The Platform for Peer and Full Recovery for Mental Health

As a mental health survivor all you want to be told is that you are normal...

Merry Christmas! 🎄

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This is Ellie Goldstein, who has become the new Gucci model. First one with down syndrome.

Respect to the brand for treating every human being equal. This is also an act of love, showing beauty in every person.

Great story of recovery and defying the odds!

This is my daughter, Rachel Handlin. She earned her full Bachelor of Fine Arts degree in Photography & Media from the prestigious California Institute of the Arts. Rachel has Down Syndrome

I am officially the proudest father on the planet.

Credit: Twitter/

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I use terms like "Mental Health Survivors" in my recovery signature program!

I help my clients find shifts in their mental health mindset: to shift in their view of a label, shift the stigma and judgements they attach to themselves...I believe transformation is possible in your mental health mindset and I want to help you!

Peer support means you can give and get support from your peers who also struggle with mental health. Peer support is one of the main ways I healed in my recovery journey. Message me to join ($30 Canadian per month) my online private mental health Facebook Peer support Community. I alongside other mental health survivors will give support. Feeling normal and being told I was normal alongside peers who also struggled with mental health helped me recover the most and helped end the stigma for me.

's change the world and end the stigma by viewing all mental health as normal

My physiotherapist Dan says:

Healing is not always linear...sometimes you go a step back...aim is too keep going.

What setbacks have you had in your recovery journey? And how are ways you are choosing to keep going forward?

Happy Easter!

In my years of recovering my mental health, my mental health recovery therapist told me everyone's recovery journey is unique to them. What works for someone might not work for you and vise versa. How are you finding ways to recover that are unique to you? Happy recovering!

Merry Christmas 🎅 🎄 from The Platform for Peer and Full Recovery for Mental Health!

For me, I have a lot of fear, especially when I first struggled with psychosis, about having a scary psychiatrist and mental health team who are not trained in mental health recovery giving me labels. That was not my experience, however. When I met my favorite mental health therapist, Karyn Baker through my aunt, she was the first person that changed my life. She believed in me. But what she did that helped the most was tell me I was normal. That is all people with mental health want, is to be told they are normal.

And later my fears did happen, there were some mental health professionals and people from my culture who had a limited understanding of mental health and did stigmatize me. It was amazing to have Karyn and to have also had the world's best physiatrist who never gave me a label.

Currently with Covid some of my weird irrational thoughts have come back and I feel really supported at my school with my mental health. I feel I am finding healing in another culture who has more understanding of mental health. I feel they are giving me permission to not label some of these worries I feel are weird and instead are giving me permission to do whatever I need to handle them and that is ok. More than ok. In fact it's amazing I'm just here and who I am and really that's all I ever need to be for the rest of my life.

I wish everyone who struggled with mental health could have my experience.

Happy Halloween 🎃 from the Peer and Full Recovery for Mental Health!

If you are interested in joining my peer support recovery oriented mental health Facebook Community for $30 Canadian per month where you can receive mental health peer support from peers message me! Or of you want a public group that is not as private join the public free Facebook mental health community at the top of my page!

Message me if you are interested in joining my Peer and Full Recovery Private Mental Health Facebook Community, $30 Canadian per month (this gives you the option of more privacy so you can more freely feel safe to share your mental health with your peers who are also in my program!)

What mental health recovery means to me and my story!
You get to choose how you view a label, if you want a label; you get to decide, not your doctor, counselor, or physiatrist!
For me, labels never worked. I was lucky and never got a label. And in my opinion, had the best physiatrist in the world. He believed in me, made me feel amazing, and that I could be whoever I wanted and do whatever I wanted the rest of my life and I would be amazing!
But I have enough fear of labels with experiencing mental health in our world and with people who slap on labels for any little thing. I think many people are misdiagnosed, and if you are unlucky and get a label, my recovery therapist told me that you get to decide how you view the label! You have a choice. If a label works for you, great! If not, and labels create too much anxiety and stigma for you, you also have the choice to not take on the label. Furthermore, you do not have to tell anyone about the label.
The bottom line is: You have a choice in your own mental health recovery journey, and if labels don't work for you, you don't need one!
Also, I believe you can fully recover from any mental health condition or label you might get. Recovery is possible. I have found recovery in my own mental health journey and I want to give you the confidence, success, and help I have received so you can be in charge of your mental health and recovery!
For me, when I talk about recovery it is a long process. It can be hard, but if you have fun with it, it is even more doable. I struggled first for many years with fears of labels, stigma from my culture who has a limited understanding of mental health, and fears of what people thought. I didn't want to be psychotic in their eyes. I wanted to be whole, healthy, normal just like anyone else.
My physiatrist was the first person that helped me. He always believed in me and never gave me a label. I felt he set me free, compared to a lot of people who are tied down and trapped with the stigma of a mental health label. I am not a physiatrist, but I want to set you free with your mental health journey and labels.
My recovery-oriented counselor played a big role in my recovery. She believed in me as well and sometimes pushed me past my limits. After I took some time off, she pushed me to get out into the world and to live a normal life. She always told me I was as normal as anyone else and it was my way of figuring out who I was and what I wanted in my young adult years. She told me a lot of young adults struggle, and mental health is one way it is played out. She feels bad that in our modern world in this stage of life so many young adults get a label slapped on them when they go through psychosis as I did. So many young adults can take on the stigma, live at home and not work and live a normal life. This hurts my heart as well, and so I have a passion to help others find healing.
For my recovery, getting out and being pushed by my therapist was what helped me recover. Sometimes I had to "fake it till I made it" in social groups or do something I didn't want for work as I slowly discovered what I really wanted to do in life. In the process, I found myself and who I really am, and now in my 30s feel more settled. But I feel in a way having that push to go back to university, be told I was as normal as anyone else, is what helped me succeed.
In the process it was yucky, and I felt pushed into the middle of a scary world that could label me and my 20s were not always fun. I had to convince my medical doctors after my psychiatrist told me I had recovered but still needed to have medication on hand for times I needed it that I was not going to overdose. I had to convince them I was recovered and that they could believe my psychiatrist. But now I am grateful for the people who played a huge role in my recovery journey. I know negativity and feeling bad about yourself can be part of mental health and so you might not believe me, but I fully believe you can fully recover from any mental health condition you have ever had!

I do not use terms like "Mental Health Illness!" Only terms like recovery and normalizing mental health I use in my program.

The Platform for Peer Recovery (meaning you get and give support to your peers who also struggle with mental health!) And Full Recovery (I believe you can obtain full recovery for any mental health issue, including a mental health label! I believe you get to decide if you want a label or not, who you want to tell, and how you view your label!) Let's end the stigma and normalize any mental health issue!