East Asian Arch Psychiatry 2014;24:128

Theme Paper

“Recovery” from the Eye of a Peer Specialist
从「朋辈支援专家」角度看复元

LH Chan

陈莉虹


Ms L. H. Chan, Community Psychiatric Service, Castle Peak Hospital, Tuen
Mun, New Territories, Hong Kong SAR, China.

Address for correspondence:
Tel: (852) 2456 7189; email: lc325@ha.org.hk

Submitted: 31 March 2014; Accepted: 9 June 2014


pdf Full Paper in PDF

As a peer specialist in the Community Psychiatric Service of Castle Peak Hospital, I have opportunities to work with multidisciplinary case managers, people in recovery and their family, community partners, and the media. Through sharing of my personal recovery journey, I aim to emerge as a messenger of hope and healing to people in recovery and their family by conveying that recovery from mental illness is possible.

My ultimate goal is to provide inspiration to people in recovery, and to help them understand that although they might encounter dark times in their recovery journeys, there is also hope and they are not alone. Acceptance of the diagnosis of being mentally ill is difficult for both an individual and the family. I can relate with my peers and their carers on the difficulties of overcoming the stigma of mental illness as well as the fear of isolation and rejection. It does take time for medicine to become effective; however, with courage and determination, recovery from mental illness is possible. Looking back at my own journey of recovery and at every instance of indignity that I suffered in shame and silence, I realise that self-stigma is the first and the hardest battle that I had to fight within myself. It was only with the unconditional love and support of family and friends that I was able to regain my self-esteem and move forwards to deal with the public stigma.

I deeply believe that my mental illness totally destroyed my professional career. I have gone from working successfully as a professional chemical engineer at a publicly listed American company to being an unemployed divorcee, struggling with daily living. Mental illness has stripped away my life. However, never did I dream that my mental illness enables me to help others and gives me a new prospective towards life. In the past 2 years of working as a peer specialist in the Community Psychiatric Service of Castle Peak Hospital, I have gained tremendously both at the professional and the personal levels. At the personal level, I have attained better insight into my illness and the recovery process, and built resilience against adversity. Moreover, my supervisor and my colleagues empower me in identifying my strength so as to regain my self- esteem and live a life with hope, which is crucial for me to disseminate a positive public image for mental health promotion. In addition, this job gives me security to live a life independently and, more importantly, not being a burden to my dearest loving parents. It encourages me to continue walking towards my new goals in life with hope and confidence. At the professional level, I am grateful for an opportunity to induce hope in my peers and their carers through my experiential sharing as well as by projecting myself as a role model to demonstrate that recovery from mental illness is possible. This provides input from a service user’s point of view and helps the Community Psychiatric Service to provide a person-centred practice. 

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