Former Patient Turns the Tables

When I walked through the doors of the Mental Health Association in Tompkins County, I had no idea what to expect. I needed to do community service for a Social Policy class I am taking this semester, and when several other options fell through, I decided to call MHATC. For years I’ve been interested in psychology, and I’ve formed some pretty strong opinions about mental health treatment from some negative personal experiences. But I understand that most people are not treated in the way I was.

At the age of fifteen, two social workers came by to help my parents break some bad news to me. They were taking me out of my public high school and placing me in an 8-5 program involving both schoolwork and counseling. At this point, my troublemaking self had already been confined to my tumultuous house—other than work and school—for over a month, so taking away my brief encounters with friends at school was taking away the only time I was ever happy. Helpless and sobbing, I ran upstairs and slammed my lockless door. Naturally, the social workers—who had suggested the school switch in the first place—called 911.

Two cops dragged me from my bedroom, placed me under mental health arrest, and escorted me from the ambulance to the emergency room. After a sleepless night of eight doctors asking me the same questions again and again, I was placed in the Adolescent Psychiatric Ward for fifteen days (the maximum amount of time they could hold me without a judge’s mandate). I spitefully exercised my only right in the hospital and refused medication, so the doctors determined that I was a “hopeless case.” Luckily, my parents fought the doctors’ recommendations to surrender me to the state, and after they grudgingly released me the school issue was never again raised. Though I was very depressed and had attempted suicide before, I had not done anything that warranted me being taken from my home that day.

My depression is under control now with the help of anti-depressants and having twelve research papers’ worth of knowledge on the matter. My long struggle has made me very interested in understanding my psychological disorder and helping people who have other mental illnesses. But I hesitated to call MHATC sooner since I knew they only needed someone to edit their tri-annual publication, States of Mind, and I really wanted to be involved in activities that involved more personal contact. I wanted to look into troubled teens’ eyes and see that I may have made a small impact on their lives. But time was running out, so I called the Community Educator at MHATC, and she enthusiastically welcomed my help.

Before meeting with Catherine Wedge, I armed myself with a bit of knowledge about the organization where I was going to volunteer. Though located right in downtown Ithaca, this United Way agency serves not only Tompkins County but also Tioga, Seneca, Schuyler, and Yates. Formed in 1954, MHATC makes support groups available for parents, caregivers, and family for youth with developmental, emotional, social, or behavioral problems. They give workshops, presentations, and symposia; they also provide forums for discussion. But what, exactly, was the point behind it all?

The MHATC mission statement—located on their website—promotes active involvement of all community members in every aspect of mental health. These aspects include defining needs, promoting provision of services for the community, educating the community on mental health and mental health disabilities, and promoting the human and civil rights of those who make use of available mental health services.

After completing my at-home volunteer work (editing the thirty page manuscript and writing an article on an underserved population in mental health care for States of Mind), I return with some questions. When I request interviews from Catherine Wedge, the Community Educator, and Sara Hazard, an intern from SUNY Cortland, for a discourse community analysis, Catherine makes a stipulation: I have to enlighten her to what exactly a discourse community is. I laugh, realizing that I’m using jargon. “It’s just a community in which its members communicate largely through writing and speech, or one that relies on intercommunication between members and has formal means of discourse.” She agrees, and so does Sara.

After walking down the long, dimly lit corridor, Sara and I enter a messy playroom that seems to be going through a transformation. Awkwardly, I begin dictating my questionnaire. Sara tells me, over the course of the interview, that she found this position through her college database. She, too, was volunteering for credit. Her mother’s mental illness—which she doesn’t specify but I don’t pry—prompted her to pursue an internship at MHATC. Her duties include organizing articles for States of Mind, phoning authors to request permission to publish one of their articles or essays, and meeting with authors. Her title is “Guest Editor,” but when I ask how she feels about writing, she nonchalantly replies, “I hate it.” Surprised, I wonder aloud if she has any theory or philosophy about writing. “Not to do it!” Sara laughs, as if expecting me to agree. I laugh, trying to mask my confusion.

As the interview progresses, I learn that Sara actually has plenty of writing to do in addition to putting together States of Mind. Besides writing two ten-page papers on her experiences for school credit, she also is required to keep daily logs, write weekly summaries of her activities, and, like every other employee of MHATC, she must report her progress at weekly meetings. I’m beginning to see that, internally, the MHATC functions just like most businesses. By being required to report individual agendas, the employees must always be generating new ideas and projects. The community experts, Catherine and executive director Beth Jenkins, are able to monitor each employee’s contributions and assess who may need help or who deserves commendation. Before we finish, Sara offers me some advice in case I choose to take a formal internship at MHATC.

“They really need volunteers. There is a severe lack of funding,” she emphasizes. “But be familiar with mental illness. Read a lot. I’m always doing research just because I want to catch up with the others.”

Thanking her for her time, we walk back up the long hallway. The lights are now flickering, and the carpet smells of must. I almost feel like I’m in a nightmare, trapped in the 1970s. Sara wasn’t kidding when she said they need money.

Catherine invites me into her tiny office, instructing me to sit on the papers laying on a swivel chair. “Right on top of all those papers?” I repeat, nervous to sit on them when I easily could move them to a desk.

“Yeah, right on top! There ya go.” She is a slight woman, with long, graying hair, and a friendly voice. She continues doing what she was doing when I came to the door; she quilts throughout the entire interview.

As one of the head honchos, I suppose Catherine deserves some down time. I soon find out that this woman runs the show and writes more than any other MHATC employee, but I am still caught off guard about how the working environment is so loosely structured and casual. I detect her tendency to start reciting engrained mission statement-type answers to many of my questions about the organization, so I try to stay away from simplistic questions.

Invited by the executive director in 1979, Catherine began her career at MHATC because she believes in their goals and the work they do. Her job as Community Educator is always changing, but she always “has her hand stuck in everyone else’s business,” as Sara quoted (in a good way, she promises!). She writes newspaper articles, teaches classes about stigma and mental illness to students of all ages, records Public Service Announcements, and intertwines sociological and health issues into psychology when educating the public.

Catherine writes on an as-needed basis, but I figure out that means quite frequently. She writes fact sheets and brochures which are distributed at health fairs, public meetings, and made available to the public in the front of the MHATC building. She is the official editor for any publication released by MHATC. She cringes as she tells me that her least favorite duty is being the “de facto secretary”—the board meeting minutes are unofficially her responsibility. She also writes editorials and position papers (“advocacy with data,” is how she explains them) when a particular topic involving mental health comes up in the community. Catherine recalls one position paper she was passionate about in which she condemned forced electroshock therapy. “We do different things in response to the conditions and needs of the external community,” she explains. For instance, they threw holiday parties for the geriatric unit in the state mental institute until it closed down; when it closed, they helped patients figure out a plan.

Then, she shocks me, saying that 85% of her day is spent having face-to-face contact with others. How the hell long is her day, I wonder to myself, eighty-seven Earth hours? She describes the organization like a family, where everyone knows each other, and no one judges anyone else. She supervises writing going on in other departments, and takes great pleasure in conversing with and strengthening her relationships with local mental health patients. She says that it is a very open community; though it is close-knit, anyone is welcome.

As we become more comfortable with each other, Catherine begins to relay more specifics to me about her organization. Dutifully sticking to my purpose, I ask her what type of writing she likes to do most. Weirdly (to me, anyway), she first replies that writing after doing research is her favorite. She enjoys making New York’s history with mental illness accessible to the public. Then, thinking it over, she decides that research-based writing is the most satisfying, but her favorite is playwriting. She reminisces about a fictional play that she both wrote and directed for MHATC. The play consisted of three monologues, done by different people living in different eras, from 1869 to the present. Through scriptwriting, Catherine enjoyed using her creative talents while educating the public on how mental health has been viewed and treated, and how it has evolved. I can tell she yearns for another similar opportunity.

When Catherine delves into her extensive, varying reading lists, I am impressed. Though MHATC can’t afford internet access, she reads according to her interests and any pressing issues. Currently, she is researching Cayuga Medical Center’s proposed closure of their psych ward, so she will be prepared to fight that, along with her constant fight to achieve parity in health insurance. Opening her desk drawer, she pulls out a pin with a young boy’s face on it. “This is Timothy. He hanged himself after his twelfth birthday when his health insurance was cut, releasing him from the hospital and leaving him with no medication or treatment for his mental illness.” The proposed law that would ensure equal health insurance for mental health patients is named after the boy, whose parents continue to advocate for parity in memory of their troubled son.

As the interview nears the end, Catherine starts bombarding me with her abstract theories on writing. “Deconstruct the deconstructionism. Foucault took away meaning without giving anything back. Humans are storytellers; we transmit information through the narrative,” she states. “If you can’t tell a coherent and meaningful story, you have no right to call yourself a writer because anything else is a crime against humanity,” her eyes pierce into mine and I am taken aback. “We use emotional intellect to connect people to meaning, hope, help, and healing.”

“But it is not necessary to be a writer in this community. We have superb case advocates who can’t write at all. We create our own language. Honey, I say that if your heart is in the right place, and you believe in the inherent worth of the individual regardless of race, gender, or sexual orientation, it’ll work out fine.”

Before I leave, I must ask. “What is your take on mental health arrests?” Catherine replies that she believes hospitalization should be the last option, only to be acted upon when the patient is at risk of imminent danger or if the family is interfering with the patient’s recovery. I like this woman.

Catherine walks me to the door and warmly extends an open invitation to intern over the summer, while loading my arms with past editions of States of Mind, brochures, student pamphlets, fact sheets, booklets, and mental health quizzes. By chance, MHATC’s executive director, Beth Jenkins, is on her way out. Catherine introduces me as a volunteer editor and writer for States of Mind. “Is she any good?” the director joked.

“There you go; I say you can stay if you’re heart is in the right place, and she says you can stay if you’re good!” We all laugh, and I head home to begin analyzing all the literature Catherine gave me.

Upon arriving at my apartment, I spread out all the reading material. Most of the pamphlets contain information meant to dispel myths and rid the stigma attached to particular mental illnesses. Some simply provide information about available mental health care services. Others are designed to help self-diagnose, or recognize mental illness in someone else, by describing symptoms of schizophrenia in the older adult, or stress and depression during the winter holidays. The brochures are targeted toward very specific audiences. A 24-page booklet provides direction to dozens of recovery services oriented toward mental health patients.

Each issue of States of Mind contains a different theme. The issues I have are “The Arts and Healing,” “Reaching Out: Caregiving,” “Changing With the Times,” “Recovery,” “The Mind-Body Connection,” and the May 2005 edition that I edited, “Underserved Populations in Mental Health Care.” The contents range from academic essays written by doctors and professors, poems submitted by readers, art done by children, and mental health patients’ and their families’ accounts of their experiences, to book reviews, event announcements, mental health program descriptions, and relaxation techniques. Each issue seeks “to understand and improve mental health of our community,” with advocacy, information, and education, and this publication does so in both formal and informal language. The lexicon, I notice, rarely uses the term “psychological disorder” instead of mental illness, and “parity” is always preferred over “equality.” Other than those little quirks, the language is pretty typical for any generic publication.

Though Catherine alone creates most of MHATC’s publicly released written material, it is evident that this discourse community could not serve its purpose without all the writing she does. Every action the MHATC takes in the fight against stigma, ignorance, inadequate mental health resources, and insurance inequality requires communication both within and from the community. Employees maintain in constant contact with one another by meeting once a week to discuss their work, resulting in a fuller awareness and sense of unity. The progress reports encourage employees to continue advancing on the problems they aim to solve in the mental health arena.

On the outside, none of this discourse is visible. What is evident is the incredible amount of information they put out. These publications help people understand and recognize mental illness, they find people the mental health services they need, they alert people to the inequities built into health care plans, and they advocate positive change and tolerance. States of Mind, the magazine-like publication I edited, provides the community with a balanced perspective from all who are affected by or who are concerned with mental illness.

The MHATC works to make the world a more humane place for people afflicted with mental or psychological disorders. They accomplish this by communicating, and this gives me hope, as a writer with social justice being a priority in my life, that words really can effect change. As a teenager, I refused anti-depressants because I didn’t want to feel numb. I thought that medication would turn me into someone I wasn’t, someone who couldn’t feel sorrow when sorrow needed to be dealt with, and joy when joy needed to be experienced. With advocacy groups like the Mental Health Association of Tompkins County educating the public by distributing literature and speaking up to dispel myths, people are bound to find help sooner than I did.

Even though I wasn’t able to work one on one with someone in need, I rest easy knowing, finally, that my volunteer work editing and writing for States of Mind still served a greater cause that does help people. I may not have played a huge role in its publication, but without everyone in this discourse community working together, contributing ideas, inspiring stories, and being committed to public enlightenment about mental health issues, States of Mind, along with MHATC, couldn’t exist.