Who is really answering

Hi @perspective the new crop of peer support workers have both sets of qualifications. They're mental health workers with personal lived experience.

Me I'm just a humble psych patient getting by with a little help from my friends. And very glad to be chatting with everyone too.

The community guides seem to be a select bunch of people who've stepped up to volunteer their time and do a little training to help out.

But if you wait you might get a better answer from someone more qualified than me!!!

cheers

Dimity

I think it's genuinely a self-help community from what I can see @perspective

@Dimity just embracing my paranoia it never leads me astray ;D

Know the feeling @perspective I felt compelled to follow up something off-line earlier today. team@sane.org.au are very forgiving

I'm a real person w an addiction going through a relapse desperate for help so yeah very real

Hello @Alonenonit @moderator and welcome to the forums. Sorry to hear of your sddiction relapse, and that you're desperately seeking help. Do you have the support of a gp or another health professional?

The forums are caring and non-judgemental. I hope you find the support you're looking for here. Replies can sometimes take a few hours depending on who's online so if you're in crisis you may need an emergency service.

To reply type @ then select my name and I'll be sent a notification. Others will still see your message and be able to join in.

Good luck,

Dimity

Hey there @Alonenonit, it's nice to meet you and thank you for sharing a bit about yourself. I'm so sorry that you're currently in a relapse, I know from friends I've supported that there can be a lot of conflicting feelings that come up.

How are you doing today?

I'm also keen to help you find the right support at the moment, so would love to know how you've handled relapses before and any supports you've reached out too.

Like @Dimity said (thank you for the tag by the way), we're a community with lived experience, even most of the staff. The forums can make it very tricky to give one-on-one and specific support (like with addiction). But we're very good at

• being non-judgemental and trying to understand what you're experiencing
• Helping with any emotions
• Offering support with what has worked for us ❤️

I know we're really looking forward to getting to know you!

@perspectiveFWIW, I have no association with the psych industry, and there are numerous other people on here who I'm certain have no professional ties to the psych industry (though most of us are/have been patients of it).

There's enough criticism of the mental health system on here - much of it very blunt - to convince me that there's an abundance of non-psych workers around here.

Yeah, that's about it @Dimity . It's training for a lot of us. That's both training to better help others and to better help ourselves.

Also,because everyone's invisible diseases are different, it's nice as a platform, so we can practice advocacy and a research base to know what to advocate for. This place is very much the "inside story" or the "pulse" of what's going on in the mental world.

Thanks @wellwellwellnez that's reassuring. Informed advocacy is definitely needed.