"And now I know how you feel . . .": Lived experience of surviving mental illness as a prosumer

In this article, through a reflexive account, I present the ways the sudden onset of clinical depression in my own life brought me closer to the vulnerabilities (due to stigma around mental illness) as well as opportunities to contribute to the mental health of my clients as a prosumer. In delineating this process, I have also highlighted how my role as an active qualitative researcher of homeless mentally ill people in India during the episode of my clinical depression helped me reaffirm my identity as a therapist or an "enabler" who could empathize with and create a humanizing therapeutic space for my clients as well as research participants. I thus underscore the value of interdisciplinary perspectives on mental health that invites reflexive learning (often through empathy) about the context and experience of distress or empowerment rather than only symptoms and its treatment. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2022 APA, all rights reserved).