Publisher's Synopsis
My name is Henri. I was born in 1990 in the capital of Estonia, Tallinn and I have lived there my entire life. I have been diagnosed with schizoaffective disorder, mixed type. This means that I must cope with psychotic episodes and mood disturbances (symptoms of schizophrenia and bipolar disorder). I have been struck by the illness more seriously twice: the first blow was, when I was 22 years old, and the second one was, when I was 25 years old. I have gotten my education by finishing a bachelor`s and master's degree in energetics and now, I work full-timely in that area. I have gotten my training from Tallinn Mental Health Centre and Loov Ruum Koolitused OÜ to be a licensed experience counsellor and I have been involved in the following activities during my work at Tallinn Mental Health Centre: Individual and group counselling, sharing experience story, conducting trainings, representing organization in media. In the training process, I decided to write deeply about my experience recovering from a major mental illness and I want share that with you. Experience counsellor is a person, who has been diagnosed with a mental illness, but has recovered well. He/she can tell his/her experience with the illness from inside and share things, what a psychiatrist or a psychologist might not know. Because the speciality of the sufferer`s illness is different in every case, the experience counsellor does not give concrete advice, but encourages and supports basing on his/her experience. Despite the risk of possible negative attitudes from society, I wish to publish this book, because after my first psychotic episode and first treatment in the psychiatric hospital, I fell into the zero point of life. It took a lot of time and work to get out of that zero point and now, I can say that I am satisfied with my life. I have been able to live a full life, start and finish a master's degree, work full timely in my area and be a licensed experience counsellor. I wish to help people with mental illnesses to recover from a mental illness, to re-establish life quality and develop mental health. I wish to show that recovery from a major mental illness is possible. This book might also be useful to people, who are mentally well, but wish to gain more insight of what a mental illness is all about. This book might also be useful to professionals of mental health.
