Experience story Danielle

As a baby, Daniëlle Schipper (38) was adopted from Colombia. Despite her happy childhood and warm bond with her adoptive parents, she began to suffer from depression around the age of 19. In 2009 - Daniëlle had just become a mother - a floodgate of unprocessed grief opened and she developed a severe depression. "I weighed only 49 kilos and had suicidal thoughts."

'Looking back, I've struggled with my adoption since I was a teenager,' says Daniëlle. “But at the time, I didn't reach the right door for help. When I was again bothered by this all-consuming miserable feeling at the age of 23, I went to my doctor. He prescribed antidepressants and after a few weeks of feeling even worse, it started working happily. The sharpness of the miserable feeling disappeared, but I also felt different, flatter than before. I took that into the bargain because anything was better than a depression.'

'I became a mother and a floodgate of unprocessed grief opened'

'I had no identity'

Daniëlle's life goes on for a number of years until things really go wrong in 2009. 'I became a mother and together with this wonderful event, a floodgate of unresolved grief opened. I struggled with the true story of my adoption, which I had not been told until I was 14. My adoptive parents then told me that I had no identity in Colombia and therefore had received the passport of a deceased child: Beatriz. She was supposed to be adopted by my parents but died before that time.

For years I thought I was Beatriz, but it turned out that I was abandoned prematurely. To save my life, I was given an identity to be adopted. That realization was traumatic for me, but it only exploded when I became a mother myself. Unfortunately I didn't ring the bell. I didn't want to pretend and thought I shouldn't whine and be happy with the beautiful cute girl that was my daughter. Until in 2011 I weighed only 49 kilos and had suicidal thoughts. I was only a shadow of myself and had myself admitted to the Bernard Lievegoedkliniek in Bilthoven. It turned out that I had personality problems and I was diagnosed with depression.'

'Thanks to psycho-education I understood more and more what I was suffering from'

Experience worker

'After 3 months I came home and at the same time received care at PsyQ. In the clinic I had mainly been given a lot of rest and therefore room for insight. I now knew that these terrible depressions would come back if I didn't work on the core of my problem. Thanks to psycho-education I understood more and more what I was suffering from. I did all kinds of therapies and I slowly recovered.

Being controlled by depression was hell, but I've come out of it and feel reborn. I have finally developed my own 'me'. At the end of my treatment, I felt a strong need to use my experiences to help other people with depression. I am very grateful that I was able to do that for a while as an experience worker at PsyQ. In that position I was present at intakes and advice or treatment discussions, I led the relapse prevention group together with a colleague and I was concerned with client satisfaction.' Daniëlle will work as an experience worker at PsyQ until 2020. Daniëlle now shares her expertise through her own company: Het Schippers Perspectief. She provides training at colleges and universities to psychologists and psychiatrists to be, trains new experiential workers at the Parnassia Group Academy and provides training to clients on a recovery process. 'It feels great to be able to contribute to the recovery of others in this way.'

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