You have a difficult experience because of you mental illness… But is your experience useful in your researches ?

Question: You have a difficult experience because of you mental illness... But is your experience useful in your researches ? Do you use it to guide the person who have mental illness too ?
- Keywords:
  career,
  personal,
  work
Asked by Agathe to Ceri on 17 Nov 2014.
- Ceri Dare answered on 17 Nov 2014:
  
  Yes, I think my experience has been useful. In particular, I have a few projects on the go as well as antibiotics, and one of them is talking to women with serious mental illness about how they make choices about pregnancy and medication.
  
  In my job looking at how ‘superbugs’ like MRSA are passed around in the community, a lot of the things which put people at more risk of catching a ‘superbug’ are to do with being poor. Because I couldn’t work for a few years, I didn’t have much money, so maybe I have more understanding of that life than many scientists.
  
  Most of all, I think my experiences shape the sort of science I want to do. I studied Public Health because I want to make the world a better place for everyone, including people at the bottom who are poor or excluded or face a lot of problems, not just make shiny toys for rich people.

Question: You have a difficult experience because of you mental illness... But is your experience useful in your researches ? Do you use it to guide the person who have mental illness too ?