Living With Trauma: The Healers, 25

Working with my bosses is almost never easy nor enjoyable. Fortunately, we never see each other. The hierarchical bureaucracy of my workplace is so byzantine and labyrinthine that I don't think I would know any of them if we ever saw each other on the street, or anywhere. Which is part of the problem. It is very easy either to ignore or demonize or pathologize those we neither know nor see. This is particularly onerous to us peer support workers. We are at the bottom rung and they want us to stay there. They never see us, never hear us, know nothing about us, and they're the ones who set policy and guidelines as well as determining our wage. They will be happy to leave us where we are, carting us out only for PR purposes (see how progressive and benevolent we are. We employ mental health consumers. We pay them shit wages and really wish they didn't exist, but here they are. Aren't we wonderful!) Otherwise, we're not there, and if we're not there, then they don't have to pay us a living wage, since we are, in their eyes anyway, consumers who have recovered just enough to make them look good. For the record, I am not a consumer. I was never part of the mental health system. I owe my recovery to four years with a very capable private therapist. I was never part of a mental health team and have never had to cope with the kind of stigma they dump on people. Which makes me a bit of a wild card, since they really can't control me. I don't feel indebted to them, and for this reason I write these shameless blogposts about those bozos who pay my wages, as well as making whatever noise I can persuade Adrian Dix, our health minister, whose NDP I stupidly voted for, forgetting that they are notorious for breaking campaign promises, that peer support workers deserve a decent raise. Adrian Dix still hasn't responded to any of the emails I have been sending him, once or twice a month, since August. He must really care! In the meantime there is always negotiating and maintaining that tense and nervous balance between peer support workers (damaged goods) and union staff (they are in denial about their also being damaged). On crappy pay, working in an environment of stigma, with less than ideal work conditions, we continue doing and being our best for our clients, knowing that the love that drives and motivates us will do more for their wellbeing than what a lot of union staff can themselves have to offer (they are in denial about their own damaged state). Union staff give what support they are able, but the lack of lived experience makes even their best efforts into nothing better than various levels of noblesse oblige. They often seem confused about us, not knowing whether to treat us like colleagues or clients, and a lot of peer support workers are still so paralysed by internalized stigma that they appear more comfortable being treated like clients. I have often seen peer support workers waiting in the client waiting area at teams where they work, instead of in the staff room, where we are actually allowed to sit. We're not always allowed to even use the same washrooms!