Have you recovered from a psychiatric crisis or diagnosis of serious mental illness?
I'm looking for a particular kind of expert. I'm looking for people who:

- had a serious mental health crisis (or more than one), possibly receiving a diagnosis like bipolar, schizophrenia, BPD, or schizoaffective disorder,
- experienced some kind of transformation, recovery, or shift,
- now live a full life, able to be financially and practically independent, with no crises, no fear of crisis, and a psychological experience of life that is meaningful and rarely overwhelming.

You do not need to have had any formal psychiatric treatment at all--if you dealt with your crises outside the healthcare system I would also like to hear from you.

When I say mental health crisis, I mean something like:
- You felt acutely suicidal, or maybe made a suicide attempt
- You experienced full-blown mania (racing thoughts, disorganised behaviour, extreme impulsivity)
- You experienced psychosis (unclear distinction between internal reality and external reality, disorganised thinking and behaviour)

Note: you don't have to be someone with zero 'symptoms', but whatever experiences you have, they don't trouble you or introduce major difficulties into your relationships. Perhaps you still hear voices or experience strong mood shifts but they don't bother you or those you're close to, or interfere with living a satisfying life.

I would like you to join my advisory group to help imagine how to change how we as a society respond to psychiatric crises. This is currently a Facebook group, although I may also ask if you'd like to participate in an interview. All participation is voluntary and optional.

All your answers will be kept private, though I plan to discuss general patterns in responses in public. If you are interested in sharing your story publicly there may be opportunities to do that in the future.
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When you experienced a psychiatric crisis--what happened? How did you feel? What did you do? How many times did it happen?
What was the response from others, including professionals? What helped you? What was unhelpful? Did you use medication? What else did you use, or did other people use, to treat you?
What changed, so that you felt transformed or recovered? What was different about you and your life? You can be specific.
How long was it between the start of the first crisis and the time you felt yourself to be stably recovered or transformed? How old were you? (rough answers are fine)
What was it like to live your life afterwards? What was difficult? What was easy?
Do you currently use psychiatric medication? What is it, and how much? Do you intend to stay on it? For how long?
What do you think was different between you and others who have not experienced such a strong transformation?
Are there any particular tools, practices, people, practices, places, diagnoses, beliefs, or values you think were particularly key to the change?
Are there any particular tools, practices, people, practices, places, diagnoses, beliefs, or values you think got in the way of the change?
If in a few months you had another crisis of the same kind, would you be surprised? What do you think would be the contributing factors, if you did?
Would you participate in a 1-on-1 interview to ask follow-up questions? If so, add your email:
Would you join a FB group where we can ask for your advice and feedback as we develop tools and plans to help people through psychiatric crises? If so, add a link to your FB profile.
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