I'm Lisa, I'm 67 years old. I felt very alone after the death of my doctor and the closure of the Day Center where I had friends who understood me. I arrived at the Foundation 5 years ago, my family told me that I would find new friends and that I would act with them in the theater workshop!
My sister Maria was always with me, even when we rehearsed. Sometimes I find myself in places I don't remember and don't understand where I am.
Today Maria no longer comes. A volunteer from the Foundation accompanies me but remains outside waiting for me. I love my new actor friends and I trust them.
“They say: there is a psychologist. But I'm not crazy, going to the psychologist. You have to tell me: come, I'll listen to you. If you want to publicize it you have to say: there is a place where we listen to you. It's very different, because a person wants to be listened to, not cared for."
This is how Aurora describes her experience “peer education” which he has been leading for a couple of years together with the other students of two Roman high schools, Seneca and Dante. It is a project born from the collaboration between the mental health department of ASL Roma 1, the Di Liegro Foundation and the Harcourt Foundation.
“Peer education” is a prevention and health promotion strategy that is spreading in various countries. Students, teachers and psychologists work together with the aim of helping children find psycho-physical and relational well-being, made up of self-esteem, trust, friendship and a sense of security. What they are looking for, often without having a clear understanding, but struggle to find in the group, in the class, in the school. Overcoming the malaise that you experience in adolescence is easier if your peers, appropriately trained, help you. Guys who share your experiences. They become your tutors and lead you towards a path of psychological support.
Every week a listening desk is open at school, with a psychologist expert in developmental age. To book a meeting there is a blank sheet of paper on which the kids can also put a nickname, or just a sign. Because, explains Sofia, one is ashamed to ask for psychological help, in front of friends and even in the family.
For psychologists and teachers the balance of these two years is decidedly positive. The kids who participated in the project have grown and matured. They have become much more aware of issues that concern them, such as cannabis, smoking, alcohol, bullying. Their behaviors have also changed; they are more autonomous, freer, less influenced by negative stimuli that can derive from the peer group.
Everyone agrees that it is an experience to be continued and extended to parents.
This is Linda's story. Our daughter is 20 years old, she was born in Colombia and we adopted her when she was 9 years old. As a child, relationships in the family were very affectionate, but relational difficulties with her peers soon emerged. She always felt "not accepted" and "rejected" by her classmates. He was very exuberant and seemed sociable, but in reality he harbored a lot of anger and a sense of rebellion within himself that exploded with growth and adolescence.
By participating in the course for volunteers and family members, we came into human contact with people who, like our daughter, experience mental distress.
Linda's family
We helped her with psychological support, then also with drugs that stabilized her mood. However, she became increasingly intolerant of the rules, resentful towards her family and parents, teachers, classmates, the world. She left school in the 3rd year of high school and, at eighteen, she decided to "turn the page" and reject everything she had been. She stayed away from home for months, frequented degraded environments, looking for something that would give meaning to her life and her unhappiness.
Since she "abandoned" her family, school, psychological support and medicine, she has no longer committed herself to any type of project (study, work, hobby). Her inconstancy and variability of mood prevented her from building anything. For about a year she has been dating a boy with the same problems as her. She created a symbiotic relationship with him. They are always together, doing nothing, without friendships, often in depression. However, this emotional stability is contained in the most negative behaviors and attitudes.
Linda's story continues when we learned about the Di Liegro Foundation in the autumn of 2017 through an announcement in the city free press. In the previous years we had had several contacts with our daughter's therapists and we had also experienced the process of family therapy, but the pain and anxiety did not allow us to deeply understand the real situation. In 2016 our daughter had “slipped out of hand” and we were lost.
We started following the course for volunteers and family members of people with mental health problems, organized by the Foundation. The explanations of professionals, psychologists and psychiatrists, listening and discussing with other family members opened a window onto a world we had been in contact with, but which we had not really understood. Concepts, key words, suggestions received in the past have acquired a different rational and emotional meaning for us, thanks to the Di Liegro Foundation. We looked at our daughter with new eyes, with less anger for all the pain experienced because of her. It was a slow change that brought us closer to her again.
The Di Liegro Foundation allowed us to attend a self-help group, introduced us to multi-family therapy and also gave us the opportunity to volunteer. We thus entered into human contact with people who, like our daughter, experience mental distress. Together with them, in the Foundation's laboratories, we carry out simple but significant activities such as singing, drawing, theater or sewing. Let's get to know them and get to know each other better. We share their pain and their desires.
In recent months, Linda's story has evolved: she has managed to do some small jobs from time to time. Now the challenge is that of autonomy. We gave her the opportunity to live with her boyfriend to learn how to manage a house and daily living. Our hope is that, as he grows up, he can improve, have some life motivation and find some serenity again.
