As I See it: My Friends are Dying Like Flies

As I See it: My Friends are Dying Like Flies

By Marvin Spieler, Editor at Large Columnist

Try to Stay Healthy

Note: This article is reprinted from the fall 2003 edition of City Voices. Marvin's sentiments here reflect how a lot of us feel about losing the friends we have made in the mental health community; people who have touched our lives as the late Marvin Spieler had.

What does the title mean? It means very dear loved ones, friends, mental health advocates and acquaintances are dying like flies. Obviously they weren't flies. Not by any means would I ever think that. However, they are dying so regularly. So many are now gone I can't imagine who will be next. They are dying so often, in a sense they are dying like flies. My memory of who died and when is beginning to be a continuous blur of images. Dead acquaintances bother me a great deal. I knew them or admired their work as advocates and I miss them dearly.

I'm mourning the memory of my wife who passed more than three years ago. I knew Reta since 1975 and was married for a dozen years. All I can feel now is pain. Six months later, Ken Steele, a close friend, contemporary and mental health advocate of incredible achievement thanks to the right medication after thirty years lost in hospitals, also died. My mother left earth that year too. She is still in every one of my bones. The avalanche of deaths started with the great advocate Howie the Harp. The Peer Advocacy Center in Harlem, busy training consumers to become peer advocates, now functions in his memory and in his name.

Quincy Boykin, New York City's Department of Heath and Mental Hygiene's citywide consumer advocate's death scared the hell out of me. He had a stroke, which he survived. Months to a year later he died. Whether it was another stroke or a rumor he had a heart attack doesn't matter. He meant a lot to me, fought for us all, gained the respect of providers for all of us and empowered many consumers.

Dr. Aquila of St. Lukes/Roosevelt Hospital stated at a June 27, 2003 conference sponsored by the Manhattan Mental Health Council that consumers die ten years younger than the greater population. It was pointed out that suicide factored in.

The body doesn't age faster because of mental illness does it? If not, why the disparity? Two ideas immediately occur: we generally are overweight due to the psychiatric medicines and those who smoke or have smoked for many years are at risk.

I would ask, are we getting the quality healthcare we need?

Our diets are generally poor due to lack of knowledge and low incomes as well. A poor man's diet makes you overweight.

All this comes to mind yesterday with a phone call. I learned a friend had a clot in his lung. He was lucky to get to a hospital in time.

What can you do? 1) Stop smoking; 2) exercise on a regular basis; 3) improve your diet; and 4) consult your psychiatrist about your medicines.

I personally have stopped smoking recently. It's a big start. Believe me, it isn't easy. I crave a cigarette whenever I see a person with one, but resist smoking. It's a step in the right direction.

It's a start for me. However, how far has my body deteriorated? How much at risk am I? The younger you are the greater chance for changing old habits. Time is on your side. Use it wisely.

Repeated Tragedies Still Hit Hard

Repeated Tragedies Still Hit Hard

By Regina

Suicide Was My Answer

I have suffered from depression and anxiety for most of my life, but kept it under control by being busy with my family, career and the occasional visit to my therapist. Things came to a head, however, when my husband of twenty-nine years unexpectedly left me.

I was devastated. In spite of the fact that I had my nineteen-year-old son to take care of, I felt as if I did not want to go on living. I started drinking. One night, after several glasses of wine, I took a whole bottle of anti-depressants with the intent of taking my life. Just moments after I took the pills, I realized I wanted to live, and immediately called 911. That was my first suicide attempt.

I kept sinking lower and lower into depression. My performance at work began to suffer. I lost my job and my house. Then my son turned to drugs. But I was fortunate in that I met a wonderful man named Terry who fell in love with me and accepted my son and his addiction as “part of the package.”

Things began looking up. I was able to find another job, though at a much lower level of salary and responsibility. Then six months into that job, my drinking and depression led to frequent absences from work and I lost the position. I still missed my ex-husband and my house, perhaps more because of the lifestyle I led when I was married than because of a broken heart.

When I lost my new job I sank into a deep depression and my drinking became out of control. One evening, when my son and Terry were out, I drank a bottle of wine and took a full bottle of Clonazepam (Klonopin). Did I want to end my life? I still don’t know to this day what my intentions really were, I just knew that I wanted the pain to end.

I awoke one week later in a psychiatric ward on my way back from an ECT treatment. I had been conscious before that moment, but had no memory of it. And I had no recollection of consenting to ECT. I was told afterward that my doctor held a family meeting with myself included to make the decision to go with ECT, as I was unresponsive to other treatment.

The ECT treatments made all the difference and brought me back to some level of functionality. The important thing was that I was happy my suicide attempt was unsuccessful. I realized how my drinking and taking prescription drugs indiscriminately could have resulted in my death. I was taking chances and fortunately was lucky enough that Terry found me in time to save my life.

My life has not improved much since that incident. Terry was diagnosed with bladder cancer and died a year and a half ago. I was left without money, as we had no savings. I did not know where to turn. Fortunately, my sister helped me financially and I was able to find an affordable apartment. My son, unfortunately, continued his heroin addiction and became an alcoholic.

Realizing it had to do with my depression and anxiety, I should have known better, yet I risked my life again by mixing Clonazepam, Ambien and alcohol. I slipped into unconsciousness that would have led to death if I were not rescued in time by my son.

Upon awakening, I realized how fortunate I was to still be alive, even with the emotional pain of living with my son’s addictions and the grief of Terry’s death. I always felt that there was a possibility of having a normal life, and most important of all, being there for my son.

I am still depressed and dealing with issues of loneliness, my son in jail and financial problems. There are days when I escape into my bedroom and just read. I let everything go, my personal hygiene, taking care of my apartment, going out, talking to family and friends.

No matter how bad things become, I have stopped taking chances with my life. I no longer turn to drugs and alcohol for relief from pain. I want to live. Because where there is life, there is hope. And hope is what I have now.

Steve Bets on a Vehicle Fueled with Faith and Recovery by Carl Blumenthal

Steve Bets on a Vehicle Fueled with Faith and Recovery
By Carl Blumenthal
Stick to Your Shtick, Boychik, And You'll Go Far
We meet in a Dunkin Donuts, near Steve’s “program” at the Jewish Board of Family Services (JBFS) on Coney Island Avenue, just north of Kings Highway, in Brooklyn.
With a whorl of white hair on his head, matching trim beard, and wire spectacles perched on his nose, Steve resembles a modern-day “tzaddik” or wise man.
He buys me a cup of coffee—I refuse a donut—because generosity is part of his nature. America may run on Dunkin, but we’re here sitting on stools to discuss the often bittersweet subject of “faith and recovery.”  
Steve would never pretend to imitate Mel Brooks’ rendition of the “2000-year-old man.” Nevertheless, Steve is fond of scriptural-like irony, and paraphrases the lyrics of that major musical deity, Bob Dylan, who accuses the listener “You ain’t lost your faith; you never had any,” on the song Positively 4th Street.
Or there’s Steve’s quip, “How many psychiatrists does it take to screw in a light bulb? That depends on whether the light bulb wants to change itself.”
These two insights bracket Steve’s life, one of mental illness from an early age, when he “ditched the theory” that all was right in heaven and on earth. He more or less wandered alone in a faithless wilderness for 40 years.
However, when his two sisters and brothers-in-law turned to Orthodox Judaism in the early 1990’s, their example rubbed off on him: “I thought about everything I’d been through and decided I needed to be more conversant with my tradition. I began to think about religion, life, God, the universe…how things happen.”
Steve was attracted to the meaning of suffering in Judaism, particularly in terms of his own life. He began to understand that suffering can bring you closer to God by identifying with the plights of other people, a notion which reminds him of the book, “When Bad Things Happen to Good People,” by Rabbi Harold Kushner.
Then, through “mitsvot” or good deeds, you may alleviate suffering; thereby empowering yourself in the service of God. This thinking may sound circular, even paradoxical, but that’s what faith is all about.
If this reasoning also seems like a self-fulfilling prophecy, everyone who has survived bouts of mental illness knows recovery is like an engine that needs a constant supply of gas—an image Steve appreciates because he can tell you the horsepower, not to mention the fuel efficiency, of every car on the market.
Like Albert Einstein’s famous maxim, “God does not play dice with the universe,” Steve is equally emphatic: “God is not lax; he’s not oblivious to what goes on; He’s just and merciful. If you rob banks or mug people, there will be a reckoning.”
This transformation of his attitudes about things earthly and divine over the last 20 years has alleviated some of the sadness and uncertainty from his earlier days. Steve explains, “It’s set the table for what I have to do. I’m a Jew with mental illness, and I have to be the best person I can be. I try to help others on a daily basis. I’ve never been good at planning the future.”
Through his work as a peer counselor, his loyalty to friends, and his compassion for the members of his self-help program at JBFS, he’s on the road not only to recovery but also to “discovery of who I truly am.”
Then, he lowers his voice, as if to say out loud the following will jinx him: “If I ever relapse to the point where my only resource is the program, my belief in myself and in God will give me the strength to try something else, to put something forward.” It’s a nascent belief that hope will grow.
Or as Mel Brooks might say in a Yiddish accent, “Stick to your shtick, boychik, and you’ll go far.”