They say it takes a community to raise a child. Well, it has taken a whole community to raise me, too. I am a diagnosed paranoid schizophrenic and suffer from depression. But I recently won a Courage to Come Back Award from Coast Mental Health for having done well in the face of adversity (in my case, mental illness) and for being a role model in my community.
I want people to know that the same road that led me here can lead them to a better place for themselves, even in the Downtown Eastside. I was homeless for two years after being viciously attacked and dragged to what I thought would be my death, by a man in 2002. Being homeless was the perfect breeding ground for my mental health and trauma issues to go unchecked.
I was diagnosed with depression in 1999, but I never experienced the level of mental disturbance that plagued me after the assault, and it resulted in my schizophrenia diagnosis in 2005. Within 30 days of the assault, I had lost my job of almost three years at BCIT. I ran away to Calgary.
After the assault, I fell back into smoking crack as a coping mechanism, as I had smoked it when I was younger. The whole high was about recreating the fear I felt during the assault, perhaps an attempt to control the fear I had of dying that night.
I had made a serious suicide attempt in 2005, but this time the memories of coming out of it made me really try to follow my prescribed medications and get well, even though I was very scared to take my meds at first.
I am pretty sure that I hear the same things that other people hear— just differently. I find hidden meaning behind words, get messages from what I hear and constantly question my reality. I think too much. The Portland Hotel Society runs both the hotels I have lived in (the Stanley and the Pennsylvania) and has provided medical professionals, services and the plain and simple encouragement that has enabled me to become healthy and productive again.
The Carnegie Street Program latched onto me and, by hosting an art program in my hotel once a week, I got paid to discover that I have artistic abilities. I needed those mentors in my life at that time. The Carnegie program helped me start collecting a real paycheque again and provided me with the knowledge of art as a tool to deal with my mental illness.
The reason I started volunteering was because I wanted to get back into life. I wanted to fill in the blanks about where I had been for four years, in case I ever intended to work again.
Just before I quit crack, and after I began seriously adhering to my medication treatment plan, I started volunteering as a Pivot receptionist. Pivot has always been a place where I could be useful and stay busy, which helps lessen the time I have to really think about things.
At first my mental illness had me convinced that if I stopped volunteering I would somehow die, so I stayed out of fear. But now, I stay because I feel a sense of accomplishment. The community at the Stanley Hotel (staff, residents, visitors) accepted my good days and bad days, and I theirs. There is a commonality of having suffered various degrees of loss that bonds us in the DTES uniquely. There are so many individual people in the neighbourhood who have cheered for me along the way.
For me, having a safe home of my own is the most important factor in getting my health and life together. My hotel room may be small, but it is a place of my own. For some reason, my three cats have forced me to reevaluate relationships and teach me to trust others more.
When she was in heat a year-and a-half ago, Momma, who actually adopted me, jumped and hung off my doorknob to let me know how badly she wanted out. In my paranoid thinking, I thought someone had trained her to open the door while I slept—so I kicked her out. It took a week for me to realize she had nothing against me.
I know it’s absolutely a horrible thing to have kicked her out, but she survived and I now have her and her two babies, Brother Bear and Sister Bear. They are a major source of support and unconditional love that I couldn’t find again.
It’s important to me that everyone knows from my lips that I don’t claim to be living a perfectly normal life. I don’t pretend to be someone I am not. I have a mental illness that acts up when I let my defences down. I just keep moving forward with the help of my community.
What is the best advice I can give a person suffering from mental illness? See a doctor and tell them how you are really feeling, take your prescribed medications, sleep (at least a little bit) every night, keep your fluids replenished and eat regularly.
Reprinted from Megaphone © Street News Service: www.street-papers.org
