Content warning: the following material contains content related to suicide.
By Sushi Siu, WRAP ALF in Hong Kong
Hi, everyone! I’m Sushi, and I’m from Hong Kong. I’m a person in recovery (PIR) and also a WRAP Advanced Level Facilitator (ALF). I’ve been living with schizophrenia and depression for 21 years. I became ill because I was bullied by teachers and classmates in primary school and then was bullied again for 3 years in high school. I was left emotionally and mentally devastated. Two years after graduating, I had the onset of mental illness.
In the early stages of my mental illness, I experienced symptoms such as auditory hallucinations, visual hallucinations, persecutory delusions, feeling followed, and low mood. After being diagnosed, one of my close friends died by suicide due to depression, which made my condition even worse.
Since my diagnosis, I’ve been taking medication. Although the medication helps alleviate my symptoms, it didn’t bring back my sense of joy. I lacked motivation to do anything and could only force myself to go to work every day. I lost interest in many aspects of life, and my emotions were extremely unstable. When my mood worsened, I even had suicidal thoughts—and I did attempt suicide.
Then I encountered WRAP. I learned about WRAP through my work and got to know its Five Key Concepts and stages. WRAP helped me realize that emotions can be categorized into different stages, and each stage has its own action plan. This made me start paying attention to my current emotional state, identify which stage I’m in, and choose what wellness tools I can use to help myself. This way, I don’t fall all the way to the bottom and need to use my Crisis Plan.
WRAP helped me discover that my life is full of Wellness Tools. After becoming a WRAP Facilitator and teaching other people in recovery through my work, my perspective broadened even more. Through mutual sharing with participants, I gained wisdom and more Wellness Tools. I learned from them, which is also one of the Five Key Concepts.
With WRAP, I’ve become more capable of managing myself during different emotional states—how to care for myself and how to find suitable methods and people (friends or professionals) to help me through difficulties. Learning WRAP has motivated me to keep learning and to hold onto hope. Because without hope, a person is like a dead fish. Hope drives me to pursue my dreams.
I’ve always wanted to share my experience of illness with those in need, hoping to help more people in recovery and accompany them through their struggles. Over the past 10 years, I’ve written two books. The first book shares my journey from illness to recovery. The second book shares how family members of PIR can communicate with them, helping to build good relationships and support recovery.
WRAP has taught me to recognize emotional changes and build my own action plans. Now I’ve added one more item to my WRAP: my success experiences. Whenever I feel emotionally unstable again, I think of the successes WRAP has brought me, which encourages me and reminds me that I still have the ability to get through each emotional storm. This is also a tool to cheer myself on.
Everyone can try to count and record their own successful experiences since learning WRAP and use them to keep cheering yourself on through life’s emotional storms!
