I am a mental health consumer. I remember when I was 14 years old and I started feeling emotions which seemed overwhelming; and to make matters worse sometimes the emotions would occur within the space of mere minutes; and the emotions would be totally opposite of each other. Imagine being happy one minute, angry the next, friendly, then rude. Top this off with a heavy dose of depression, and you may understand what I was going through. I knew nothing of mood swings and manic phases, of chemical imbalances or genetic pre-dispositions. When I tried to talk to my friends and my parents about what I was going through, everyone told me not to worry, and chalked up my emotional instability to hormones and "growing pains."
My mid to teen-aged years were chaotic and filled with self-medication; alcohol, marijuana, pills (uppers and downers) and acid were the crutches that I used to cope with an indifferent and uncaring world. I drifted from job to job, school to school, hobby to hobby. I began to experience an identity crisis from the intensity of my ever-changing emotions. Thus at the age of 19, with a child on the way, I joined the U.S. military in the hopes of finding stability, and discipline.
And, for a while, it worked; travelling the country (and the world) while serving my country in a job that I thoroughly enjoyed, and was good at, did wonders for my self-esteem. But they say wherever you go you take yourself with you. And though I did not know specifically that I had a mental illness, I knew that my old defects were resurfacing. Drugs weren't an option now, with the exception of alcohol, which I embraced like a lifesaver to keep the demons at bay. But the alcohol caused as many problems as my mental illness, and my career suffered, and my marriage deteriorated. Delusional, I blamed the service for my problems, and returned to New York.
Fortunately I was able to find a decent job, which I managed to hold on to far many years by self-medicating myself with almost any drug I could get my hands on. When the local V.A. hospital diagnosed me with a mental illness, denial set in. I could not accept that there was something wrong with me mentally. Acceptance came only after homelessness and repeated hospitalizations and broken relationships and shame and guilt and pain.
Eventually, I picked myself up and pulled myself together. I became not well, but better, and I reached out and discovered an entire subculture of persons, of peers just like myself. We struggled with our various illnesses and discovered that, for the most part, we are not much different from other people (my personal theory is that everyone suffers from some sort of mental or emotional disorder, it is just that some people do not outwardly manifest their illness). We just want to live stable, happy, productive lives. I decided that I wanted to help those just like myself achieve their goals, and I recently became the Senior Peer Advocate of the newly formed Staten Island Peer Advocacy Center.
The Staten Island Peer Advocacy Center is a consumer run agency (we're all mental health consumers), and we offer a wide range of services for other consumers. We offer information and resources for mental health consumers who need assistance in housing issues, legal help, getting benefits such as SSI, SSD, Medicare, Medicaid, P.A., etc. and we have workshops on recovery and self-help. We can provide peer counseling and support, as well as opportunities for peer companionship. But most of all we offer empowerment-helping mental health consumers help themselves get the most that our society has to offer.
Though we're open for all Staten Island residents, we can direct consumers to the appropriate agency in their own borough, city or even state. Staten Island Peer Advocacy Center is located on the grounds of the South Beach Psychiatric Center, building 9, room 233, S.I.
Please feel free to give us a call at (718) 667-2382. And remember, whatever you're going through, you don't have to go through it alone. We've been there, and we're there for you.