ones’ self, as well as, the belief in others. We can easily lose trust

when situations have low merit: when we live in subhuman

conditions without moral economic norms that are below the poverty

level. Here no human being finds a love for one’s self. This coupled

with devastating mental health issues can deplete a person of any

belief in himself or herself. We then learn to look to others for

validation, most of which is not there for someone who is in a

compromised circumstance. We begin not to trust our own instinct

and only second-guess ourselves. As a coping mechanism, we look

for help. We faced with a truth that we must rely on another.

However, who can we trust? Do we trust the loved ones, who called

the police and sent us to the psychiatric hospital? Maybe you came

in on your own accord or/and in your rational mind, but realizing

that you needed some help? This, believe me, is quite commonplace

that you –yourself- go for help! Another human being then handles

you, not just physically but also mentally during an assessment or

intake process. We must trust those talking to us face-to-face. Once

the evaluation is complete, we can lose trust in everything because

of the immediate results, particularly the admission to a psychiatric

unit. (Alternatively, if there is no admission, were those concerns

and questions asked, addressed for you and those who brought you

in?) Trust becomes an issue! Whom can I look to trust now? Can I

still? Do I still trust myself?

I believe that I was blank (mentally) through most of my intake

process. Most the time you just trusted that, this is the best for you,

and those others are looking out for your best interest. We normally

and naturally, as human beings, trust the system. Not until, we

become a consumer of those services do we begin to ask questions,

as over time and throughout our experiences, we lose trust

completely, in anything. Whether we are humiliated to total

submission by this system or lose faith in ourselves (And a loving

God) for not being able to contest, what has happened to us that we

are instructed ‘what" to do by another person’s understanding and

not ours. Once you find an out, someone who may listen to you as

another human being, whether that is a clinician or peer, do we find

trust again? Now, learning to trust another becomes learning to love

again.