Mostly I remember the cage on top of Albany Med where they use to let us psychiatric patients smoke four times a day. That, and wandering the halls of ward E-3 in confused boredom.
But all this was really a step up from the week before when I was bouncing off the walls of my apartment and smoking four packs of cigarettes a day. It was not the first time, but it was the worst. After finding my chef's knife too dull to cut my wrists, I had called for help.
Did I become a "consumer" in the hospital, or was it the year before when I first started taking Zoloft? Maybe during one of those dark periods over the years that, for one reason or another, had fallen short of life threatening?
In reality, I have been struggling with depression since adolescence -- and would have benefited from some intervention years ago. But the one in five of us who live with depression at some point in our lives face barriers of limited access, stigma and denial.
After getting out of the hospital and with some good community treatment, I started to put my life back together. That effort is ongoing and requires real work at controlling the kind of bad thinking that got me in trouble in the past. I recommend gardening.
Now working as a mental health advocate, I think of myself as a "consumer" advocate. Recognizing that each person's experience is unique, maybe people really become "consumers" when identified by others as mentally ill. Hopefully, the social experience of stigma can bring together all consumers regardless of individual diagnosis or treatment history.
David Kellogg works as Director of Public Policy for the Mental Health Association in New York State and is Legislative Editor for New York City Voices.