Why Peer Support?
This is my fourth year dealing with mental disorders, and the whole journey has made me become an expert of psychiatric hospitals in different cities. However, two years ago, in an inpatient department, I was confused and frightened. The conditions there were really tough. The hospital building was old and cramped, with only one floor for patients. We had to go through safety checks twice a day, which meant undressing completely. The sounds of people screaming and crying were a constant presence.
The resources dedicated to mental health within Chinese public healthcare system are very limited. Many kids told me that they had to be in the inpatient department not because their conditions were severe, but because of their limited health insurance. It was the only way for them to access physical treatments like Transcranial Magnetic Stimulation at a price their families could afford. However, a 2023 survey on mental health in China revealed that over 40% of high school students, over 30% of middle school students, and over 10% of primary school students were found to be at least in a depressive state.
Our society is not inclusive enough for people with mental disabilities, which makes it difficult for these kids to get back into school. They are called “problem students” by their teachers. Their classmates are afraid of talking to them. Their parents often appear on the campus, with shame covering their faces. When they stand on the street, they feel they have nowhere to go. This feeling of disconnection keeps pushing them back to the hospital where they can find people who just like them.
As a member of this kids, I can totally understand the comfort of finding a sense of belonging when you feel that you have been marginalized by the society. In the days we lived at the hospital together, my friends and I encouraged each other to attend physical therapy and Dialectical Behavioral Therapy sessions. I helped younger kids with their homework, and they gifted me flowers folded by paper, which was the only material they had access to. Even after leaving the inpatient department, this sense of community remained.
It wasn't until an accident happened that I came to realize how valuable this resource was. One of my friends messaged me and another kid after he tried to commit suicide by overdosing. Together, we managed to contact a hospital and through the hospital, we also contacted his parents who were in another city. Eventually, he received the treatment he needed. I couldn’t imagine what would happen if he didn’t trust us enough to reach out.
This event made me realize that it wasn't like we had nothing. We still have each other. This realization led to the formation of my initiative: when public mental health resources were still on their way of development, when people from lower classes still couldn’t afford a single session of psychological counseling, peer support offered a new path for me, glinting with possibilities. I wanted to let more people know that we had the strength and empathy to support our peers, and when we walked through the darkness, there were our peers who were willing to support us.
After explaining the whole thinking process, I’m finally confident enough to introduce my project to you. It doesn’t have a fancy name. I simply call it peer support, as this phrase already means a lot. Collaborating with social workers in a local community center, my job is to build a club focusing on teenagers’ mental well-being and is led by teenagers themselves. I set two goals for it: the first one is that I want to value the perspectives of people who have been through mental health difficulties. I want to value the experience of us. The second one is I want to offer resources to groups that are less privileged, just like the kids I met in the inpatient department.
The project was started at the end of 2022. In the beginning, I worked only by myself. For the first exhibition in the community center, I interviewed young people with mental disorders, who mostly belonged to the social network we had back to the hospital. We talked about what were the things we found to be helpful, our perception of our lives, our suggestions for family members and friends, et cetera. I also designed a handbook on how to practice peer support in daily life, including a toolkit for regulating emotions. People could grab physical copies in the community center for free, and the online version was also spread through social media. Luckily, after a year, new members joined the group, and right now we are a team of five. All of us have gone through different degrees and different types of mental health difficulties. Right now, we are hosting art therapy workshops regularly in the community. Just as we offer our unique perspectives based on different experiences, we are responsible for different types of art based on our talents. Currently, we have creative writing, improvisational theater, and visual art, and we’re still exploring other forms.
It's always amazing for me to be there in these workshops, and I’m grateful that teenagers from the local community are willing to come and trust me enough to share. In one of our writing workshops, we wrote about our connection with items from the environment around us. I was impressed with the writing of one boy. He wrote, stones are ugly, just like me, but they pave the paths that people walk on. I want to be the stone. He shared this sentence with the group loudly, while a sense of pride shining on his face.
I remember the paper flowers I received from the kids back in the inpatient department. I learned from them, and right now, by using fragile but also accessible materials like paper, I am folding different colors and styles of flowers, giving them to more people. In a society with a lot of pressure, we encourage our peers to learn both how to care for themselves and how to care for others. And for those who are experiencing or have been through mental disorders, our stories are not our stigma. Instead, they are our pride. We will be there for each other, always, making room for healing.