2023-05-17 16:26:35
Rémi, peer health mediator, looks back on his journey as a psychiatry user. Today he is finally in his place and tries to make his peers understand that the world in which he lives also exists for them, whereas in the past it was hidden behind a veil of darkness. The path to cross it is both perilous and painful but it is worth it!
In 2018, it was the consecration for the Medium Stay Rehabilitation Unit of the Pyrenees Hospital Center which won the 2nd Psychiatric Nurse Prize for its project entitled: “A sequel to psychoeducation: the expert patient”. The management of the establishment then proposed to recruit Rémi and Ludovic (two patients) for a mission of peer health mediator. Through their interventions in terms of support for their peers and training (caregivers, medico-social, etc.), they arouse interest and challenge prejudices regarding mental illness. They are not content to provide care to the Other, they develop a reflexivity on their own experience and strengthen their recovery process. They’re getting high!
Today peer health mediator, Rémi Barrasso sends us this testimony
“Unfathomable darkness. This is what I have lived with for much of my life. And from a certain point of view, the worst thing for me was that they had no reason to exist. No history of trauma, divorce, premature or unexpected death…
I have known darkness in all its facets. Depression, devaluation, isolation, fear of everything and especially of people, anger, rage, the thirst for violence as an outlet for infinite, interminable suffering and the deep and paradoxically saving desire to die.
Weird to think that, but for me, imagining myself dead, a blade piercing my chest and my aching heart was a source of relief. No doubt it made me last a little longer each day. Death accompanied, so to speak, each of my steps for ten years and I can assure you that visualizing and projecting a future with this companion is an absolute difficulty.
A form of enlightenment made me let go of this morbid desire when I realized that if I went through with it I would lead my father, my mother and my brother to distress and death. I don’t know why, I had this vision: they were so sensitive that my death would cause a massacre.
So I was left in pain, with no escape, so rage became my only remedy. The desire to destroy everything to save this world and myself from corruption, from suffering.
At that time, I told myself that I had to become a monster as much in appearance as in actions. Being alone and without a future was for me the most obvious role. This division between the desire to become human or a monster lasted much longer even if today I made my choice.
I studied despite this suffering, but I felt inherently weak. Compared to others, compared to me. To counter this, because I wanted to be strong, I stiffened myself until I broke.
Yes, I died, somehow then I was born once more. But to create life with a corpse requires effort and patience. I no longer suffered, nothing touched me and I isolated myself at home.
Subsequently, I met people who made me progress and valued me day following day. I thought they were lying when they attributed many qualities to me. They repeated it so often that I ended up believing it or at least leaving enough doubt.
And then I jumped into the void by choosing the Peer Health Mediator training. I had no idea where I was going at that time. Despite the words of those who had helped me, I remained convinced that I was useless and maybe I was. They saw my potential. I decided to hang in there to honor them and over time, long following the training was over, I finally felt like I belonged.
I have finally conquered the greatest power in the universe, perhaps the only true one in this world. That of dreaming.
This is the power I’m supposed to pass on to my peers. But how do I make them all understand that the world I live in today also exists for them. When like me, once, he was hidden behind a veil of darkness. That the path to cross it is both perilous and painful but worth it.
That they don’t really need to change who they are.
Because personally I didn’t really let go of my rage, I embraced it and gave it the right to exist, which appeased it. I have not given up on the darkness because it is within that I have forged myself and am grateful for the wealth it has brought me. I haven’t given up on death because my time spent with it makes me respect it and I believe in the necessity of this part of the cycle. I understood that it was all regarding balance… at least for me. I’m no different from before, I’ve become weirdly, both who I always wanted to be and who I always was…”
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#longer #condemned #night
