Talking #TeamCWPT blog

With Rob Schmidt, Lived Experience Engagement Facilitator

Please note, Rob's story talks about his experiences of mental health, including suicidal thoughts. Links to support are included at the end of this article. 

One year ago, Rob was in a very different place to where he is today. After his father passed away, and his place to study teaching at university fell through, Rob experienced a mental health crisis. 

This World Mental Health Day, Rob is sharing his story. Now a lived experience engagement facilitator (LEEF) at Coventry and Warwickshire Partnership NHS Trust (CWPT), Rob uses his own lived experience and ensures that people using mental health services have a meaningful voice in how those services are delivered and improved. He does this in lots of ways, by gathering and reflecting on patient feedback, consulting with other staff and ensuring information is shared in the right place. 

It is a role that has helped Rob to find purpose and make sense of the dark times in his life: "This role as a LEEF is like the meeting point of all my experiences. I've been kind of formed for this role through my experiences."

Experiences in inpatient mental health services 

Last year was not the first time Rob had experienced treatment and recovery for his mental health. From the ages of 18 - 23 Rob was treated as an inpatient for a total of 9 months at different times for bipolar disorder, mania and psychosis, across 3 countries. 

The first time Rob was sectioned, he was in Australia working as a farm labourer on a gap year before heading to university. The next time was during his second year at Leeds University, where he was detained under Section 2 of the Mental Health Act. He tried to appeal the decision but was unsuccessful, and once he was discharged returned to university to achieve a 2:1 in Cultural Studies. The third time was in Austria, where Rob couldn't understand staff as he wasn't fluent in German: "It took so long in my mind [to recover] because there was a language barrier, which makes me have empathy for people in our services who don't have English as a first language."

Reflecting on the first time he was sectioned in Australia, he said: "I remember being so terrified. This was my first experience of psychosis, and I was so confused."

It never got easier. He describes almost running away from mental health professionals in the UK out of fear. In Vienna, he recalls being brought into the hospital in hand and ankle cuffs by police and ambulance, feeling confused and scared, and not knowing the language. 

First seeing value in lived experience 

When Rob returned to the UK following his inpatient treatment in Vienna, a family friend and mentor, Yvonne, encouraged him to consider a new career path.

"After I had been volunteering at Oxfam as a shop volunteer for a bit, she suggested to me that I was an expert by experience, and because she's a nurse she thought I would make a great mental health nurse, so I looked it up and I rushed into applying."

Rob went on to study at Birmingham City University to become a mental health nurse. He graduated in 2019 and started working on Larches Ward at St Michael's Hospital in 2020. He says: "Management was great. They knew my circumstances, and the medication I was on."

3 weeks after he started, the ward went into lockdown due to the COVID-19 pandemic. It was a challenging time as a newly qualified nurse in mental health recovery: "I am so surprised I managed to do that job at the time."  

During his time at St Michael's Hospital, Rob worked on 3 different wards, but it was a rehabilitation and recovery unit where Rob found his calling. Seeing people get better and being a part of their journey to recovery was rewarding. It was where Rob could use his lived experience best and help stop the revolving door of readmission for some people.

Holding on to hope 

A year and 9 months later Rob decided to move away from Warwick and changed jobs. He was allocated to an end-of-life care ward. Feeling like the work wasn't aligned to his lived experience or mental health nurse training, his mental health started to decline. He moved to a high-dependency rehabilitation ward, but things weren't getting better. 

"I was self-medicating at the time and not really looking after myself, like drinking too much, and not really knowing myself as well as I do now, such as what makes me tick and how to stay well."

After experiencing burnout, Rob decided he needed to get away. He took a break from nursing and became a bartender to save up to revisit Vienna, but his mental health continued to deteriorate. It was a year punctuated by debilitating panic attacks every few days as a side effect of the medication he was taking. Panic attacks would last hours, this was on top of fixed delusions Rob had been experiencing for years. 

Fearing discrimination and losing his job, Rob hid his symptoms from management. Somehow, he still managed to hold onto hope: "I was standing there in the glass wash room behind the bar and just hoping that things could change eventually, with this hope of Vienna in mind... it was the last shards of hope I had left that helped me persevere."

Experiencing mental health crisis 

When Rob was 12, his mother died by suicide. She also had a diagnosis of bipolar disorder and had struggled with the depressive side of the condition ever since Rob can remember. The trauma of her death impacted Rob deeply. 

He always remembers the teachers who had supported him through such a difficult time. They were the inspiration behind deciding to study teaching when he returned from Vienna, as well as coming from a family of teachers and healthcare workers. Rob's mental health had also improved dramatically when he changed medications in 2023, and his panic attacks and fixed delusions had stopped completely. 

One month into his teacher training, his dad suddenly passed away.  

What followed was a depressive episode lasting months. Rob was in a mental health crisis and made 3 attempts on his life: "I didn't see any hope or future or worth in myself. I didn't think I was employable."

His partner and brother encouraged him to seek treatment from CWPT's community mental health services and with their intervention, he realised he had to start looking after himself. When his partner sustained a back injury, Rob had to become her full-time carer overnight and his perspective began to change. "It really helped me to put things into gear." Rob started to read more, connect with family and friends, rediscovered his spirituality and finally started to see hope. 

At the same time, he saw the advert to become a LEEF at CWPT and decided to apply. He was concerned that the gaps in his employment history would be a barrier, but his now manager, Claire Handy, ensured him his lived experience was what mattered. 

The day Rob became a full-time carer was the day his application was due, and he raced to complete his references before it closed at midnight. "It got to one minute past midnight, and it said I'd been given a one-hour grace period." It was a huge relief. 

Recovery is not a straight line 

For Rob, recovery has never been a straight line, and staying well is something he has had to prioritise and work at his whole adult life. Rob takes medication to help manage his mental health and has learnt over time to identify his triggers and early warning signs. 

Spirituality has become a big part of his recovery journey, as well as self-care and the support he has received from his brother, partner, and mentors along the way. After his mental health crisis and his partner's accident, they had to use food banks for a time and were faced with mounting debt. Through all the challenges Rob has learnt to recognise his personal resilience: "It takes a lot of work to stay well for me, but I am committed. It started with The Resilience Toolkit [book], and realising how many resources I have at my disposal that aren't monetary."

Looking back, he says: "My traumatic experiences feel like a dream sometimes. They feel like a different person with a different perspective."

"Memory is all we have sometimes, and I am just blessed to have memory to think back to all the times I've been unwell and to acknowledge that those things happened, but I was in a different mindset."

Inspiring others through lived experience 

Rob has been a LEEF on Larches Ward at St Michael's Hospital since June 2025 and feels his life has changed from where he was a year ago. Having walked in the shoes of the people he supports, he uses his own lived experience of recovery to help empower and inspire people in inpatient care, and ensure their feedback is able to make meaningful change. 

"It's funny how Larches was the ward I started on as a nurse, and now I am working there as a LEEF. I always feel at home on wards having had 9 months of being an inpatient."

Rob now feels much more supported at work than he has done previously, and says management are really understanding.  

When asked how it feels to support people he says: "It's an honour and a privilege. I try to bring my lived experience into my interactions with patients, trying to bring them hope and see things from a different outlook."  

"I appreciate the patients I work with who give me so much motivation through their encouragement and our shared experiences - it's that hope that change is possible that is in my forest of reasons to keep going despite adversity."

"I hope every day to bring that light to the people I work with and sit with them in the darkness at times and tell them they're not alone, that it's okay to sit with the pain, process it, and not fear it."

Making changes in mental health services 

The feedback Rob has had from patients has led to impactful changes across services. He has attended the Approved Mental Health Professional (AMHP) forum and has represented patients to Warwickshire County Council. On the ward a new fitness regime is being introduced, and a project is underway on how to make the ward more sensory friendly for autistic people, which is being supported by Karen Scorer, Lead Trainer for Oliver McGowan Mandatory Training on Learning Disabilities.

It is all a team effort, alongside patients, ward staff, fellow LEEFs, and Claire Handy, Expert by Experience Development Lead. 

The role has also helped Rob to learn more about himself and tools and techniques to keep himself well through training and the library resources. Helping his patients, is helping himself too. He has found a range of theories and subjects helpful, including studying resilience, body mapping, reflective practice, Logotherapy and the theory of positive disintegration.   

Reflecting on not going back to university for teaching he says: "If I had stayed at university at the time, I would have had a mental health mentor and support, but I would never have had this new career and learning what I have about myself and the psychological skills available through the NHS."

A message on World Mental Health Day

Quotes have helped Rob make sense of the world since he was a teenager. On World Mental Health Day, Rob shares words of wisdom that have helped him on his recovery journey. 

"There can be no knowledge without emotion, we may be aware of a truth, yet until we have felt it's force it is not ours. To the cognition of the brain, must be added the experience of the soul." - Arnold Bennett.

"One day you will tell your story of how you have overcome what you are going through now and it will become a part of someone else's survival guide." - Brené Brown.

"If you would be a real seeker after truth, it is necessary that at least once in your life you doubt, as far as possible, all things." - Descartes.

 

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With thanks for Rob for sharing his experiences this World Mental Health Day.

If you are impacted by this topic and need support, the Samaritans can be contacted via a range of options.

Conversations about mental health are never easy, but they are important. If you need mental health support, find out what's available in Coventry and Warwickshire. 

CWPT's lived experience workforce is growing, and people like Rob are making a difference across our services. We currently have 3 LEEFs working across our mental health wards.  Find out more about lived experience roles at CWPT.