Ash’s story

After facing their own mental health challenges, Ash found new purpose through peer support volunteering with Health in Mind, offering understanding and connection to others on their journeys. This is their story of resilience, empowerment, and the mutual benefits of peer support.

I worked in social housing continuously from the 1990s, but in 2017, I walked out of work and everything went a bit haywire. I was dealing with depression, anxiety and OCD, and I was in a pretty chaotic state.  

The last three years, though, I’m doing much better. I’m not in a position to work full time, but I volunteer with the University of Edinburgh as an archive assistant, I sit on a Lived Experience board with the Department of Psychology, and I’m also a peer volunteer with Health in Mind. 

For me, getting involved in peer volunteering was about feeling less passive, and seeing how we can build empowerment. In my own mental health journey, I had a lot of intensive psychological support around OCD, and it was really hard going. Talk therapy was really effective for me, but it can be very intense – it was exhausting and often triggering. 

Getting peer support alongside that really helped me. It gave me a respite from that intense therapeutic work. It’s a bit lighter – you’re still receiving support, but you don’t need to do the heavy lifting of analysing and digging at trigger points, you can spend that time just sharing and making a connection. For me, I had both 1:1 peer support and I was also going along to a support group, which really kept me going while I was on the waiting list for NHS support. 

So once I had levelled out a bit, I ended up taking the Mad History & Identity course at QMU, which is a 6-week course exploring ideas around lived experience of mental health, advocacy and activism. That got me interested in the idea of doing peer support work myself. 

I looked up some options and found Health in Mind, met with Kirsty who supports Edinburgh peer volunteers, and got registered for the free Peer Support training course in spring of 2022. Because of Covid precautions, it was online, which I was dreading because I hate online training – but it was actually wonderful. Then, once I completed the course, Kirsty started looking for a match for me. I was waiting for an allocation for a few months, and then it was a lot of meetings with Kirsty to prep for supporting someone, followed by some meetings between the three of us to check in on how we were getting on. Then, once she was confident we were getting on well, it was over to me. 

My first support match started in January of 2023. I got on really well with her – she was neurodiverse and very ready to talk, so mostly I was there to listen. Throughout the match, Kirsty and I were checking in regularly by email, so I always knew I had someone there if I needed help or advice in supporting her. That first support relationship went so well that, after the 6 months we had allocated, we were able to extend it a bit to cope with a hard time she was having around work. It felt good to be able to help with it all. It was a bit hard, though, because after she completed her time with me she no longer stayed in contact with Health in Mind – I would really like to know where she is now, and what worked for her. 

I’m a few months into my second match now, and it’s going really well. She says she doesn’t often trust people, but she does trust me. She’s a trans woman, and specifically asked to be supported by someone who was also trans. It’s been wonderful to be able to share that part of my experience as a nonbinary person in a way that’s mutually beneficial. 

That shows one of the most valuable things about peer support; being around someone who doesn’t have exactly the same experience as you, but similar. Even if you’re not talking about it, there’s something about just being in the same room, sharing that understanding.  

Humour plays a part. Sometimes when you’re dealing with something heavy, family and friends can walk on eggshells around you in an attempt to take care. It comes from a good place, but you can get sick of people being careful of you. I like a bit of gallows humour. It’s that classic Scottish humour – it’s dark, it’s self-deprecating, it sounds aggressive but it’s full of love and affection. When you know you’re on the same page as someone, and you have that kind of trust, it’s relaxing to be able to speak openly about the darker things and be mutually understood that it’s not something to panic about.  

It is important for us not to just say whatever we want, regardless of who it offends. It’s good that people are more careful about the language they use and how they speak about other people. At the same time, I don’t think we should tell other people how they’re allowed to talk about their own experiences. It can be empowering to reclaim words which have been used to talk us down. Like the Mad Studies course I did at QMU – ‘Mad’ is often used to dismiss or dehumanise people, and reclaiming that as a way to build community and advocate for ourselves can be so powerful. 

One of the ways that peer volunteering is mutually beneficial is that, for both you and the person you support, you feel more normalised. We’re here to support the person we’re matched with, first and foremost, but both of us get the personal benefits of having our experiences and thoughts listened to and validated by somebody else. I leave sessions feeling great – it can be challenging, but I always want to come back. 

It has had a huge impact on my confidence and self-esteem, doing this – especially because I’m not working, and there’s a lot of stigma around not working, feeling like I’m able to give back like this is great. I’ve learned a lot of transferrable skills doing this, including lots of interpersonal skills, but it’s also helped me recognise all the skills and strengths I already brought to the table. It’s given me the confidence to take on more roles.  

I think more and more people are realising how mutually beneficial peer support is, both to the people being supported and to people volunteering. I hope that the NHS will follow that lead, and work to make more peer-led options available to people as well as clinical treatments. You can really see why peer work is expanding across Scotland, because it works.