A Teacher's Life Well-lived: A Conversation With Caterina Vicentini In Trieste Heart Forward Conversations From The Heart podcast

Content provided by Kerry Morrison. All podcast content including episodes, graphics, and podcast descriptions are uploaded and provided directly by Kerry Morrison or their podcast platform partner. If you believe someone is using your copyrighted work without your permission, you can follow the process outlined here https://podcastplayer.com/legal.

Heart Forward Conversations from the Heart »
A teacher's life well-lived: A conversation with Caterina Vicentini in Trieste

8d ago 50:11

MP3•Episode home

Send us a text

In this episode we sit down and talk with Caterina Vicentini in my hotel room in Trieste. Caterina is a math and physics teacher at the secondary school level in a town – Monfalcone -- that is about 30 minutes from the city centre of Trieste.

She is a service user and takes advantage of opportunities like this to share her story to help destigmatize mental illness and to offer hope that one can have a full life -- education, career and family –- even while encountering the challenges of a mental illness. Of course, she lives and works in a region that is known for exemplary care.

Her first crisis in her 20’s happened when she was a graduate student. At that time, she had been awarded an Erasmus Fellowship which allowed her to study in Belgium. Then she was offered an opportunity as a PhD student to be a teaching assistant.

She recalls for us her first experience of being taken to the hospital, forcibly injected by someone she did not trust, and then placed in a padded room with four point restraints. The shock of all that is beyond frightening and you will hear about her Houdini-like liberation that took all night long.

In 1991 she and her husband returned to Trieste and she shares the stories over the subsequent decades of a few more incidents that would set her back, and how she emerged stronger each time.

Note: when she talks about going to the “centro di salute mentale” or staying there in one of their beds, this is not a hospital. This is the community mental health center, which is an unlocked place with crisis beds for those who might need to stay for a day, a week or longer.

50 episodes

#Fitness #Mental Health #Kerry Morrison #Mental Illness #Trieste #Homelessness #Schizophrenia #Bipolar Disorder #Peer #Change #Incarceration #HIPAA