When the mental health system meets lived experience

The mental health system behaves in interesting ways when lived experience walks into the room.

Sometimes it smiles with curiosity, ready to listen.

Sometimes it freezes, unsure how to respond.

Sometimes it defends itself, as if lived truth were a threat to its authority.

I’ve seen all three responses — sometimes all in the same day.

Lived experience is often treated like an anomaly, a disruption to “business as usual.” But it isn’t a disruption at all. It’s a mirror. It reflects back the reality of what services feel like from the inside, and it highlights what works, what doesn’t, and what really matters when the paperwork is set aside.

The challenge is whether the system is willing to look in that mirror without flinching. Because looking takes courage. It means admitting that a policy can be perfect on paper and still harmful in practice. It means seeing that human connection, not procedure, is what actually brings safety and healing.

When the system allows itself to really look — without defensiveness, without fear — change begins. Not theoretical change. Real change. The kind that lives in how staff show up, how people feel when they walk through the door, and how hope is held even in the hardest moments.

That’s why lived experience matters. Not as a token, not as an afterthought, but as a compass pointing us back to what’s real.

The system doesn’t need to fear lived experience. It needs to walk with it.