Hope

I have lived with a diagnosed mental illness for over forty years. I was twenty-four years old in the mid 1980’s when I was first admitted to a psychiatric day hospital in Connecticut after a horrendous ten day stay in the inpatient unit of a mental health facility in Florida. Though I began to develop symptoms of my illness including severe depression, anxiety and psychosis when I was nineteen and a college student living in Boston, I was clueless about mental illness. I knew little of what mental illness meant though it had manifested itself in the lives of people in my family.

My cousin Adair had been stricken down with serious mental illness as a young college student like me. When I learned that she had a breakdown and had to drop out of Sarah Lawrence College, I was confused, perplexed, fearful. How could mental illness knock someone out in the prime of one’s youth? That person ventures out in the world and tastes independence after leaving the nest and trying out one’s wings for the first time like a bird learning to fly, only to find themselves with a broken wing. Growing up in New York City, she was sophisticated and glamorous and dreamed of becoming an actress. She was exposed to the stimulation and excitement that the city offered her. Suddenly as a young woman, she turned into someone troubled and tormented. Word spread throughout my family of her demise and then, she seemed to disappear. Talk about her ceased except for whispers that she was eventually living in Connecticut near her parents who had migrated to the countryside of that state. Just like that, she was gone, removed, stigmatized. 

Once I was in Connecticut living with my mom after flying up from Florida, drugged out of my mind and hallucinating, she set me on the assembly line of the state mental health system. Along with attending the day hospital, I was helped with the immense paperwork to apply for Social Security Disability and Medicare. I was put on a waiting list as a resident at a psychiatric halfway house called ‘Interlude’. It contained ten young disturbed people. I was accepted into Interlude after several months had passed, in the fall of 1986.

The director of Interlude relied on behavior modification. If we were compliant and obeyed all the rules as well as completed responsibilities such as cooking, cleaning, attending weekly house meetings and spending twenty hours a week either volunteering, working a paid job or attending day hospital, we would be rewarded with a single room of our own without the hassle of a roommate. Eventually, we could hope to move out of the house and into supportive housing run by Interlude. If we continued on the right path, we could one day hope to be independent. Isn’t independence what our whole country is based on? It is the ultimate dream, to be free to become all that we can hope to be, to fulfill our potential, to be self-actualized human beings. The gold ring seemed impossible to reach at the time, so far away, so elusive.

Life isn’t a straight line. There are setbacks and blind curves along the way. It would take many years before I could understand the idea of living life on life’s terms. Years passed and after setbacks and hospitalizations and broken relationships, I slowly began to take my life back. I stayed at Interlude on and off for three years. My final inpatient psychiatric hospitalization occurred in 1988. It was a scorching, sweltering hot summer and I remained locked up in the air-conditioned box for three months. I was given electroconvulsive therapy or ECT, but it didn’t help my severe depression. I wasn’t getting the right help, the attention I needed from the psychiatrist because he was over-worked with so many patients. I knew that if I cycled in and out of the hospital the rest of my life, it would be a continual interruption in my life and I would find myself lost, unable to fulfill goals and dreams for myself, unable to follow through on unfinished business, never able to truly be independent. I decided to find a different psychiatrist who would take the time to know me once I was discharged. My dad agreed to pay for weekly sessions. The first year after I was released from the inpatient ward was the hardest. I was back at Interlude and meeting with the psychiatrist who prescribed a lot of medications. I found the world around me to be unsafe, painful, threatening. Every day was a struggle to stay out of the hospital even though when I was locked up, all I wanted to do was leave. I started praying for strength and courage to make it through each challenging day, one step at a time.

I grew close to a fellow resident at Interlude named Bill. He had struggled with substance use and mental health issues for over twenty years and cycled in and out of psych wards and rehabs. Yet, with him, I felt safe. We found ourselves becoming more attracted to each other. The counselors at Interlude could have stopped us from falling for each other but they must have sensed we were good for each other. They let our love for each other flourish. Together, we helped each other grow.

We lived together in supervised housing after leaving the halfway house, and eventually into an apartment with our own lease. Five years later, in 1993, we got married; but not without new challenges. Several months before our wedding, Bill had a relapse and began abusing opioids. I managed to sit with him and give him an ultimatum. He could choose to go back to drugs and we would separate, or he would return to AA, give up the drugs and re-commit to me and our life together. He chose the latter. Soon after we got married, we decided to move an hour away to the New Haven area to be near his family. They are very supportive of us and are so happy that Bill and I chose to be life partners.

Since then, he has been clean and sober through our entire marriage of almost thirty years. I have kept the vow I made to myself to live life in the community in spite of mental health challenges, triggers, stress.  We bought our first house in 2002 and adopted our rescue dog, Mandy in 2013. He worked as a cook in the restaurant business and I worked as a peer support specialist. I had pieces of my writing published in literary journals, chapbooks and anthologies. I’ve told my story of recovery to a diverse range of audiences. Bill and I have traveled to Europe, Canada and throughout the U.S. 35 years later, we are still together.

Despite the successes, I still consider myself disabled. I can’t function in the way many others do. Though I take psychiatric medication and have been in therapy all my adult life, I still have my personal demons to contend with on a daily basis. Some days are better than others. I use tools I’ve been taught to cope with life better. I will always have mental health challenges. Yet, I have not stopped growing and today I can say, I have hope, a belief in myself and faith in a Higher Power. Life goes on.