Quarterly Essay deep dives into Y-Change Lived Experience Consultant’s mental health journey
Y-Change
In mid-2021 Dr Sarah Krasnostein, author of the Trauma Cleaner, met with a Lived Experience Consultant from the Y-Change team to gain insight into mental health and how it is managed within our community, for her Quarterly Essay, Not Waving, Drowning – Mental Illness and Vulnerability in Australia.
The essay looks at the experiences of three women and how they were treated by the state when at their most vulnerable.
How can we mend Australia’s broken mental health system?
Dr Krasnostein asks in her essay, while we have the resources to mend our broken mental health system, do we have the will, or must the patterns of the past persist into the future?
Eliza* shared her story with Sarah over many months, revealing how she survived significant childhood trauma, the ongoing challenges of living with borderline personality disorder and suicidal thoughts, all while navigating the complexities of the mental health service system as a young person.
Berry Street is proud of Eliza and her advocacy work, and for sharing her story in such a way that illustrates what needs to be done to fix our mental health system, and urgently.
The Guardian published an extract of the essay, which focusses on the discussions Sarah and the Lived Experience Consultant had together.
The moral of this new story is freedom over equality, and one freedom above all – the freedom to be unbothered by others’ needs. However, as we continue to saw ourselves off our perch, mental health might be the great unifier that climate change and the pandemic are not.
The Quarterly Essay Not Waving, Drowning is available for purchase. $5 from each sale goes to support Berry Street initiatives like Y-Change.
About Y-Change
Berry Street’s Y-Change initiative is a social and systemic change platform for young people aged 18 to 30 with lived experiences of socioeconomic and systemic disadvantage. As Lived Experience Consultants, the team works to challenge the thinking and practices of social systems through advocacy and leadership.
New partnerships put young people at the centre of health solutions
