Fact: 100% Of People Have Mental Health

Fact: 100% of people have mental health. Kind of like dental health--we all have teeth that we should brush and keep healthy. Some people need braces. Some need a couple teeth pulled. And some were born with a naturally straight smile.

One of the things that has been remarkable to me about the mental health sector is the extreme hierarchy of perceived authority. At the very top of the influence structure are the people with many fancy letters after their names. It is a sector that reveres academic credentials.

Fair enough. Many people worked many years reviewing best practices and immersing themselves in study. They have valuable insight! And given that mental health conditions are often managed using prescription medications, there is a natural respect paid to these medical professionals.

However, it’s possible to respect learned professionals while still making room for others’ opinions, particularly when it comes to suicide. Most notably, I want to stress the importance of people with lived experience. These are the people who have lived through experiences of suicidal thoughts, suicide attempts, or suicide loss (like losing a friend, parent, or child to suicide.) It makes sense to include their voices for several reasons:

1. Perspective.

Experiencing a mental health condition as an attempt survivor or knowing the grief of losing someone you love, is an unique experience--and exactly the condition the sector is trying to prevent. It seems obvious that this perspective would be valuable!

There is a common saying in the mental health space: “You can never know the battle someone else is fighting in their head.” It suggests we should abandon bias, and not assume you know what someone else is feeling. Instead we should ask, and promote transparency in our feelings. And yet, without lived experience at the table, how can we ask? How can we understand without representation? The mantra is “nothing about us, without us.

The term “professional” often refers to someone making something their  full time pursuit, like a tennis player who makes playing her career. Yet, there is no school or certificate required to be in the tennis world. It seems strange that the arbitrary creation of formal education would minimize the importance of lived experience within the realm of mental health. People with lived experience are 24/7 mental health professionals, seeing every decision and relationship through the lens of their unique perspective.

2. Validation.

For people living with mental health experience, the lack of inclusion can be traumatic. It literally says: your feelings, experiences, and ideas don’t matter. It can reaffirm those feelings of worthlessness that their mental illness may have created. As mental health champions, we should avoid creating walls that keep people out. Instead we should build open gardens and be inclusive to everyone, of all backgrounds.

The act of including people with lived experience is means of telling them they matter.

3. Busting stigma.

If we want people to feel comfortable reaching out for help, we need to normalize and accept a spectrum of mental health. Inclusion is a key part of this. By leaving out lived experience, we suggest that these people are risky or that their opinions are not valuable.

There are six suicide attempt survivors on our team, that I know of. They have spoken publicly or published writing about their experiences. I’m grateful for their bravery and welcome their insight. It’s important to me to have lived experience in every conversation.

It’s also important to have so many people on our team with advanced degrees in relevant fields. They bring an evidence-based practice and scrutiny to our work.

One is not better than the other. In fact, they are not even complete together--there are many full-time staff at Crisis Text Line with advanced degrees and lived experience...and they would be the first to tell you that their voice is only one of many needed.

What makes Crisis Text Line strong is the diversity of voices and experiences in the mix. Of course our Coaches and Supervisors bring strong mental health experience and training. And our data science team has brought fresh thinking to questions of quality and policies. Our engineers have forged new ways of thinking about standardization and consistency of definition. Across all of those teams, lived experience informs our decision making.

If 100% of people have mental health, the caregivers and policymakers need to look more like 100% of the people.