I was at Bellevue all day this past Wednesday, getting a full health/mental health screening at the WTC Health Center. I lived below Canal Street and was home at the time of the 9/11 attacks on the World Trade Center. Wow, Bellevue has changes quite a bit since I worked there almost 20 years ago at a reception center for homeless mentally ill men. I wasn’t diagnosed with Bipolar Disorder at the time. I WAS extremely depressed, but didn’t know it was a clinical condition or could do anything about it. I was in therapy, but my therapist never addressed my really devastating depression or my abusive domestic relationship. My then- girlfriend, a psychiatrist, was verbally and psychologically abusing me. She later got physically violent. That’s when I left.
I began what I did not know was rapid cycling; I was manic for a long time. Lots of energy, sex drive and tons of fun, and in a new relationship to boot. Then I crashed. I was with a ew therapist this time and saw a psychiatrist. Finally, I was diagnosed as Bipolar. Then the WTC tumbled to the ground in smoke and ashes and NYC and the US were all on Red Alert. I was unemployed, my new girlfriend was cheating on me… I received help from the Red Cross, who was then administering the WTC funds. The mental health coverage paid for my therapist and shrink. And I am very grateful.
I am again unemployed, working through it all and still need to pay my therapist and psychiatrist so am again grateful for the help I received from Bellevue and especially the social worker I saw there who told me about the all the various programs available.
I’ve kind of lost the point I originally intended for this post, but wanted to write something personal for a change rather than just posting a news story. I saw my former boss on Thursday. I told him about Beautiful Wreck: Sex, Lies & Suicide. He read this blog, my description pf my memoir in the About section here and said he hadn’t appreciated how sick I was when we worked together. Neither did I. I was involved with a woman who was a PSYCHIATRIST and who abused me, and also used various mental illness diagnoses to abuse me. She never helped me. I’m not sure what I want to say except that I am more than happy about my new therapist whom I have been seeing for about four years. My life is at a point where I can be unemployed not have a dime in my pocket, be on the verge of homelessness and still not resort to suicide.
It’s really important to put in place a support network, whoever you are, but especially if you are mentally ill. It takes a village after all…to support anyone and everyone. I respect my biological family and family of friends who have supported me, mostly in the past four years, but also a few individuals prior to that.
And so it goes…
Many people in this country suffer from mental problems. It seems from your blog that Bellevue continues to be a caring place for those in need. I went to nursing school there in the ’60’s and worked in the psych units after graduation.
You are correct-Bellevue is a very good, caring place for mental health and other medical care with people with few or no other resources. The big scary reputation of Belevue psychiatric hospital’s past is just that, the past. However, I do often wonder whether the “new” Bellevue would be so excellent if it had not been taken over by NYU.