HUMAN LIBRARY experience

Date of Event: 9 February 2023, Thursday
Time of Event: 6pm - 8pm
Location: Online over Zoom

The Human Library is a safe space for individuals to share their stories and struggles. This unique experience aims to encourage empathy and human connection, so come on down to read their stories, and normalise these difficult topics and conversations.

Our Partner

Resilience Collective (RC)

Resilience Collective is a mental health charity, IPC and member organisation of NCSS. We were co-founded in 2018 by BinjaiTree Foundation and Caregivers Alliance Limited. A peer-powered platform, we place strong value on a peer’s knowledge from the lived experience of a mental health condition and the benefits of peer support towards the betterment of mental health and anti-stigmatism. Through co-production, we harness the shared wisdom and perspectives of persons with the lived experience of mental health conditions and those with professional expertise, to create new approaches to mental health solutions.

Our Human Books

Bernadette

Bernadette is a lawyer in training who has lived most of her life with depression and ADHD. She hopes to be an advocate even outside the Courts for those with mental health conditions, and to show that everyone can thrive with the right support and resources.

I've been struggling with depression since I was nine and have Attention-Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD) – and I’ve made the somewhat counterintuitive choice to become a lawyer.
The legal industry is known for being a pressure-cooker,
with “no room for people with mental health conditions”.

Come and hear about my decision to be honest about my mental health journey and what I’ve experienced along the way!

Justin

Justin is a mental health peer that was recently diagnosed with ADHD, and therefore in the process of making sense of the experiences and struggles he has faced earlier on in his life.

More than these, he is a husband to a loving wife whom he has known since childhood, a “pawrent” to 2 lovely dogs, and the Co head of the Programmes and Community Assets team at Resilience Collective.

Through choosing vulnerability and authenticity of sharing his journey with others, he hopes to deepen the understanding of mental health conditions in our community, while encouraging other peers to seek support.

Between having difficulties sleeping, to constantly staying up late to complete assignments that he procrastinated on, Justin’s struggle in school with his Anxiety and Attention Deficit Disorder further reached a tipping point as he transited to the workforce.

In this session, Justin recounts how his ADHD and constantly living under a “cloud” of irrational fear, took a toll on him and eventually led to him almost committing suicide. Also hear how getting his mental health diagnosis at 38 years old led to both answers, and more questions, in his recovery journey.