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Re: Service Spotlight//SANE Peer Ambassadors Program//27 April - 4 May

Hello @Sans911 - it's so wonderful that this conversation and thread has connected with some of your own considerations and reflections at the moment.

Often, at the beginning of this journey, we feel that we need to share all of it in detail for it to have impact and to feel we have been honest. This is not the case. There is a place for this type of sharing in a therapeutic conversation with a treating professional, which helps us process and navigate our experiences.

The aim when sharing is often to connect with our listeners to the extent that they feel their experiences have been validated, but not to the point where they feel overwhelmed and distressed. Often, repeating that trauma ourselves is also not necessary or helpful either. Simply hearing someone be honest about a difficult experience touches people more than we realise because so many of us struggle to share the difficult times.

I tend to believe that there are two things we need to think about when wondering, as you ask, what is enough or too much.

a) Is the content you are considering sharing helpful i.e. will it encourage or deter help seeking? Will it provide and inspire hope or helplessness? Does it educate and raise awareness or re stigmatise? Often going into detail about journeys which include trauma are too difficult to hear and repeat.

b) If in doubt, leave it out 🙂 If something is causing you too much deliberation, it's always better to refrain and come back to it later - perhaps at a later stage or with a different audience and reconsider. This is much safer for all, than to include everything because one cant retract that later. This relates to your comment about your career later on. We have made amazing progress with how society views mental illness, but we still have a long way to go. Subsequently, if this is something you are concerned about, it's okay to take baby steps with your sharing; we cant control how people react to our journeys but we can control how, what, when and where we share it.

Whatever you include @Sans911 will demonstrate vulnerability and courage and THIS is what resonates - the wonderful human capacity to be emotionally risky; it's not the content as much but the act of sharing which reduces isolation.

It's also important to acknwoledge that whatever we choose to share, we all have our own truths and the likelihood is that some people will challenge those. The key is how we use those challenges as an opportunity to show compassion, respect and address misunderstandings.

It sounds like you have been having some really supportive conversations with the right people - keep on with this! It's okay to be vulnerable, but with the right people who are ready to embrace that vulnerability. It sounds like this is something you have thought about carefully and it has given you some amazing insights about going forward from here.

Thank you so much for sharing your experiences, concerns and worries - it's been really lovely to process these with you here 🙂

 

Re: Service Spotlight//SANE Peer Ambassadors Program//27 April - 4 May

Thanks @NatR for your thoughtful and helpful response.

Re: Service Spotlight//SANE Peer Ambassadors Program//27 April - 4 May

My pleasure!

Re: Service Spotlight//SANE Peer Ambassadors Program//27 April - 4 May

@NatR where do we find information about the recruitment process and applications for the ambassador positions?

Re: Service Spotlight//SANE Peer Ambassadors Program//27 April - 4 May

Hey @Sans911 - unfortunately, the ambassador recruitment process for this year closed a few weeks ago, but we will recruit again this time next year and be sure to inform the forum community when this opens 🙂

Re: Service Spotlight//SANE Peer Ambassadors Program//27 April - 4 May

Hello everyone,

A very brief note to thank all of you who have participated so insightfully in this thread and for creating such a positive forum experience for me. You've really given me a sound understanding of some of the concerns around sharing, especially for the first time, and I have taken on board lots of great points to take into the training.

I hope you had a wonderful weekend, and wishing you a really great week,

Natalie.

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