- Hello, everyone, and welcome.
My name is Lauren,
and I'm the host of this channel,
Living Well With Schizophrenia.
I myself live with schizoaffective disorder,
and this whole channel is dedicated
to sharing my experiences,
and providing educational content
around schizophrenia spectrum illnesses,
and mental health in general.
We created it with a goal
of helping those who are living with schizophrenia
to feel less alone,
helping loved ones of those living with schizophrenia
to better understand what their loved one is going through,
and ways to better support them.
Providing more firsthand knowledge
to help healthcare professionals
and those serving individuals living with schizophrenia,
as well as to just kind of generally increase compassion,
and awareness, and to reduce stigma in the general public.
Now, we have something really important
to talk with you about today, how you can support us,
but also how we can help you.
A large portion of what allows us
to keep being able to create content
is the support that we receive
from our audience through Patreon.
If you are unfamiliar with Patreon,
basically it is a platform that allows you to support us
with a monthly donation in the amount of your choosing.
Patreon is a really great way to help support us,
and the work we do to keep this channel going.
However, something that we particularly
want to share with you is that once you become a patron
at any of the suggested tier levels,
you also get access to our online peer support community.
Our online peer support community is hosted on Discord,
an app that facilitates community building and connection.
Peer support is an element of my care
that has been really pivotal
in terms of my mental health and recovery.
Being able to connect with other people
who could understand what I was going through
on a deeper level,
and who I could really connect with,
and feel more understood by was incredibly powerful for me.
It also helped me to gain insight
into how to better advocate for myself
based on the experiences shared by others,
and also what exactly to advocate for.
Peer support has been incredibly beneficial for me,
and that's one of the main reasons
we wanted to create an online peer support community
to be able to offer this type of support and connection
to others in similar situations, and all over the world.
Our online peer support community
is a growing community of people
looking for peer support around schizophrenia spectrum,
or psychosis related illnesses, and also their loved ones.
It is comprised of a wide variety
of text-based peer support channels,
and also offers the option for more real time
face to face interaction
with community hangout video channels.
Currently we also have two to three facilitated
peer support video chats every week.
We try to offer them during diverse time slots
to accommodate people
in varying time zones around the world.
We are also currently working
on our next goal in growing the community,
of having live monthly guest speakers.
We are hoping to have a variety of healthcare professionals
in these live monthly sessions
to offer education to our community,
and engage in answering questions,
and just kind of building dialogue around relevant issues.
If you are interested
in becoming a part of our online peer support community,
all you have to do is join one of the suggested tier levels
on our Patreon page.
All tiers have the same access.
And then once you create a Discord account,
you can very easily then connect your Discord
with your Patreon,
and gain immediate access to the community.
I'd love to share some thoughts
some of our community members had to share
about their experience using our peer support platform.
So one member said,
it has been so grounding and important to me
to be able to talk to others
going through the same challenges as myself.
Another said that,
this server has given me the genuine connection,
understanding, and positive social interaction
that I was so desperately missing in my life before.
I've had my diagnosis for over 25 years,
and the Living Well With Schizophrenia Discord server
is one of the best things that have happened to me
around my diagnosis.
We're really proud of the community we are building
through our peer support platform,
and would love to welcome you to it as well.
If you are wanting to support us
in the work we do on this channel,
or if you are wanting to join
our growing peer support community, or both,
just click on the link to our Patreon page
in the description below.
I also want to say a huge thank you
to all of our patrons both past and present
who have allowed us to keep going with this channel.
And another huge thank you to all of the members
of our peer support community
who have helped to build it into the safe, supportive,
and invaluable community that it is.
So thanks for watching this video.
We hope to connect with you
in our peer support community soon.
Wishing you and your loved ones good health,
and we'll see you in the next video, bye.