Celebration of Life
I was born in the hot-blooded month of August- in 1964, a
year after JFK was murdered and the same year that John Lennon and the Beatles
arrived in America. Therefore, I may have been fated to have a turbulent mind
and a turbulent life.
I did not have any psychotic events when I was a child, but
in retrospect, I was a little weird. I
was unusually intense, obsessive, romantic, sentimental yet clownish. I would speak in various voices, make various
faces, and create my own satirical characters in order to entertain my family
and friends. When I listened to the radio, I would think of people in my life
and famous people(mostly sports figures) whom I admired and make little music
videos of them in my head, which sometimes made me cry.
I was very intense and obsessive about my kindergarten
playmate Teri, whom I was convinced I would marry some day . I was emotionally
, though not sexually obsessed, with some of my male friends, whom I loved to
rename and satirize , as well. I felt cheated by the Lord when Teri ultimately
rejected me and as the REM song goes, I “lost my religion”: Judaism. This
helped lead to a very depressing and depressed adolescence(1977-1982):
rejection by the girls, rejection of my old friends, alienation from suburbia
and American society. I worshipped alienated artists like Ernest Hemingway,
J.D. Salinger, John Lennon, Pete Townshend and the Who, etc…
I didn’t get into the one Ivy League school to which I had
applied, Cornell, so I became demoralized with academic competition and
virtually all other competition, except sports, which I obsess over until this
day.
Meanwhile, around 1977, still during my adolescence, my
mother was diagnosed with schizophrenia and that was the straw that broke the
camel’s back. She was in denial about her illness and so was I, so she never
did recover from her breakdown, nor did I and my family. When my mother started
pacing around the house, talking to herself and talking aloud to an audience
that did not want to hear her
complaints, I thought she was faking insanity just to spite her husband and
children, so I made fun of her, which probably created bad karma for me later
in life.
But my mother, sick as she was, helped me research and find
an alternative to Cornell University, Boston University, and that institution
helped change and save my life. I attended BU from 1982-1986, graduating in May
1986 with a BA in English. At BU, I met
brilliant and idealistic and inspiring professors and friends and read
virtually all the great writers and political philosophers and learned to come
out of my own self-pitying, narcissistic depression. There, I learned to help
and educate other people and focus more on others, less on myself. I ran a
literary magazine and a discussion group and engaged in radical left wing
politics, things I cherish to this day.
Nevertheless, there was more trauma ahead. When I graduated
from college, I discovered that I lacked the discipline, drive and skills to
land the jobs I coveted and I ran into financial troubles and fell into another
depression. I experienced anxiety and rage, as well and I began to hear strange
noises and experience delusions that I was under surveillance.
During this hellish period(1986-1987), I read the biography
of Martin Luther King, Jr. and rescued myself again, by rediscovering the Lord (King
was a devout and dedicated Christian)
and rediscovering nonviolence(when I was severely depressed, I w anted to lead
a violent Marxist revolution that subverted or overthrew the U.S. government).
But that did not turn my life around professionally or
financially or spare me mental -healthwise. In 1997, I finally succumbed to
paranoid delusions and psychosis, lost a decent job as administrative assistant at a broadcast
talent agency, lost my apartment and
virtually all my friends and some of my
family and ended up in a homeless shelter because I was too in denial and
embarrassed to check into a psychiatric hospital.
I spent about a year and a half in the homeless
shelter(1999-2000), where I mostly played pool, but also started a literary
magazine for my fellow mental patients.
From 2000 to 2002, I experienced multiple hospitalizations
and went through a series of anti-psychotic drugs until I finally fully
regained touch with reality.
From 2002- 2015, I went into a semi-recovery. I became
chairman of my residence’s tenants association and editor of the same
residence’s newsletter. I also joined FH, but quit soon after because I did not
yet understand the value of unpaid work.
But spending all my time in my residence did not end my
restlessness, my financial woes , the shame of being unemployed and the social
and sexual loneliness of mental illness.
So, I rejoined Fountain House in 2015 so that I could
continue contributing to the mental health cause and meet some fresh faces and
gain some more work experience and structure and reintegrate into society.( I
figured that , in time, I’d figure out how to a make money and choose a career.)
Meanwhile, at FH, I quickly absorbed myself in the
work-ordered day, made connections with the people who ran the newspaper and
the literary magazine, joined the advocacy committee to promote the mental
health cause… and later on was invited to participate in standards reviews,
colleague training and clubhouse conferences. All this activity culminated in a
colleague training to my favorite place, the United Kingdom(Hey, what do you
want? I was an English Major and a British rock fan!), where I did exactly what
I wanted to do with my life: work in Britain, promoting the mental health
cause.
None of this FH stuff could have transpired if I hadn’t
changed my attitude and decided that one way or another I was going to make FH
work for me and vice versa. I wanted to make the most of FH and make a sound
contribution to the House along the way.
I was greatly aided by the fact that the FH staff was
extremely warm and welcoming, the newspaper had evolved to the point where it
actually wanted to print my writings (which I made sure, this time, had
relevance to the House), and many of the
members, this time, helped me integrate into the community and the
activities(advocacy committee, for example).
I still have work to do on myself and my life. I need to
stop writing excessively angry political blogs, secure a TE, so that I can
gradually rejoin the workforce and stabilize my finances and I need to keep
growing as a person. Needless to say, I must also maintain my mental health stability.
One of the ways I help maintain a sound mind is to engage in
my hobbies. I still enjoy following the New York Yankees, playing Strat-o-matic
baseball, writing poetry and political blogs, listening to classic rock music(
I also love various types of R&B, jazz, classical and pop) and watching cable news(not always good for the
mind, but what can you do?)
I also daydream, about a lot of things I won’t mention, but
I can reveal that I have a modest dream of starting a business writing company.
The opportunities and praise I get for my writing at FH has encouraged me to
pursue such a dream and it didn’t hurt when FH awarded me an arts scholarship
to study business writing at the Gotham Writers workshop.
Thus, FH has helped
me start the process of properly living my life.
Craig R. Bayer
Teleconferencing
I’ve done a number of teleconferences with
clubhouses from all over the United States and I’ve even done a series
with a clubhouse in Sweden, as well.
I
enjoy these teleconferences because they help me understand and become
more motivated about clubhouse activities. They also build community
amongst the staff and members who participate in them and of course
build a community between Fountain House and the rest of the world.
It
is my work in these teleconferences that caught the attention of the
colleague training staff and ultimately led to my traveling first to
Cleveland, Ohio and then to London, where I think I did a decent
job analyzing the standards that we discussed and then applying that
understanding to coming up with an action plan for Fountain House.
I obviously believe that understanding of the standards is very
important and discussion about them inspirational.
If I did a good job during standards review in the colleague
training, it’s because I came prepared, thanks in part to standards
review discussions at Fountain House, most of which were done, in
my case, at least, during teleconferences.
And you can sell the teleconferences as an adventure that could lead to greater adventures such as world travel.
I
already miss being with youthe clubhouse in London, but teleconferencing can,
in a sense, keep us together and help spread the word about clubhouse
throughout our clubhouses and throughout the world.
Craig R. Bayer
Thanks to Charles Ryu
I want to thank Reverend Charles Ryu for his brilliant and
moving musical talk and performance at Fountain House. He provided me with a
greater understanding of the music of Beethoven and Chopin and a better
understanding of the lives of these musicians, and my own life, as well.
I also thank Alan Finkelstein and Dorothy Orr for giving us
clearance to hold the event, Elizabeth Kilbride and Wellness for providing the
food, Alex Bauman of Culinary for doing us a giant favor by cleaning the dishes
for us when it was our responsibility to do so, Yusselffy Denize of the Welcome
Center for giving us access to the Living Room and providing chairs, Judy
Meibach for all the various work she did helping me organize the event and all
the people who attended the event for making it a successful and enjoyable
evening.
I also thank the staff of Communications for helping pump
the event and Noelle Hanrahan for taking some pictures.
Sorry that some of the staff and members who wanted to
attend were too busy to make it; maybe we’ll catch you next time!
God bless Charles Ryu and God Bless Fountain House!
Dealing with Depression
My Personal Techniques for Dealing with Depression
By Craig R. Bayer
I am a mere member of Fountain House, and therefore no professional
or expert at contending with depression, but I do have a few
depression-fighting techniques that work for me, that might work for others
when they are battling this annoying malady.
A time-honored tradition of mine when I feel depressed is to
listen to classic rock music. I find rock songs to be--because of both the loud,
dramatic, emotional music and the moving lyrics--inspiring and cathartic. I
close my door, put on a rock CD and then turn up the volume. Sometimes I’ll
spend a full hour inside my room, rocking out to the Who, U2, Rush, John
Lennon, Led Zeppelin, etc.…
Another technique of mine is to write. Sometimes I’ll write
in a journal whatever feelings I’m experiencing or I’ll write an angry
political blog about a news item that ticks me off. Either way, I get some of
the angst out.
Another way for me to get out of the doldrums is to read a
good piece of fiction or biography or self-help. The fiction inspires me to stop
moping and start living, biography teaches me the way famous and not-so-famous people
overcame adversity and the self-help clears my head, redirects my thoughts and
calms me down.
A fourth way for me to fight depression is to engage in
prayer. Doing so significantly calms me down and clears my head. It also makes
me think about my purpose on this planet; rediscovering my purpose on Earth
helps me to refocus my thinking and concentrate on helping other people, as
opposed to pitying myself.
The final way for me to battle depression is to attend
Fountain House, where I can engage socially, professionally and even
politically(engaging in politics, which is about helping change a sometimes
ugly world, makes me feel less helpless in dealing with society’s ugliness).
Coming out of myself by engaging with and for other people is a significant antidote
to depressing thoughts.
I guess the bottom line is that one should think about and
do other things, instead of wallowing in dark thoughts and feelings.
If a doctor prescribes medication for you, that, of course,
helps, too. I think that my own psychiatric medication, though it is not
strictly an anti-depressant, definitely eases my darker moods. It gives me that
extra assurance that I won’t lose myself painful feelings.
Spotlight on Advocacy
Member Leadership
Being a member leader has its upside and downside and that’s
why, though I am involved in some Fountain House leadership activities(standards
discussions, programming meetings, trips to national conferences) I hesitate to
call myself a member leader.
I think that I am good at understanding and articulating and
living out the Clubhouse vision, and that’s why I am generously invited to leadership
activities, but if you ask me to chair a meeting, motivate and guide my unit,
or worst of all, break up an argument or physical fight, I may just bail out.
As a result, I admire some of the more natural member
leaders at FH: the people whom staffers permit to take charge of the
work-ordered day. They motivate more passive members to choose and do work tasks, they stop
meetings from getting out of control, they take on virtually supervisory roles
in places such as the newspaper, the media center, the advocacy committee and the
mail room, they show up consistently, they work hard( leadership by example)
and they inspire people around them to contribute to the Clubhouse.
I frankly prefer to work behind the scenes, doing less
visible tasks and providing my opinionated opinion about how FH affairs should
or shouldn’t be run.
But I’m nevertheless fascinated with leaders and I admire leaders
and I like to philosophize and write about them.
Leaders are important-everywhere-and I’m happy to come
across them amongst the membership at
FH.
Craig R. Bayer, 4/30/17
Colleague Corner
For the past year and a half, I have
been part of a Fountain House videoconferencing group that has been discussing
the thirty seven ICCD Clubhouse standards, not just amongst ourselves, but with
clubhouses from faraway places, namely Sweden and Cleveland , Ohio.
The videoconferences have been
friendly, warm, humorous, fascinating and very informative. We have not only
developed through them a greater understanding of the ICCD Clubhouse standards,
but we have learned a lot about how other clubhouses and countries differ from
our own.
For instance, admission standards for
both the Swedish clubhouse and the Cleveland clubhouse (Magnolia House) are
less stringent than those of Fountain House, partly because the distant
clubhouses have different personalities and cultural traditions, but also
because Fountain House, because of its tremendous size and highly populated
location, cannot afford to freely admit people: it must have some sort of filter
in order to avoid being overwhelmed.
On the other hand, I have observed
that Fountain House and its sister clubhouses share a great deal of enthusiasm
not just for videoconferencing but for Clubhouse work and traditions, in
general. We are all very proud to be part of the Clubhouse model and we all
take pride in our individual clubhouses and their respective achievements.
I had the good fortune to travel to
the Cleveland clubhouse to help set up the videoconferencing system and meet
our fellow clubhousers out there, thanks to this communication process. It was
an exciting trip that I might not have otherwise been able to take if I had not
been part of this project.
Thus, if you want to learn about why
FH is the way it is and also learn about other
places on the planet Earth, I recommend that you participate in
videoconferencing.
Craig R. Bayer, 3/14/17
Lobby Day, 2017
Sometimes, as a
mentally ill person, I feel alone and hopeless, but such feelings at least
temporarily dissipated when I attended Lobby Day in Albany on February 28th.
On Lobby Day,
everywhere I went, I encountered friends and allies and inspirational people.
Led by the ever serene Samene Reid and the bubbly Michelle Rodriguez and the
fearless Alan Miller, I was part of a Fountain House contingent that traveled
to New York’s state capital, Albany, to connect with members of NYAPRS(New York
Association of Psychiatric Rehabilitation Services) and to lobby government officials
regarding mental health issues.
In a huge auditorium,
we gathered with NYAPRS and heard passionate speeches from both peer leaders
and government officials who support the
mentally ill in our struggle to find
safe and affordable housing, justice in the criminal justice system and to put
an end to stigma in all its forms. It helped ease my feelings of isolation to
see and hear both my peers and my allies in government fighting for the dignity
of the mentally ill.
Later on, the FH
contingent divided into small groups, visited the political offices of our
senators and assembly people, and spoke to the aides of the legislators about
our political concerns. We also tried to communicate the importance of funding Fountain
House and other clubhouses . We found
the legislative aides to be both friendly and receptive to our mini-speeches and
we hope that they can and will wage a successful fight for us in the New York State
assembly and in New York society, at large.
We returned from
Albany completely exhausted, but I believe that our energies were not wasted.
We even received baseball caps that said—no, not “Make America Great Again”,
but “Housing is Essential for Mental Health Recovery.” Properly housing the
mentally ill is a first step toward making America great for everybody.
Craig R. Bayer,
3/3/17
Spotlight on Advocacy: Lobby Day
On February 28th, I have
an interesting choice regarding what to do with myself: I can travel with some
fellow Fountain Housers to Albany to
lobby legislators to secure funding for supportive housing and for Fountain
House itself or I can stay
behind and indulge another passion of mine:
videoconferencing.
On the 28th, Colleague Training will be holding a
videoconference with a clubhouse(Mosaica) in my favorite country outside of
America, the United Kingdom. I studied British Literature in college and I love
British rock music. I’m a complete Anglophile.
If I stay behind, I’ll have a lot of
fun communicating with the Brits and also increase my chances of being able to
travel to England, thus I am tempted to sit out Lobby Day.
But I have two major passions in
life: literature and politics and frequently the latter passion calls me,
because, as British author George Orwell once claimed, one cannot escape the
significance of politics.
And in this particular situation,
politics calls again, because funding and official respect for Fountain House
are more important than individual programs and facets of Fountain House.
Without money, Fountain House (and the Clubhouse Model) could perish.
I think it’s important that FH
achieve its goal of bringing 40-50 members to Albany, all of whom must make
clear how crucial a force FH has been in their recovery and their lives, in
general. Everything fun at FH must take a backseat to making sure that
legislators know what is going on here.
So, I’ll be at the bus stop at 6:30
AM on February 28th, ready to ride to Albany…and London’s call will
have to wait until a later date.
Craig R. Bayer, 2/8/17
City Voices
City Voices
City Voices, a New York newspaper run by and for the
mentally ill, was founded in 1995 by Ken Steele, who lived with schizophrenia
from adolescence to his death in 2000 at age 51. He survived more than 15
hospitalizations and years of homelessness. Ken struggled with self-destructive
voices until therapy and medication lessened their effects.
As he said in his autobiography, “[The voices] were a part
of me, like the hair on my head, the nails on my fingers. I needed to prove
they were right, to show that I was a failure at everything.”
But he wasn’t! Instead Ken became a powerful advocate for
people with mental illness to take control of their lives through political
action. He initiated a campaign which registered 35,000 voters with a diagnosis
of mental illness. By garnering the kind of media acclaim reserved for
politicians, including, alas, a New York Times obituary, he served as a role
model for people across the country.
After Ken’s death, his protégé Dan Frey became editor, a post
he has held to this day. Not only did he maintain a paper identified with Ken’s
larger-than-life personality, but Dan also involved more volunteers and weaned
the paper off of funding by drug companies. “While Voices gained independence,”
Frey writes in a note to this writer, “we admittedly lost revenue and decreased
publication from a high of four 24-page editions per year.”
The staff of City Voices has also organized conferences,
workshops, and other events about the concerns of mental health consumers.
The approximately two dozen posts per issue in City Voices
include personal and political stories, information on mental health services,
poetry, and arts reviews.
“Not all personal stories have a positive message,” Frey
says, “but they help peers in recovery normalize their experiences and feel
less isolated.”
City Voices is distributed to individual and institutional
subscribers, who read it for its vision of empowerment and many examples that
“recovery from mental illness is possible.”
“We embody the peer movement’s slogan, ‘Nothing about us
without us,’ Frey proudly writes, “because for so many years society deemed us
hopeless and in need of care by others.”
This writer worked for City Voices as an intern some years
ago. I regularly traveled to their modest office, then located in Bedford
Stuyvesant. I was paid a stipend to write and edit articles, sell
subscriptions, help distribute the paper and do other office work. I found Dan
Frey to be a demanding man for whom to work: selling subscriptions was not my
forte’, but Dan pushed me to be the best salesman I could be and I derived
great satisfaction out my effort to improve as a salesman. Furthermore, Dan is
as hard on himself as he occasionally is on to his workers. Just as
importantly, he is a loyal and compassionate person. When some of my stories
received tough criticism from the newspaper’s board members, Dan vigilantly
defended both my work and dignity. I was not offended or intimidated by the
board’s behavior, but I greatly appreciated Dan’s protective gesture.
The entire City Voices staff was dedicated to both the paper
and the peer movement. They also had great respect and affection for one
another.
I urge my peers to write for and support City Voices and I
urge all mental health agencies to subscribe to the paper. It is a useful,
informative and inspiring periodical.
Craig R. Bayer, 1/17/17
Fountain House to the
Rescue!
For about two days, this virtual couch potato was not in New
York City or even New York State: I was in Ohio, on behalf of Fountain
House. I accompanied K. and R. on their
mission to install the WebEx video communication system at another clubhouse,
Magnolia House, in a charming section of Cleveland.
On a chilly Tuesday night, R. (and his delightful family)
and I met at Fiorello T. Laguardia airport. R.’s family bid him a long goodbye
and then we were off. We had a delicious Chinese dinner at the airport’s food
court and shortly thereafter we boarded a tiny United Airlines Express plane to
Hopkins airport in Cleveland. R., as most people know, is Fountain
House’s IT specialist, but he revealed
to me that his alternative career choice was to be a pilot. I told him that my brother is a
pilot and we discussed how much hard work goes into training to be an aviator.
We touched down in Cleveland at about 11:30 PM and took a
quiet cab ride from the airport to the hotel. Cleveland, unlike New York, was
almost silent at this hour. Almost nobody was on the freeway.
We checked into our rooms at the hotel and immediately went
to sleep, because we needed to be up and ready for breakfast at 8 AM sharp.
The next morning, there was K., who had flown in from New
Jersey, ready to eat with us. The hotel served me a huge egg breakfast; K. had
a mere egg sandwhich and her essential morning coffee. R. was sensible: he ate
a bowl of oatmeal.
Then we piled into a hotel shuttle bus and headed to
Magnolia House. Magnolia House is actually two carriage houses, which will soon
be connected by a corridor. It’s located in a semi-suburban section of Cleveland. The two houses are
pretty as are the other residences in the neighborhood. Magnolia House once had
the option of moving to downtown Cleveland, but the members and staff objected
because the current neighborhood is peaceful and picturesque and downtown
Cleveland is considered to be unsafe.
We were greeted warmly by
two staff members, C. and Ry.,
who are the communications department experts at Magnolia. We toured the
facilities, which slightly older, smaller
and more beaten up than Fountain House’s. There were no elevators and
three flights of stairs to climb in each building. Many of the rooms were a
mess because Magnolia is undergoing a massive renovation.
But the room we had to install the WebEx system in was newly
and beautifully renovated. It is much larger than FH’s WebEx room: wider and
longer and it was freshly painted. R. pointed out that they had installed LED
lights, which are environmentally safer than regular lights.
In any case, the three of us immediately went to work,
stopping only for a lunch break in their cafe’, which was also under
construction; we had an Asian chicken
dish , which was spicier and tastier than the average FH dish.
R. led the charge in unloading the system and putting it
together. K. and I helped unpack and unwrap the various equipment. K. then worked with C. and Ry. as they hooked
up the software and connected it to Fountain House’s. My job was to make sure
that as they hooked up the system, nothing (like the camera, for instance!) fell
to the floor. And when K. climbed a ladder to clean their monitor screen, I
made sure to stand close by, just in case she fell.
Later on, I explained to the Magnolia House staff and
members how we utilize the system to educate people about Fountain House and
it’s 37 standards.
It took a while to get the system running properly. At
first, when we called into FH, we could only hear the voices of N. and A., but
R. and T. rebooted the systems from their respective locations and soon, we saw
N. and A., looking better than ever.
The Magnolia House staff and members were very curious about
and impressed with the new system ,as we joked around with N. and A. while we
all discussed “clubhouse” over the airwaves.
Then we parted with our new friends and Ro., a Magnolia
House member, escorted us through the bitter cold and snow sprinkled Cleveland
streets to our hotel . K. and R. made
sure that I was okay during the walk as I labored my overweight frame through
the ice and snow.
Later on, we had a great dinner in Cleveland’s Little Italy.
We talked about science fiction and briefly about politics, because our
industrious waitress was an Albanian immigrant, who had won a national lottery
to travel to and live in the United States, worked two jobs for a while and now
works just the waitressing job and goes
to school. We all agreed that she is heroic to do this and makes most young
Americans look soft, by comparison.
Later on we had tea and hot chocolate at the hotel and then went to sleep, because we had early
flights back to the New York area.
The next morning it was snowing—blizzard conditions. The cab
R. and I called did not show up so we slowly rode through the blizzard in a
shuttle van. We, of course arrived late, but all flights were delayed anyway,
so it did not matter. We boarded another
small pane home. There was some slight turbulence a we prepared to land at
Laguardia. Both R. and I were displeased.
I thought that we might crash, but I manned up by thinking
about the important mission I was on for FH and that risk taking is part of
being on a mission and promoting a cause
. How could I represent FH all over the
country if I was too neurotic to fly?
R. and I parted at the airport. I took a bus home to
Manhattan. Along the way, I saw a
complex of buildings that looked like an insane asylum because of its caged
windows. I thought that that I could have ended up there without my family, my
psychiatric team and Fountain House, so I ended the trip with much gratitude.
Craig R. Bayer
The Importance of Fountain House and Other Clubhouses
I am told that there are people in the mental health field, in the halls of government and in the general public, who still don’t know and understand the value of mental health clubhouses.
Well, I am going to attempt to explain why we should honor and respect and finance my own clubhouse, Fountain House…
Firstly, Fountain House is a good starting point for people in recovery, who wish to re-enter the workforce. The House’s seven units provide numerous tasks that can be of value when rebuilding one’s resume, including switchboard, data entry, writing, publishing, proofreading, filing, Excel, political advocacy and organizing, leading tours, cooking, cleaning, etc...Members learn how to perform these tasks and do so in a low-pressure environment so that they can take them on without fear.
Fountain House also serves as a social network, so that its members do not feel alone or seriously depressed.
It also provides housing, psychiatric services and advocacy for the mentally ill.
The cumulative effect of the above services contributes to protect one’s mental health and well-being, promote recovery and make one feel safe in a lonely world, that still needs to know a great deal about mental health.
As a result, funding Fountain House and other clubhouses is a highly recommendable gesture, as important as any other service one provides to the mentally ill.
> Craig R. Bayer, 12/8/15
I joined Fountain House with the intent of working, contributing to a cause, joining a community and of course, preserving my mental health. I believe that when one joins Fountain House, he/she is signing up to promote a cause: both the rights and dignity of the mentally ill. Whether I am working for pay or simply volunteering, I am helping both myself and my fellow mental health consumers by showing that we can be both upstanding and productive, “excellence-seeking” members of society. Additionally, by treating both the staff and the membership of Fountain House with love, supportiveness and respect, I am preserving and promoting both my religious and political ideals.
I enjoy proofreading and collating the paper, answering the
phones, running various department errands and socializing. All of this is
necessary to promote the mental health of myself and my fellow members. I love
contributing to progressive causes, especially the mental health movement.
Without the structure of Fountain House, all I used to do
was rant and rave about my belief, both on my internet blog and on my Facebook
page. Now, I can translate all of this
passion into productive action!
For instance, over the course of just one year, I have
participated in Fountain House’s videoconferencing with other clubhouses,
during which I discussed the international clubhouse standards, thereby
increasing my understanding of clubhouses and helping to promote the
understanding and creation of clubhouses all over the world.
I also attended the 2016 NYAPRS Convention, where I learned
not only about peer specialism, but valuable things about mental health and
mental health advocacy. And I attended the 2016 National Clubhouse Convention
where I learned and taught how to improve Fountain House and other clubhouses
and also learned how to promote clubhouses around the country.
And lastly, I have worked on FH’s TV news show, where I have
helped inform people about what is going on at FH and learned to write, anchor
and edit news shows.
So, I thank Fountain House—both the staff and the members -
for welcoming me with open arms. It is
making me both a better and happier person.
Yes, In Your Backyard!
I find this attitude toward the mentally ill to be cruel, selfish, ignorant and counterproductive. Needless to say, I already live in a supportive housing residence—in Manhattan, no less—and we do not cause serious problems for our neighborhood. Even with occasional visits by the police to pick up decompensating tenants, we have not had any disasters.
Just as importantly, a society that is so competitive and stressful that it brings out psychotic breaks in many of its citizens should take responsibility for them, just as we take care of homeless veterans. Most consumers desire to live in peace with each other and all their neighbors, regardless of the location and many of us are actually in the process of rehabilitating ourselves so that we can re-integrate into society. We have real lives: we are not drug abusers and criminals in waiting.
I am very disappointed in New Yorkers who try to ghettoize us or banish us from the City entirely. we are good citizens and we deserve better.
Craig R. Bayer
National Clubhouse Conference
National Clubhouse Conference
The most compelling line to come out of the National Clubhouse Conference is that ”clubhouses save lives.” A very emotional mother of a man with schizophrenia endorsed clubhouses by essentially saying that, claiming that she couldn’t get help for her troubled son anywhere else. She said it during a workshop about the language of clubhouses, imploring all the clubhouses in attendance to say and do whatever they had to do to secure funds for clubhouse work. She didn’t care whether we used the language of clubhouses or conventional clinicians or Latin
It’s hard to argue with the aforementioned mother: at the Wellness seminar, chaired by Fountain House’s Joe Shaffer and Alan Miller, we talked about literally saving lives by taking on problems such as obesity, diabetes and smoking. We concluded that there are economical and effective ways for all clubhouse to address health issues.
But clubhouses also save lives indirectly by helping members get off benefits and into the workforce. Our track record in doing so is so impressive that Maine’s controversial Republican governor, Paul LePage, made an appearance at the conference just to praise clubhouses for this accomplishment.
And LePage advised clubhouses to build relationships with other politicians and civic leaders so that everyone can know what impact clubhouses can have on their members’ lives.
Much of the conference was devoted to maintaining and increasing the success of the clubhouse movement. We were told to keep up fidelity to the clubhouse standards, because they are what make a successful clubhouse what it is and they impress healthcare and other prominent officials. We talked about how to improve our relations with other institutions, how to do what we do better. We exchanged ideas about how to provide education to our members through workshops and scholarship grants. We talked about the importance accreditation and that the accreditation process should be welcomed not feared, because it helps all clubhouses maintain and improve their quality.
And I described to one audience how as a returning FH member, I witnessed how even the mighty Fountain House(which is virtually the Roman Catholic Church in the eyes of other clubhouses) managed to engage in some self-improvement, even though it is a symbol of clubhouse greatness.
All in all, it was a very spirited yet clear-eyed conference: it talked about how to deal with the realities of bureaucracy and mental health politics, but it also expressed the love and enthusiasm of both staff and members for their clubhouses and one another. I hope that I can continue to be a part of this conference and movement for years to come.
Wonderful series of articles
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