I remember my first visit to the Park Slope Center for Mental Health. As I rode the F train to the 7th Avenue station in Brooklyn, voices I heard then in my head were busy warning me to be fearful of two men who shared the train car with me. These voices told me the men were staring at me and planning to do me harm. Then suddenly the train pulled into my station. I didn't move, waiting to see whether these two men were planning on departing the train. I waited almost too long in fact as I had to struggle to keep the train doors open to make it out onto the subway platform. The two men didn't follow. The voices roared with laughter at my clumsy escape from this danger, and they began to recite a litany of demeaning and horrid statements to me.
This happened on a cool, crisp spring day in 1991. As I tell you my experience, you will soon understand why this event seems like ancient history to me today.
Upon my arrival at 464 Ninth Street in the Prospect Park section of Brooklyn, I was convinced I had been given the wrong address. I checked the address written on the paper in my shirt pocket several times before I approached, hesitantly, the four-story brownstone with the address on its door. After thirty years in the mental health system, I had never seen any mental health center or clinic that looked even remotely like this building.
Once I entered the building, I was sure I was in the wrong place. The foyer, alive with plants, and a smiling, friendly woman couldn't possibly be the reception area of a mental health center. In fact, the entire look and feel of the reception room, hallway, rising staircase, and later the offices, was totally "un-clinic-like!" Instead, Park Slope Center for Mental Health offered an ambiance resembling someone's home; and not just anyone's; someone very special's.
Despite all this, I found this was the right place. I had an appointment at 2 p.m. and I was early, I was told by a friendly, smiling woman named Ann.
While I waited to be seen by someone, my eyes roamed over the walls, Victorian-style fireplace, mantel, and a majestic, intricately carved wooden ceiling which had been carefully, hand crafted by an artisan from another time. For some time, in fact, I was convinced I had been transported back myself to a turn-of-the-century sitting room where I sat on an antique old wooden bench, enjoying the visions of historic Brooklyn prints on the walls and aged photos arranged on the fireplace mantel and beautifully framed in all sorts of frameworks from days long ago.
Jolted back to my reality by the sudden return of the voices which had been a part of my life since I was 15 years old and diagnosed a paranoid schizophrenic with psychotic symptoms, including auditory hallucinations, I began to look back at the more than thirty years I had spent living in state mental hospitals, halfway houses, community residences, or homeless.
I had just been released from Manhattan Psychiatric Center on Ward's Island, where I had spent close to two years. I had spent time too in Harlem Valley Psychiatric Center in Wingdale, New York, before I was discharged from my latest attempt at suicide; a serious attempt to jump from a thirty-story building in Manhattan, followed by numerous efforts to hang myself in these hospitals. The voices I had heard since I was 15 years old had commanded me to jump, and as I sat waiting to be seen, these voices reminded me that I had failed again. They told me too that I wouldn't fail the next time, and they had already started making plans for my next suicide.
"Hello, Mr. Steele. My name is Dr. Rita Seiden."
These words and the woman who spoke them startled me and the voices only I could hear. I looked up. She smiled, looking me directly in the eyes, and invited me into her office.
As I entered, the look and the feel I had earlier described about this place were undoubtedly an expression of this person. She was clearly its architect because her office reflected the same warmth and "home-like" ambiance, but even more so. As time would pass I would realize why I sensed it more intently in her room. I had been invited into the "heart" of this place, and I truly felt like an important guest and not a patient from the first visit to Park Slope Center for Mental Health. Soon I would discover most patients of this mental health center felt the same way, like guests. Never before had they been treated with the kind of respect, care, sensitivity, and support which are the living ornaments of this mental health center. From Board Chairman, to Executive Director, to reception staff, this is how these professionals approach their work.
Little did I know then that at this special place some very important work would be done. I would actually reclaim my life from my paranoid schizophrenia, but not so fast, nor easy, or without hard, hard work, and several relapses. Yes, and even one more attempt to escape treatment and destroy my life.
I almost wasn't welcomed back after I had ran away and severed therapy which had been threatening, direct, and uncompromising from the start. Once I had left a doctor, or a place, I had never returned during the more than thirty years I have been in the system.
I returned this time. The only explanation I can offer is that the "heart" which I felt from the first day I visited Park Slope Center for Mental Health overcame the direct wishes and demands of the schizophrenic voices which had commanded my life's activities from the day they had arrived in my adolescence.
This accomplishment, by itself, was life-altering, and we haven't even got to the best part yet. Much more hard work would separate this first breakthrough and the next, and there would be more close calls, but in 1994, I was able to tell my doctor the truth: I was not taking the antipsychotic drugs they were prescribing for me because of the side effects. My not taking the medicine was not new. My ability to claw myself through the paranoia, delusional thinking, and the frightening, warning voices within my mind, to reach out and tell my doctor the truth was totally new. For once, my delusional voices and extreme paranoia had been beaten back. I had trusted someone, for the first time since I was 15 years old. This was a major breakthrough in my treatment and a change in direction for my life. At the time, I had no idea of exactly what unknown and miraculous factors I was allowing myself to experience. By telling the truth, I had given voice only to the overture of even greater things to come.
In 1993, I was prescribed a new antipsychotic; Risperdal. My doctor told me it was a new type of medication which produced far less side effects than the twelve or more I had endured over the past thirty years.
With my delusional voices still influencing me, and at full auditory volume, I was asked to honestly give this medication a chance. If I didn't want to take it, I didn't have to lie about taking it. There would be no reprisals, I was told. Even with these promises, the voices went straight to work trying to stop me from taking the medicine. But, somehow, I did. One day at a time; winning one battle over my delusions one day at a time. My new found trust in someone was my anchor during this period. Then, in early 1995, the voices stopped completely. Seven months after I had started taking the Risperdal the voices had left me.
At first, I terrified. I began to panic. I wanted them to come back. I was alone for the first time in my life. I won't tell you that it was easy during the next several months as I had to fight to stay outside my schizophrenia, taking my Risperdal, and starting to take control of my life. During this time, I would move into the first independent apartment I have ever lived in alone. I would learn how to live alone without voices and other people being present, and I have even come to enjoy my time alone.
Today--a mere six years since my subway ride and first visit to this special place located in the Prospect Park area of Brooklyn--I am actively involved with helping other guests like myself as I have become a consumer advocate with the Park Slope Center for Mental Health. I coordinate Consumer-Run Programs here. These programs include two highly respected local and state recognized consumer initiatives: the New York Mental Health Voter Empowerment Project, which has registered close to 20,000 mental health recipients in Greater New York City during the past three years, many for the first times in their lives, and New York City Voices: A Consumer Journal for Mental Health Advocacy, a completely consumer-run and directed journal which gives voice to others like myself who have been silenced by their illnesses.
But, most importantly, I have genuine relationships with people based on realities and not delusions. I live independently in the community for the first time in my life, and I am able to look in the mirror and see the me I never got a chance to meet or know before. And this is only the beginning.
Friday, October 14, 2011
One Patient's Journey to Mental Wellness
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Friday, October 14, 2011
One Patient's Journey to Mental Wellness
I remember my first visit to the Park Slope Center for Mental Health. As I rode the F train to the 7th Avenue station in Brooklyn, voices I heard then in my head were busy warning me to be fearful of two men who shared the train car with me. These voices told me the men were staring at me and planning to do me harm. Then suddenly the train pulled into my station. I didn't move, waiting to see whether these two men were planning on departing the train. I waited almost too long in fact as I had to struggle to keep the train doors open to make it out onto the subway platform. The two men didn't follow. The voices roared with laughter at my clumsy escape from this danger, and they began to recite a litany of demeaning and horrid statements to me.
This happened on a cool, crisp spring day in 1991. As I tell you my experience, you will soon understand why this event seems like ancient history to me today.
Upon my arrival at 464 Ninth Street in the Prospect Park section of Brooklyn, I was convinced I had been given the wrong address. I checked the address written on the paper in my shirt pocket several times before I approached, hesitantly, the four-story brownstone with the address on its door. After thirty years in the mental health system, I had never seen any mental health center or clinic that looked even remotely like this building.
Once I entered the building, I was sure I was in the wrong place. The foyer, alive with plants, and a smiling, friendly woman couldn't possibly be the reception area of a mental health center. In fact, the entire look and feel of the reception room, hallway, rising staircase, and later the offices, was totally "un-clinic-like!" Instead, Park Slope Center for Mental Health offered an ambiance resembling someone's home; and not just anyone's; someone very special's.
Despite all this, I found this was the right place. I had an appointment at 2 p.m. and I was early, I was told by a friendly, smiling woman named Ann.
While I waited to be seen by someone, my eyes roamed over the walls, Victorian-style fireplace, mantel, and a majestic, intricately carved wooden ceiling which had been carefully, hand crafted by an artisan from another time. For some time, in fact, I was convinced I had been transported back myself to a turn-of-the-century sitting room where I sat on an antique old wooden bench, enjoying the visions of historic Brooklyn prints on the walls and aged photos arranged on the fireplace mantel and beautifully framed in all sorts of frameworks from days long ago.
Jolted back to my reality by the sudden return of the voices which had been a part of my life since I was 15 years old and diagnosed a paranoid schizophrenic with psychotic symptoms, including auditory hallucinations, I began to look back at the more than thirty years I had spent living in state mental hospitals, halfway houses, community residences, or homeless.
I had just been released from Manhattan Psychiatric Center on Ward's Island, where I had spent close to two years. I had spent time too in Harlem Valley Psychiatric Center in Wingdale, New York, before I was discharged from my latest attempt at suicide; a serious attempt to jump from a thirty-story building in Manhattan, followed by numerous efforts to hang myself in these hospitals. The voices I had heard since I was 15 years old had commanded me to jump, and as I sat waiting to be seen, these voices reminded me that I had failed again. They told me too that I wouldn't fail the next time, and they had already started making plans for my next suicide.
"Hello, Mr. Steele. My name is Dr. Rita Seiden."
These words and the woman who spoke them startled me and the voices only I could hear. I looked up. She smiled, looking me directly in the eyes, and invited me into her office.
As I entered, the look and the feel I had earlier described about this place were undoubtedly an expression of this person. She was clearly its architect because her office reflected the same warmth and "home-like" ambiance, but even more so. As time would pass I would realize why I sensed it more intently in her room. I had been invited into the "heart" of this place, and I truly felt like an important guest and not a patient from the first visit to Park Slope Center for Mental Health. Soon I would discover most patients of this mental health center felt the same way, like guests. Never before had they been treated with the kind of respect, care, sensitivity, and support which are the living ornaments of this mental health center. From Board Chairman, to Executive Director, to reception staff, this is how these professionals approach their work.
Little did I know then that at this special place some very important work would be done. I would actually reclaim my life from my paranoid schizophrenia, but not so fast, nor easy, or without hard, hard work, and several relapses. Yes, and even one more attempt to escape treatment and destroy my life.
I almost wasn't welcomed back after I had ran away and severed therapy which had been threatening, direct, and uncompromising from the start. Once I had left a doctor, or a place, I had never returned during the more than thirty years I have been in the system.
I returned this time. The only explanation I can offer is that the "heart" which I felt from the first day I visited Park Slope Center for Mental Health overcame the direct wishes and demands of the schizophrenic voices which had commanded my life's activities from the day they had arrived in my adolescence.
This accomplishment, by itself, was life-altering, and we haven't even got to the best part yet. Much more hard work would separate this first breakthrough and the next, and there would be more close calls, but in 1994, I was able to tell my doctor the truth: I was not taking the antipsychotic drugs they were prescribing for me because of the side effects. My not taking the medicine was not new. My ability to claw myself through the paranoia, delusional thinking, and the frightening, warning voices within my mind, to reach out and tell my doctor the truth was totally new. For once, my delusional voices and extreme paranoia had been beaten back. I had trusted someone, for the first time since I was 15 years old. This was a major breakthrough in my treatment and a change in direction for my life. At the time, I had no idea of exactly what unknown and miraculous factors I was allowing myself to experience. By telling the truth, I had given voice only to the overture of even greater things to come.
In 1993, I was prescribed a new antipsychotic; Risperdal. My doctor told me it was a new type of medication which produced far less side effects than the twelve or more I had endured over the past thirty years.
With my delusional voices still influencing me, and at full auditory volume, I was asked to honestly give this medication a chance. If I didn't want to take it, I didn't have to lie about taking it. There would be no reprisals, I was told. Even with these promises, the voices went straight to work trying to stop me from taking the medicine. But, somehow, I did. One day at a time; winning one battle over my delusions one day at a time. My new found trust in someone was my anchor during this period. Then, in early 1995, the voices stopped completely. Seven months after I had started taking the Risperdal the voices had left me.
At first, I terrified. I began to panic. I wanted them to come back. I was alone for the first time in my life. I won't tell you that it was easy during the next several months as I had to fight to stay outside my schizophrenia, taking my Risperdal, and starting to take control of my life. During this time, I would move into the first independent apartment I have ever lived in alone. I would learn how to live alone without voices and other people being present, and I have even come to enjoy my time alone.
Today--a mere six years since my subway ride and first visit to this special place located in the Prospect Park area of Brooklyn--I am actively involved with helping other guests like myself as I have become a consumer advocate with the Park Slope Center for Mental Health. I coordinate Consumer-Run Programs here. These programs include two highly respected local and state recognized consumer initiatives: the New York Mental Health Voter Empowerment Project, which has registered close to 20,000 mental health recipients in Greater New York City during the past three years, many for the first times in their lives, and New York City Voices: A Consumer Journal for Mental Health Advocacy, a completely consumer-run and directed journal which gives voice to others like myself who have been silenced by their illnesses.
But, most importantly, I have genuine relationships with people based on realities and not delusions. I live independently in the community for the first time in my life, and I am able to look in the mirror and see the me I never got a chance to meet or know before. And this is only the beginning.
This happened on a cool, crisp spring day in 1991. As I tell you my experience, you will soon understand why this event seems like ancient history to me today.
Upon my arrival at 464 Ninth Street in the Prospect Park section of Brooklyn, I was convinced I had been given the wrong address. I checked the address written on the paper in my shirt pocket several times before I approached, hesitantly, the four-story brownstone with the address on its door. After thirty years in the mental health system, I had never seen any mental health center or clinic that looked even remotely like this building.
Once I entered the building, I was sure I was in the wrong place. The foyer, alive with plants, and a smiling, friendly woman couldn't possibly be the reception area of a mental health center. In fact, the entire look and feel of the reception room, hallway, rising staircase, and later the offices, was totally "un-clinic-like!" Instead, Park Slope Center for Mental Health offered an ambiance resembling someone's home; and not just anyone's; someone very special's.
Despite all this, I found this was the right place. I had an appointment at 2 p.m. and I was early, I was told by a friendly, smiling woman named Ann.
While I waited to be seen by someone, my eyes roamed over the walls, Victorian-style fireplace, mantel, and a majestic, intricately carved wooden ceiling which had been carefully, hand crafted by an artisan from another time. For some time, in fact, I was convinced I had been transported back myself to a turn-of-the-century sitting room where I sat on an antique old wooden bench, enjoying the visions of historic Brooklyn prints on the walls and aged photos arranged on the fireplace mantel and beautifully framed in all sorts of frameworks from days long ago.
Jolted back to my reality by the sudden return of the voices which had been a part of my life since I was 15 years old and diagnosed a paranoid schizophrenic with psychotic symptoms, including auditory hallucinations, I began to look back at the more than thirty years I had spent living in state mental hospitals, halfway houses, community residences, or homeless.
I had just been released from Manhattan Psychiatric Center on Ward's Island, where I had spent close to two years. I had spent time too in Harlem Valley Psychiatric Center in Wingdale, New York, before I was discharged from my latest attempt at suicide; a serious attempt to jump from a thirty-story building in Manhattan, followed by numerous efforts to hang myself in these hospitals. The voices I had heard since I was 15 years old had commanded me to jump, and as I sat waiting to be seen, these voices reminded me that I had failed again. They told me too that I wouldn't fail the next time, and they had already started making plans for my next suicide.
"Hello, Mr. Steele. My name is Dr. Rita Seiden."
These words and the woman who spoke them startled me and the voices only I could hear. I looked up. She smiled, looking me directly in the eyes, and invited me into her office.
As I entered, the look and the feel I had earlier described about this place were undoubtedly an expression of this person. She was clearly its architect because her office reflected the same warmth and "home-like" ambiance, but even more so. As time would pass I would realize why I sensed it more intently in her room. I had been invited into the "heart" of this place, and I truly felt like an important guest and not a patient from the first visit to Park Slope Center for Mental Health. Soon I would discover most patients of this mental health center felt the same way, like guests. Never before had they been treated with the kind of respect, care, sensitivity, and support which are the living ornaments of this mental health center. From Board Chairman, to Executive Director, to reception staff, this is how these professionals approach their work.
Little did I know then that at this special place some very important work would be done. I would actually reclaim my life from my paranoid schizophrenia, but not so fast, nor easy, or without hard, hard work, and several relapses. Yes, and even one more attempt to escape treatment and destroy my life.
I almost wasn't welcomed back after I had ran away and severed therapy which had been threatening, direct, and uncompromising from the start. Once I had left a doctor, or a place, I had never returned during the more than thirty years I have been in the system.
I returned this time. The only explanation I can offer is that the "heart" which I felt from the first day I visited Park Slope Center for Mental Health overcame the direct wishes and demands of the schizophrenic voices which had commanded my life's activities from the day they had arrived in my adolescence.
This accomplishment, by itself, was life-altering, and we haven't even got to the best part yet. Much more hard work would separate this first breakthrough and the next, and there would be more close calls, but in 1994, I was able to tell my doctor the truth: I was not taking the antipsychotic drugs they were prescribing for me because of the side effects. My not taking the medicine was not new. My ability to claw myself through the paranoia, delusional thinking, and the frightening, warning voices within my mind, to reach out and tell my doctor the truth was totally new. For once, my delusional voices and extreme paranoia had been beaten back. I had trusted someone, for the first time since I was 15 years old. This was a major breakthrough in my treatment and a change in direction for my life. At the time, I had no idea of exactly what unknown and miraculous factors I was allowing myself to experience. By telling the truth, I had given voice only to the overture of even greater things to come.
In 1993, I was prescribed a new antipsychotic; Risperdal. My doctor told me it was a new type of medication which produced far less side effects than the twelve or more I had endured over the past thirty years.
With my delusional voices still influencing me, and at full auditory volume, I was asked to honestly give this medication a chance. If I didn't want to take it, I didn't have to lie about taking it. There would be no reprisals, I was told. Even with these promises, the voices went straight to work trying to stop me from taking the medicine. But, somehow, I did. One day at a time; winning one battle over my delusions one day at a time. My new found trust in someone was my anchor during this period. Then, in early 1995, the voices stopped completely. Seven months after I had started taking the Risperdal the voices had left me.
At first, I terrified. I began to panic. I wanted them to come back. I was alone for the first time in my life. I won't tell you that it was easy during the next several months as I had to fight to stay outside my schizophrenia, taking my Risperdal, and starting to take control of my life. During this time, I would move into the first independent apartment I have ever lived in alone. I would learn how to live alone without voices and other people being present, and I have even come to enjoy my time alone.
Today--a mere six years since my subway ride and first visit to this special place located in the Prospect Park area of Brooklyn--I am actively involved with helping other guests like myself as I have become a consumer advocate with the Park Slope Center for Mental Health. I coordinate Consumer-Run Programs here. These programs include two highly respected local and state recognized consumer initiatives: the New York Mental Health Voter Empowerment Project, which has registered close to 20,000 mental health recipients in Greater New York City during the past three years, many for the first times in their lives, and New York City Voices: A Consumer Journal for Mental Health Advocacy, a completely consumer-run and directed journal which gives voice to others like myself who have been silenced by their illnesses.
But, most importantly, I have genuine relationships with people based on realities and not delusions. I live independently in the community for the first time in my life, and I am able to look in the mirror and see the me I never got a chance to meet or know before. And this is only the beginning.
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