"I am but one voice - two can lead a cheer, three can sing - a roomful can bring the house down" --- Nancy Harding.
I feel that it is really important in order to understand and see the many faces of peer supports that it is also important to meet the new faces of the peer movement. From a recovery standpoint, it is a beautiful thing to see the butterfly emerging from the chrysallis.
Nancy Harding, Studying Peer Specialist is quite that "butterfly" and is emerging a "bright presence" in the peer movement.
Nancy Harding
Nancy, how did your journey towards a "peer and wellness identity" begin and could you share the challenges that you first faced?
Six weeks ago, I'd no idea such an individual existed. Having been around recovery and recovery concepts since 1985, of course, I've been amazed and very grateful for the recovery I've achieved and progressed through the support and shared experience of belonging and identifying myself as a person in healing from several issues: childhood sexual trauma, lifelong depression and suicidal ideation, addiction to opiates, eating disorders, being an adult child of two alcoholics, one of whom suffered from severe personality and sexual identity issues. For nearly all of my first three decades, I knew there was something terribly wrong, out of kilter with the way I viewed the world and my place in it. In my teen years, I tried to voice these fears and ask for help but my fears were made light of, or worse, dismissed by those to whom I had gone for counsel as 'teenage angst' or making “mountains out of molehills”.
Nancy, how did things progress from there?
It would be another seven years before I found the Program and another two before I hit my “first bottom”, signing myself into a 12-Step based psychiatric facility for thirty days after I failed to carry out a plan to commit suicide. On the outside, at that time, I was ironically at the peak of my first real success in life, having returned to school believing I would never amount to anything - and proving many detractors wrong. I was an honors student, had just received a second full-tuition scholarship in my major of Theatre and Communications and been selected as a campus ambassador. Outwardly, I seemed to have everything I'd ever dreamt of but inside I was an empty shell and the terror I felt each and every day, as I put a bright and sunny smile on my face and faced a world I did not feel I belonged to, finally took its toll.
What were the “seeds of hope” that first took root in you?
In treatment, I learned that I was not alone. We jokingly referred to ourselves as the "Island of Misfit Toys" but in truth, the knowledge that we all suffered from the same desire to hide our truths from ourselves and others, while stuffing it down with our drugs of choice was ultimately as freeing as it was painful. For the next fifteen years, I became a regular attendee at meetings of several twelve-step groups, volunteered with Intergroup and World service, sponsored and carried the message as well as I knew to do.
So, what was your “turning point“?
I wish I could say all of this was carried on without relapse but it did happen. In retrospect, I know it was my defects of character which led me to think I had progressed beyond the need of steps, sponsors and meetings. I remained sober from drugs but the eating disorder and attendant behaviors returned and for a long time, again, I became ashamed at having 'failed' - outside of the rooms, I had no interaction with anyone who understood and worst of all, allowed myself to be stigmatized by uneducated individuals I was surrounded by in the workplace and in social settings. I guess my true turning point was the suicide of my mother in recent years. I became determined not to become yet another statistic and slowly returned to my Higher Power and asked that my shortcomings be removed.
Nancy, tell me about your journey that brought you to this place as one now in recovery.
In the past 14 months, I have - through His care and guidance - returned to a saner way of life, moved a thousand miles away to be with a family member who has been in recovery for three decades and again entered those rooms of understanding and fellowship. In doing so, I learned of Peer Support and began researching. As we all know - there are NO coincidences and within ten days of learning of PSSC's, an opening in a class came up, in a town near where I have family I could stay with. Shortly after that, a second class in WRAP also came through for me. I live in Randolph County, NC and as of this writing, there are no certified PSSC's there. In attending these courses at Cape Fear Community College and Coastal Care in Jacksonville,
So describe to us, what you sense “growing inside you” now as you enter the peer workforce?
I've found a purpose and meaning I could not have imagined 14 months ago. Having gone through myriad attempts at counseling in the public mental healthcare systems of MO and NC, I can absolutely attest that WE are now a vital part of pulling others onboard and WILL eventually become an equally vital part of the mental healthcare system. Am I scared? Absolutely - what I don't know about policy, procedure, organization and statutes could fill vast volumes but as I put the pieces of our common puzzle together, an insistence that this makes absolute sense rings a bell in me like a clarion call. I hope to offer what I now know to be my greatest asset - my experience - to those suffering in silence and shame, too afraid to reach out for fear they'll be viewed as failures, 'untouchables' and unworthy of respect.
Describe the “growing pains” of a peer beginning their recovery journey towards employment.
How will I achieve this and where? Again, I do not now - I'm seeing a lot of goodwill and intentions but also I sometimes feel frustrated at the seemingly disorganized and disjointed lines of (sometimes) conflicting information available. I do know that these are, simply put, growing pains and to be expected with so many counties to serve, some being more forward-thinking and some with more means than others. It is daunting to say the least - but what I can do is get the word out, write, speak, go to meetings, network and research until another 'coincidence' on that Happy Road of Destiny opens the door.
I am but one voice - two can lead a cheer, three can sing - a roomful can bring the house down.