A lived experience platform built on one simple belief: shared humanity heals. Not programs. Not frameworks. Not awareness campaigns with ribbon pins. Real people. Real stories. The daily work of showing up — for yourself, and for each other.
You don't need someone to tell you what's wrong. You already know something isn't quite right. You've probably tried a few things — maybe therapy, maybe just pushing through — and you're starting to understand that the missing piece might not be more information. It might be connection.
You understand, somewhere in yourself, that growth rarely happens alone. You're open to working with someone who's walked a hard road and come out the other side with something real to offer. Not advice. Not a program. Just honest, grounded presence from someone who gets it.
My name is Dave Oliver. Five years ago I was a patient at South Pacific Private — a psychiatric rehab in Sydney — doing the hard work of early recovery. That's where I met Zac.
We went through five weeks of treatment together, two blokes navigating the same uncertainty, the same early breakthroughs, the same uncomfortable truths. When we came out the other side, we stayed in each other's lives — and what grew from that friendship became something I didn't have a name for at the time.
It wasn't mentoring. It wasn't counselling. It was two people holding honest space for each other, taking what was useful, leaving what wasn't, and growing alongside one another.
Over time, I began translating the tools that had changed my own life — Pia Mellody's inner child model, the principles of surrender and release from AA, somatic self-regulation practices — into plain language that made sense outside a clinical room. Not as a therapist. As someone who'd lived it.
Zac is now a professional MMA athlete, preparing for his next fight camp. We've worked together through his amateur career and into the professional ranks — not just on performance, but on what it means to show up whole. To carry your history without being buried by it. To compete with presence rather than just adrenaline.
I've also spent a decade in recovery, trained as a telephone crisis supporter, and spent years providing peer support to other male survivors of child sexual abuse. I know what it means to perform under pressure while carrying unresolved personal history. I know what it costs, and I know what's possible when someone walks alongside you without an agenda.
That's what I bring to this.
UsYou | Me | Us is not a coaching program. There are no packages, no frameworks to complete, no certificates at the end. What it is — and what it will always be — is a lived experience space. Non-clinical, non-hierarchical, grounded in the belief that the person sitting across from you has something to offer that no qualification can replicate.
Our sessions are one hour. One person at a time. We hold space for what's alive — not what's supposed to be alive. We don't give advice. We share experience, and we trust each other to take what's useful.
The goal — for both of us — is growth. Honest, unglamorous, daily growth.
Eventually, You | Me | Us will become a community of people who've walked hard roads and are willing to walk alongside others. Lived experience supporters, not mentors. Companions, not coaches. People who show up because they know what it means when someone shows up for you.
You | Me | Us is a lived experience initiative under the DaveO personal brand. Based in Sydney, NSW. Available nationally.
Get in touch →The rate below is set against the market standard for one-on-one specialist support — and then discounted, transparently, because every session grows me too.
You | Me | Us
Dave Oliver
daveo.com.au
Sydney, NSW
One-hour lived experience session
Standard rate — aligned with specialist one-on-one support in Sydney
Shared growth discount (30%)
I receive something from every session too. This discount reflects that honestly.
If you're ready to commit to a block, there's a small saving built in — and a payment structure that keeps both of us accountable.
This isn't a legal contract — it's a simple, mutual commitment between two people to show up with respect and good intent. Here's what we're both agreeing to.
Lived Experience Worker
Date: _______________
Person Seeking Support
Date: _______________
Your journey/growth resource. Here's what I bring to the table — not credentials for their own sake, but hard-won experience that means I know what it feels like to be in the room with you.
Supporting male survivors of child sexual abuse through peer-led, lived experience practice.
Providing oversight, guidance, and clinical support to a team of peer support workers in a professional mental health setting.
Front-line telephone crisis support — holding space for people in some of the hardest moments of their lives.
Contributed lived experience perspective to the design and development of a mental health safe haven service.
Training in the responsible, ethical sharing of lived experience narratives in public and professional contexts.
Specialist training in supporting, supervising, and sustaining lived experience workers within organisations.
In-patient treatment for substance abuse and childhood trauma — deep, direct experience of the clinical system from the inside.
Ongoing individual clinical supervision and group supervision across professional mental health roles.
The time for awareness raising is over. Now is the time for action.
I'm Dave Oliver — a lived experience professional, telephone crisis supporter, and peer supporter for male survivors of child sexual abuse. Ten years of recovery taught me that better mental health isn't a moment in time. It's a path, and it takes daily work to stay on it.
My calling is to hold space for those just starting that path — and those who need help staying on it.
I'm building something I care deeply about: You | Me | Us — a human connection initiative rooted in lived experience.
Seven years at Lifeline. Four years supporting male survivors of child sexual abuse. Ten nationally recognised training units. And a decade of personal recovery — from the inside of psychiatric care, through to facilitating peer support groups.
This isn't a CV built from a desk. It's built from living it.
See the full experience →A lived experience platform built on one simple belief: shared humanity heals. Not programs. Not frameworks. Not awareness campaigns with ribbon pins. Real people. Real stories. The daily work of showing up — for yourself, and for each other.
You don't need someone to tell you what's wrong. The missing piece might not be more information. It might be connection.
A decade in recovery, trained as a telephone crisis supporter, years of peer support — and the friendship that became You | Me | Us.
Non-clinical, non-hierarchical. One hour. One person at a time. No packages, no frameworks — just honest, grounded presence.
You | Me | Us is structured around blocks of 5–10 sessions — and no more than 10 without a minimum two-month break.
That's not a limitation — it's the model. The goal of every block is to create enough momentum that you don't need me anymore. A therapeutic bond is not what we're building here. What we're building is your capacity to move forward under your own power.
I show up, we do the work together, and then I get out of the way. If another block feels useful down the track, the door stays open. But the two-month gap is non-negotiable — it's where the real growth happens.