No doubt I am deviating from role in this column, but for good reason. There is a story that urgently needs to be told and a message that needs to be conveyed to people who are struggling to overcome monumental adversity, people afflicted with mental illness. In writing this article, I have learned perhaps more than I wanted to about the insidious stigma that haunts sufferers. With all the advances made in the mental health field, we are, as a culture, still living in the dark ages. This is a story about the recovery of one man. That this man is a sensitive and caring friend is not incidental. Had I not come to know him, I doubt that this article would have been possible.
My good friend Russell Timmons was riding the crest of the IBM wave when the bottom fell out. They called it “downsizing” but for Russell it was devastation. He had a family to support and the pressure to find work was enormous. For those of us fortunate enough to live comfortably, we may be oblivious to the chilling fact that this kind of thing happens every day, and for some, like Russell, the stress tears them apart. In his case, profound depression arrived at his doorstep, making the search for employment a nightmare of rejection and hopelessness. It didn’t take long for him to lose everything: his home, his car, all of his savings and ultimately, his marriage.
Can you imagine how that must feel? Everything he had worked for was ripped away by the stroke of a pen. Russell went down hard, and by the time he reached St. Francis Hospital’s psychiatric unit, he was so severely depressed that his recovery was incremental at best. “I know now,” he told me, “that if I had sought help sooner, my recovery might have been faster, but I was terrified by the stigma of psychiatric hospitalization.” If you don’t think that stigma is real, just remember the last time you visited a sick friend or relative in the hospital. I’ll bet the room was filled with visitors, cards and flowers. Not so on the psychiatric wing. Rooms are devoid of any evidence of sympathy or concern. Nurses are overworked, overwhelmed and irritable, so you don’t see the same kind of cheerful compassion that is so evident on medical floors.
In the course of my research for this article, I had the good fortune to meet with Helen Edelstein, director Of vocational transitions at Gateway Industries, an organization that provides transitional job opportunities to people in varying stages of recovery from mental illness. According to Edelstein, “The stigma that surrounds mental illness is the single, most powerful obstacle to recovery.” It thrives because of the widely held belief that mental illness is a permanently limiting disease. Fortunately, contemporary research and advances in the field are enabling people like Russell Timmons to recover what Edelstein refers to as “life roles.” For Russell, it is a process of retrieving his active self image and eventually contributing to the community. Gateway and the treatment programs it partners with are at the forefront of a growing body of research that points directly at “work” as the most therapeutic experience any ill person can have, whether the illness is physical or mental. We know today, for example, that heart attack victims who return to work do far better in the long haul than those who remain sedentary. The medical model works in the mental health field as well.
My friend Russell is not one to sit back and wait for things to happen. His courageous confrontation of his illness earned him a transfer from St. Francis Hospital to one of the flagship outpatient treatment programs in the field, RCTC (Rhinebeck Continuing Treatment Care). He quickly began taking college courses taught at the center by Dutchess Community College faculty, earning straight A’s in three courses and completing his bachelor’s degree requirements. His next step is a master’s degree and return to the workforce. I have watched Russell progress from abject misery and hopelessness to energized enthusiasm. He is recovering his life role and battling the stigma in the process.
RCTC’s stature as a flagship program in its field is enhanced by its ability to empower individuals to take an active role in treatment. Their close working relationship with Gateway has become an invaluable partnership. Individuals reclaim life roles, with many returning to the workforce as tax-paying consumers. This fact alone strikes a tremendous blow to those who stigmatize mentally ill persons as passive recipients of services.
On the leading edge of advances in the mental health field, RCTC provides comprehensive services to 140 individuals. Its staff of clinicians and mental health workers is supervised by an experienced and licensed psychologist as well as a center administrator who is “hands-on.” The good news is that there is plenty of ammunition out there to defeat the stigma, including RCTC’s sister programs in Poughkeepsie, Millbrook and Southern Dutchess.
As far as I am concerned, however, Russell Timmons has done as much as any one person can do to fight that stigma. When I see the smile on his face and hear him laugh at my bad jokes, it brings tears to my eyes, not just because of the magnitude of his accomplishments, but also because he is a good man … a very good man. I think I am still objective enough to know that there are plenty of others with the same potential. People like Russell and programs like RCTC provide something they may desperately need – hope.