As a per­son with lived ex­pe­ri­ence (PWLE) in men­tal health, I un­der­stand the im­por­tance of my voice in the glob­al equa­tion of shift­ing men­tal health sys­tems and that of fac­ing down stig­ma.

For decades, I have lived open­ly about is­sues in my life, us­ing my voice to ad­vo­cate for sys­temic change while cre­at­ing space for oth­ers to ei­ther use their voic­es or find safe­ty in them­selves and their en­vi­ron­ment to deal with their men­tal health is­sues.

There are so many peo­ple who reg­u­lar­ly re­flect with me about their own con­fi­dence to live with the is­sue of a men­tal health di­ag­no­sis based on my open­ness and con­tin­ued ad­vo­ca­cy. That is al­ways re­ward­ing.

The sys­temic changes I have seen over that time are not par­tic­u­lar­ly sat­is­fy­ing, though, but that could be be­cause I am a dis­sat­is­fied per­son, es­pe­cial­ly in en­vi­ron­ments that re­main mediocre or mid­dling. Our men­tal health sys­tem is woe­ful­ly slow in im­prov­ing, and our na­tion’s/na­tion­al voice seems so mut­ed it evokes de­spair in me for the change need­ed and en­vi­sioned.

As I start­ed to think about the big idea for this year’s com­mem­o­ra­tion of World Men­tal Health Day (WMHD) on Oc­to­ber 10, I re­flect­ed on the years the sys­tem al­lowed greater ac­cess to peo­ple con­sid­ered “ex­pert by ex­pe­ri­ence.” There was that time when part­ner­ing with the State and in­ter­na­tion­al agen­cies added a mean­ing­ful lay­er to ad­vo­ca­cy.

Now, I have be­come a scep­tic. The cyn­i­cism I see in my­self as I ad­dress WMHD in this space may not be ev­i­dent in my writ­ing, so I am be­ing open.

The mes­sages from glob­al plat­forms have val­ue – in some places more than oth­ers – but se­duc­tive cam­paigns from glob­al or­gan­i­sa­tions no longer ex­cite any­thing in me.

The whole idea of these big themes for men­tal health seems su­per­fi­cial in my ju­ris­dic­tion. Or maybe I am suf­fer­ing from burnout or lim­it­ed by my scant use of news and so­cial me­dia and can­not keep up with the good work be­ing done here.

As a PWLE, I de­spair about cer­tain an­tic­i­pat­ed im­prove­ments in men­tal health in my life­time, es­pe­cial­ly in our ef­forts to un­der­stand and ad­dress the de­bil­i­tat­ing is­sue of stig­ma against those who live open­ly in T&T with a glob­al­ly stig­ma­tised is­sue such as men­tal health/ill­ness.

“World Men­tal Health Day is an op­por­tu­ni­ty to mean­ing­ful­ly en­gage with peo­ple with lived ex­pe­ri­ence (PWLE) of men­tal health con­di­tions and to recog­nise their knowl­edge as a vi­tal form of ex­per­tise.”

This is the open­ing para­graph from the World Health Or­ga­ni­za­tion (WHO) as they pro­mote the 2026 WMHD, themed “Lived ex­pe­ri­ences heard: re­al voic­es, re­al change.”

The idea is that peo­ple with lived men­tal health ex­pe­ri­ence are, or at least should be, cat­a­lysts for cre­at­ing shifts in chang­ing men­tal health sys­tems.

“Lived ex­pe­ri­ence” should be con­sid­ered and laud­ed as first-hand in­sight that physi­cians or aca­d­e­mics can­not ad­e­quate­ly repli­cate.

High­light­ing this is ex­cit­ing. Recog­nis­ing it one day in a year may have the ef­fect of el­e­vat­ing the dis­course, hope­ful­ly.

“This year’s cam­paign calls for their (PWLE) voic­es to shape the poli­cies, ser­vices and de­ci­sions that af­fect their lives,” says WHO.

“Lived ex­pe­ri­ence is what some­one has ex­pe­ri­enced them­selves, es­pe­cial­ly when it gives the in­di­vid­ual knowl­edge or un­der­stand­ing that peo­ple who have on­ly heard or learnt about such ex­pe­ri­ences do not have.”

Lived ex­pe­ri­ence en­gage­ment is worth­while. We re­main grate­ful for many op­por­tu­ni­ties cre­at­ed here in pre­vi­ous years to al­low those voic­es to be heard. My great­est de­sire has been and re­mains that open­ness about liv­ing and thriv­ing with a men­tal dis­or­der, or liv­ing through short-term men­tal health crises make the is­sue as com­mon­place as it re­al­ly is.

If speak­ing open­ly can cause some­one else to ques­tion them­selves long enough to seek a pro­fes­sion­al in­ter­ven­tion and to do so with­out self-stig­ma­tis­ing or be­ing stig­ma­tised as “mad” or “bro­ken” (all hu­mans are bro­ken, any­way), that would be suf­fi­cient for me.

But stig­ma—the bug­bear of be­ing open about men­tal ill­ness­es—does not change from wish­ing it would go away. In coun­tries where PWLEs live with­out feel­ing or be­ing stig­ma­tised, or at least a re­duc­tion in those be­hav­iours to­wards or against them, large bud­gets and de­lib­er­ate pro­gram­ming have been used over decades to change the na­tion­al con­ver­sa­tions, per­cep­tions, be­liefs, knowl­edge, and at­ti­tudes.

In many of those coun­tries, com­mu­ni­ty-based men­tal health has evolved as pre­ferred care over the method of large hos­pi­tal in­sti­tu­tion­al­i­sa­tion for in­ter­ven­tions. It is ac­cept­ed world­wide that the bio­med­ical mod­el of men­tal health (still the preva­lent mod­el in T&T) in­creas­es stig­ma (www.mad­i­namer­i­ca.com).

So­cial in­clu­sion should be the goal for open­ness; shar­ing lived ex­pe­ri­ence should not put any­one at risk of be­ing dis­crim­i­nat­ed against; but it has and does in an un­in­formed space.

The WHO de­fines stig­ma as “a mark of shame, dis­grace, or dis­ap­proval which re­sults in an in­di­vid­ual be­ing re­ject­ed, dis­crim­i­nat­ed against, and ex­clud­ed from par­tic­i­pat­ing in a num­ber of dif­fer­ent ar­eas of so­ci­ety.”

In my role as a PWLE, I have had the op­por­tu­ni­ty to be ad­vo­cate, con­sul­tant, ad­vi­sor, writer, coach and coun­sel­lor, but I have al­so been made to look on at the con­tin­ued to­kenism, in­tol­er­ance and sidelin­ing with grief as be­ing open caus­es one to be de­s­e­lect­ed by kith and kin.