Expert by experience, Louise Street, shares her recovery journey and talks about her work to co-produce innovative mental health services. 

Louise Street spoke about the support she’s received and how it has made it possible for her to look back at trauma with hopefulness.

After experiencing a breakdown following her husband’s suicide in 2019, Louise needed urgent treatment and was hospitalised for two months in an acute mental health service. The compassion, kindness and encouragement she felt on the ward and from follow-on secondary care at home inspired her to work with NELFT to co-produce mental health services for others going through crisis.

A teacher of 23 years, she taught in schools in Essex before re-training to become an holistic therapist, and in obtaining a post-graduate diploma in Arts in Therapy and Education.

Her husband’s tragic loss caused her to relive the trauma of her early life. Born in 1960, Louise was adopted at six weeks old. Her birth mother was told by her family that she could not keep her baby girl because she wasn’t married. 

“Growing up I was loved and looked after by my adoptive parents, but not heard and comforted enough. I felt my mum and dad’s anxiety to be good parents, more than my own pain. I remember thinking that to be safe I had to be good - no sadness, no anger allowed. That those feelings were wrong and made me bad, so I learned from early on to suppress them and become a people-pleaser.”

School wasn’t easier. She experienced bullying and sometimes racism because of her Puerto Rican background. 

“For years I felt defective, second best, a reject. One of my earliest memories is scrubbing my skin in the bath after being called brown. I was only little and couldn’t advocate for myself. I felt alone and intimated, with no control over my own body and no one to comfort me. I started picking at my skin and from my 20s would self-harm when faced with overwhelming emotions.”

She first saw a doctor at University in the late ‘70s to talk about her severe anxieties.

“I then got to see a therapist for a few sessions – it was all very top down, I wasn’t asked what I wanted to get out of it or how I felt about my care plan, but the talking did help.”  

The care she’s receiving now is radically different. Peer support led and trauma informed, it creates the space for those going through mental health difficulties to co-design their safety plan, feel listened to and safe from being retraumatised. 

“What helped me the most was learning about the impact of trauma and understanding my triggers. I realised that self-harm was a way for distress to be expressed, a coping mechanism. I have stopped blaming myself for everything that’s happened to me and am starting to truly exercise self-compassion.

“I still need a safe space with a professional to process the terror of my experiences. But I look back at what I’ve been through –  always thinking there was something wrong with me, the fears, the nightmares, and I know now how to cope with it all, to feel hope rather than hopelessness.”

Louise has recently been involved in work to promote awareness of a model of care known as Open Dialogue, which doesn’t define people experiencing mental illness by their condition but instead takes into account all aspects of their life and promotes freedom, autonomy and choice in treatment.  

“My work has empowered me to be able to openly talk about my mental health with my friends, to enjoy life and look after myself and my wellbeing – there was a time I didn’t think these things were possible.

“So much has happened to me, to finally have agency and power is the best medicine.”