Saturday, December 10, 2016
Peer Advocacy: It Takes One to Know One
Peer Advocacy: It Takes One to Know One
By Carl Blumenthal, Peer Advocate
Hello, our names are Albert, Chrispin, Tamara, Stephanie, and Clyde, and we have mental illness!
If you’re familiar with how Alcoholics Anonymous begins its meetings, our chorus of voices may sound like the same melody in a different key. Every AA meeting is led by someone who has “been there and overcome that” so that person can encourage group members in their recoveries.
For people living with mental illness, Catholic Charities offers a peer advocacy program. We have become peer advocates here by coping with psychiatric difficulties and training to meet the needs of folks like us. That’s paying our dues twice. We do not replace mental health professionals. Rather, we complement them by using our recoveries as a road map for peers’ journeys toward wellness. We’re like driving instructors who double up on the gas and brake-pedals.
Albert Sypher: “I’ve learned how to navigate New York City’s mental health and substance abuse systems for myself and other peers. I see myself through them. I’m grateful for my family’s support and encourage peers to get backing from their families and friends. I try to engage peers with the confidence of someone who’s turned his disability into a strength. I love my job. It sustains me in my recovery.
“Users of our program report such challenges as homelessness, unemployment, limited education, poor insurance, inadequate food, and unpaid rent and utility bills. To reduce these barriers, we’re certified by the State’s Office of Mental Health to work with peers on their life-goals, health education, financial benefits, social services, and access to healthcare. One-stop shopping for assistance is a necessity not a fashion.”
Chrispin Charles: “In smoking cessation group we encourage members of our program to make positive choices about their health. Many have quit and/or reduced their tobacco use. Understanding the effects of second-hand smoke has also motivated people to change because they don’t want to hurt their family and friends.
“We collaborate with Catholic Charities’ clinical and rehabilitation counselors to assure clients obtain holistic, self-directed care. We relate to peers as equals with shared experiences rather than different illnesses. Feeling safe, they tell us and each other what might be too personal for their therapists to know. It’s like having a buddy or a 'sponsor' (AA talk) to confide in when the going gets rough.”
Tamara St. Fleur: “In co-occurring disorders group (mental illness and substance misuse), we keep an open mind. There’s no judgment, only understanding how to get over our fears. From the experiences of others, I’ve learned a lot about myself. The group is a place where people can be heard and know it’s safe to express themselves. We give them hope, purpose, and self-confidence.”
In a recent group on self-help and peer support, here’s what participants said about the peer advocacy program:
Gary: “It helps with my well-being.”
Machelle: “Allows me to set step-by-step goals.”
Dennis: “Learn how to use a computer.”
Howie: “I express concerns about my housing.”
Terrica: “Because the groups teach self-love, I get therapy and meds.”
Barbara: “An advocate goes with me to my medical doctor.”
James: “Good to have others to talk to.”
Eric: “I’ve stayed out of the hospital for five years.”
These are not just soundbites. Between August 2015 and February 2016, consumer satisfaction rose 18% on nine measures of quality. If the program has improved, members’ expectations have risen. Their desire to meet one-on-one grew by 32%. They deserve the attention and the City's Department of Health and Mental Hygiene (DOHMH) emphasizes this approach, like tutoring, is the best way to learn.
Samuel James, director of rehabilitation, elaborated: “Peer advocacy began here in 2011 with two advocates. Now we have six. DOHMH and Catholic Charities’ management guide us. Peer advocates have walked in the shoes of the members. They work together here and in the community to instill the message ‘we can recover.’
“Advocates are much better trained now in motivational interviewing, the basis for working individually with peers. Getting certified and practicing more, they’ve also improved as facilitators of groups: smoking cessation, co-occurring disorders, food education, wellness self-management, wellness recovery action planning (WRAP), and SAMHSA’s (Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration) eight dimensions of wellness.”
Stephanie Thompson: “I was first trained as a spiritual life coach at the Inner Visions Institute. Then in addiction recovery. With harm reduction and trauma-informed care, there’s more than one pathway to recovery. You’ve got to have a holistic approach. I’m inspired when peers go through the many stages of change I have. In food education we see mind, body, and spirit as one. I’ve been diagnosed with diabetes—“diagnosed” because language is important. Plus I know nutrition is connected to mental health. It affects your mood. Some psychiatric medications cause weight gain.”
Clyde Walcott: “I want to serve, reach out, motivate, and inspire. I’m trained in theater arts and worked in radio and TV. Being productive and creative is important for recovery.”
Mr. James added, “Peer advocates are an integral part of the recovery system and will play a more prominent role, especially as insurance companies look for proof of quality outcomes. Reimbursement is possible for person-centered care, WRAP, advanced directives, coping skills, recovery concepts, self-sufficiency and self-care. The new Medicaid Home-Based Community Services will also pay for peer support.”
Bottom line: Peers are hospitalized less, work more, are better educated about their health, and have greater social support. Equally important: With behavioral health workers striving to improve care while saving taxpayers’ money, peer advocates have a role to play in making this “brave new world” freer and more humane.
March for Dignity and Change for Mental Health, Washington, DC
March for Dignity and Change for Mental Health, Washington, DC
On October 10, 2016, in a unified voice with supporters, providers, family and friends, people living with mental health conditions called for: an end to unconscionable levels of unemployment, incarceration, homelessness and disability; an end to underfunding of services, harsh practices and fail-first systems in which involuntary status is requirement for care; an end to negative portrayals and scapegoating; an end to a society in which people with mental health conditions die up to twenty-five years before the rest of the population; and a beginning to a new era in which every one faced with mental health challenges is supported to get the right kind of help when needed, and valued in their communities nationwide.
12th Annual NYC Mental Health Film Festival
12th Annual NYC Mental Health Film Festival
Organized by Carla Rabinowitz, Advocacy Coordinator, Community Access
On October 1, 2016 at the historic Village East Cinema, the 12th Annual New York City Mental Health Film Festival (#MHFF) presented 12 inspiring films about life, mental health, recovery and hope.
We were honored to present the East Coast premiere of “Boxed In,” the directorial debut of actress Tasha Smith, and the Manhattan debut of “Mind/Game,” which chronicles WNBA star Chamique Holdsclaw’s battle with bipolar disorder.
Filmmakers and cast members joined the festivities and participated in lively Q&A sessions with the audience.
On Getting the Most Out of Life: An Interview with Jane Grandi
On Getting the Most Out of Life: An Interview with Jane Grandi
By Carl Blumenthal
Jane Grandi, 65, has coped with mental illness since adolescence. She has found satisfaction in family life, employment, and advocacy. On the day I interviewed her, she wore a Museum of Modern Art T-shirt with pictures of famous artists on it. Monet is her favorite because his paintings of water lilies represent tranquility.
City Voices: Can you describe some of your jobs?
Jane: I worked in retail, in sales, at Abraham & Strauss, Sachs Fifth Avenue, and Franklin Simon. Did some modeling of clothes for customers. My first husband was a police officer. I was a traffic enforcement agent (“meter maid”) for 17 years.
Voices: And education?
Jane: I graduated Midwood High School. Got 18 credits from St. Francis College. [Both in Brooklyn].
Voices: What are examples of your advocacy?
Jane: One time I convinced a jury I was on that a young guy accused of robbery shouldn’t be convicted because he was in the wrong place at the wrong time. Twenty-five years later I saw him again. He had become a police officer. It was the best day of my life.
My involvement with law enforcement. I know how to talk to officers at meetings on how to treat people with mental illness. I’m against solitary confinement. It makes you mentally worse. There’s no justice for many people.
I went to [Senator] Schumer for help [when he was a congressman]. He told me I had Medicaid rights and helped me get food stamps. It’s good talking to politicians about what’s on your mind.
Voices: What are your other activities?
Jane: I take care of my husband who’s older than me. The usual things a wife does.
Voices: Anything else?
Jane: I’m beginning to write about my experiences. A doctor once told me writing about myself wasn’t good. But now I feel better when I do. Writing relieves anxiety.
I go to support meetings here. I’ve been to ones at Baltic Street [Advocacy, Employment and Housing, Inc.].
Voices: What are your plans for the future?
Jane: I’ve taken some of the peer courses [at Academy of Peer Services]. I’ve applied to Howie the Harp [for peer specialist training] a couple of times. Withdrew my application cause I’m not sure anyone would hire me at my age.
Voices: It sounds like you would have a lot to offer with all of your experience. Why not give it another try?
Jane: They told me if I want to I’ve got to fill out the application again. I’ll need to go to 125th Street [Howie the Harp’s Harlem office] and do it there.
Voices: Anything else you’d like to do?
Jane: I don’t think ahead the way I used to. One day at a time. I like dancing. I learned as a kid. We do ballroom dancing at the senior program where I go.
Voices: Thank you for sharing your life with us!
Determined to Help Others Along the Path Through Life
Determined to Help Others Along the Path Through Life
By Steven Alvarez, Intern, Urban Justice Center's Mental Health Project
Finding Purpose During the Good and the Bad Times
I truly believe that everything happens for a reason. If it weren’t for my own struggles, and meeting many peers with the same issues, I would never have gotten into this work. One friend that I met, Faigy Mayer, would ultimately set me forth on a new path in life, to work in mental health. I met Faigy during this transitional phase of my life. When she died, it only fueled me deeper along my path.
Growing up, I remember being terribly shy and not having many friends. I grew up in a hostile environment in which my dad (although I love him to this day) was physically and verbally abusive to my mother. I ended up inheriting his anger.
One day I stopped doing my homework. I couldn’t find the motivation, and worried that the kids at school would make fun of me. So rather than face the embarrassment I stayed at home. Eventually my mother took me to see the guidance counselor at school. The guidance counselor asked me if I wanted to go to class. Since I feared my classmates, I got angry and knocked everything off of her desk. She called the police, and when they came, I wouldn’t talk to them. They took me to a hospital, in which I was later admitted. I would live with the label of “crazy” from that point forward. I was only ten years old.
I began to act out and live by my own rules. I wasn’t the class clown; I was the class terror. Cursing out the professors, getting into fights, cutting class, smoking weed, and the like. I even remember getting picked on by the special-ed students and fighting back in the craziest ways possible to make them leave me alone. I was getting bullied, and unfortunately, to fit in, I was also a bully.
During this point, I was put on one of the most powerful drugs on the market called Clozaril, an atypical antipsychotic, usually used as a last ditch effort to treat the most severe cases of psychosis. Its list of side-effects are horrendous, but the worst required me to take a blood test to check my white blood cell count. Besides killing off my white blood cells, my weight ballooned to 300 pounds.
When I was taken off Clozaril my life changed. I suddenly became a new person, mentally and physically. My therapist describes me as waking up, as if a whole new person arrived, as if I had been living in a bubble all these years. My life started to transform. I became more socially active, lost 100 pounds, gained friends, and a girlfriend. Amazing things started to happen.
I relapsed in 2011 and was hospitalized three times that year. I emerged with a new vision, but unfortunately I was heavily medicated, and regained all of the weight I had lost. Still set on my mission, I eventually got off of another antipsychotic, Zyprexa, and lost the hundred pounds once again.
During this time, I ran support groups, threw the craziest parties, hiked, bowled, played pool, anything and everything, with a group of friends I will love for life. I credit two “Meetup” groups for my recovery: NYCDSG (New York City Depression Support Group) and, first and foremost, the New York Shyness and Social Anxiety Meetup Group. Through these social interactions I have lived several lifetimes in a matter of years.
In January of 2016, I enrolled in the Howie the Harp Peer Advocacy Program. The training was like no other. Every day was a struggle, but also a gift. I began to realize that all of the things I went through had a meaning and purpose. I needed to suffer so that I could help decrease the suffering of others. The training was awesome and the people I met even more so.
One day a friend messaged me about an Open Mic Night hosted by the Urban Justice Center, the law office I’m currently writing from. If I learned anything, it is that experiences, both good and bad, will prepare you for the future. Sometimes in life, our future works out based upon our plans and sometimes it doesn't. I often reminisce about my friend Faigy, and the times I went to visit her in the hospital. I know she would want me to continue to help others as I helped her and to never let go.
Ward Stories: Poetry from the Mental Health community
Ward StoriesOrganized by Dan Frey, Editor in ChiefSix poets are featured in this Winter 2017 edition of Ward Stories: Carolyn Sanzenbacher, Debra Faes-Dudden, Carl Blumenthal, Susin Postovoit, and Matty Guerrero. Some poems are seasonally-themed, some upbeat, some clever, some positive, some raw, but all have something to offer as you sip your hot spiced wine by the roaring fire with our publication in hand (or on screen). Be well and have a safe and satisfying autumn and winter.
Autumn Pilgrimage
By Carolyn Sanzenbacher
It was not from disrespect that we smelled of musty earth when the pawpaw trees felled fruits that oozed into engraver's cuts, rendering the headstones nameless and mute.Here is grandmother, we would say to one another,and there is aunt Vivian who died blind before sixteen, and there is Connard who didn't die from the fever like Vivian did. Others too, stared up from the stones weuncovered each autumn.The unrotted fruits were sweet like mangobut bitter near the peel. Seeking the edge between the two would twist our mouths in joy and throw us back on feather-veined leaves burying the stones we came to revive.Of those amber colored seasons when the acrid was so freely tasted and the dead so simply resurrected, little remains now but for the stones we used as pillows.Long silenced by passages of untasted fallings,iced by slow coming winters, then dried to burnt sienna before the next autumns came.
Living with Mental Illness
By Debra Faes-Dudden
How pretty a picture I would like to paint
Oh, to taste the meringue atop a lemon pie
Or the chocolate chip cookie just so warm from the oven
Mental illness is none of these
Not pretty, not melt-in-your-mouth, sweet and warm
It’s an isolated desert where many of us are lost
Our pockets are empty, our shoes weighted with sand
Our eyes tear out of grief and frustration
Panic makes our legs weak and some of us fall
Confusion is a constant itch when the pace of life gyrates too fast or too slow
And when we awake in the morning,
sometimes we don’t know where we are
Criticism is a cruel response from people
They see our struggle then turn a blind eye
Our voice ripples against seemingly deaf ears
They fear what they do not understand
This awareness does not decrease painful rejections we feel
Mental illness is chronic physical illnessDepression, anxiety, schizophrenia stand besidediabetes, fibromyalgia, asthma, and heart disease
All require patience, understanding, and ongoing treatment
We are all God’s childrenPlease treat us with respect
Here’s What Mood Swings Feel Like…
By Carl Blumenthal
Little Red Riding Hood devouring the Wolf.
Hansel and Gretel stuffing the Witch with bread crumbs.
The Three Bears ordering Goldilocks to bed without porridge.
Tom Thumb bulking up for the Olympics.
The Hare’s Adderall pooping out before the finish line.
Rumpelstiltskin forgetting his name due to Alzheimer’s.
The Giant grinding Jack’s bones for bread flour.
Snow White awakening by her Stepmother’s kiss.
The Wolf’s asthma saving The Three Little Pigs’ homes.
Pinocchio sticking his nose in one too many lives.
The Fisherman catching the Fish with his wife as bait.
Beauty turning into a Beast after the marriage.
The Boy Who Cried Wolf becoming a zookeeper.
Cinderella growing too fat for the glass slipper.
The naked Emperor being mistaken for a porn star.
Rapunzel losing her hair during chemotherapy.
The Goose Who Laid the Golden Egg getting constipated.
Humpty Dumpty rebounding from the fall of the king.
Flights of Fancy
By Susin Postovoit
Oh yes!
Life's a mess,
I must now confess,
Instant highs caress --
They’re escapes, a mess.
Lies bound with tresses,
In plaits, then pressed.
Naughty! I should stress.
Knotty! to digress.
Lies naughty, useless.
Lies press and harass,
Lies that I suppress --
Ah! Not a success.
I'm flying, oh yes?
Still, nevertheless,
I dress for success --
A liar’s useless.
I'm a liar, I'd guess…
States the choir: Oh yes!
I'm Ready
By Matty Guerrero
I walked in,
Everyone expects me to be nervous,
But it looks like I've been doing this my whole life...
I have the talk,
And I have the walk.
Of course,
I'm scared to death in my head,
Not knowing what's going to happen.
But, oddly, that's not the right word for it...
I'm not scared.
I'm ready...
To face everything you throw my way.
I'm going to fight,
Until it comes out right.
So thank you,
For challenging me.
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