Lived Experience Forum

[chibam]

Thanks, @Paperdaisy , @Rhye , @Appleblossom . 🤗

I read your email, @Paperdaisy . Thank you. 🙂

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@Rhye wrote:

If you don't mind me asking another question, I'm wondering what hope might look like for you?

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Wow. Big question, @Rhye .

I guess it would be news that some corner of the world has begun fixating on making people feel good, instead of feeling bad. A place where the people are fixated more on insuring life is worth experiancing then they are on "making ends meet", "staying safe", and surviving.

News that society is beginning to prioritize building families (i.e. not necessarily biological, but clusters of lifelong close firendships) over it's economy and education standards. News that the systems we rely on to catch us when things don't work out for us are finally going to stop farting around having endless conferances about the blindingly obvious, and guinea-pigging vulnerable people with "evidance based treatments", and instead simply give these people the lives their asking for.

[Rhye]

What you've painted is a picture of a place I think a lot of us here would move to in a heartbeat @chibam! I'm not sure of your background, and apologies if this is something you're already across, but have you considered getting involved in lived experience advocacy? Lived Experience Australia facilitates advisory forums were consumers are encouraged to take part at the grass roots level. I think you'd have a lot a valuable experience to contribute 😊

[chibam]

@RhyeI think I'm about as active in advocacy as I have the strength for, TBH. I don't know if I'd be ready for the sort of engagement where I'm obliged to attend certain things at specific times and places. It's nice to be able to take a breather when I need it, you know? And by "breather", I mean a several-days-long break.

Besides, I have practical difficulties with attending forums. I'm guessing that in this era, most such forums would be Zoom-based; which is problematic for me as I don't have the privacy to talk openly about my opinions on suicide and other pertinant issues. Alternatively, if they are real-life meetings, that would lead to a lot of difficult questions about where I'm going.

TBH, my biggest difficulties with advocacy these days is that the jargon has become so incoherant, I often don't know if I'm talking about the same thing as everybody else these days. As time goes on, and the more stuff I read/watch, I find myself getting more and more confused, not less.

What I wouldn't give for a jargon-to-plain-english translation sheet.

[Rhye]

All very valid points you've raised @chibam.

Taking your point on jargon vs plain english, again I don't think you're alone there. Language can be packed full of barriers; from english as a second language, to learning difficulties and economic barriers within education.

[chibam]

Those are all relevant issues, @Rhye , but when you have english-language policies that typical native english speakers who've graduated highschool can't make hide nor hair of, it goes much deeper then just a case of minorities inadvertantly falling through the cracks.

Part of me is starting to wonder whether these arenas are deliberately being set up so that laypeople can't properly contribute on any noteworthy scale. For all the talk we've heard over these past few years about wanting "lived experiance advocacy, leadership & co-design", maybe there are only certain types of "lived experiance" people they want at their tables?

[Rhye]

You're on fire @chibam and this last response made me stop in my tracks!

I will admit I have asked myself the same question, which is why I'm empowered to create change where I can.