Janet's Story - In Her Own Words

The following is a speech which Janet gave at the 2007 Housing Options Annual Meeting.

Good evening, ladies and gentlemen!

My name is Janet Parker and I am here tonight to tell you Housing Options story through my own.

I came to Housing Options through the help of a friend who also serves on the board at Housing Options.  It changed my life for the better!  Because Housing Options gave me a safe, stable living environment, I was able to move my life and my recovery to a higher plane than would otherwise have been available to me.  It allowed me to pursue a journey that took me to law school in Michigan after having found a way to pay for it through academic scholarship and grant money.  However, before I could use this found money, I had to be debt free.  For me, that meant deciding to file for bankruptcy.   I still live with the consequences of this decision, as I knew I would.  But, I had to get out from huge medical bills, recently acquired to pursue this dream of mine.  Interestingly, as life is full of twists and turns, I ended up shortly after having matriculated into law school, in coming home.  I decided to return to my career in librarianship as I came to understand my greatest interest in law was in public interest or disability law, not usually high paying law career jobs.  Rather, I decided, I had proved I could gain entry in law school and do the work, so the journey was a satisfying one.  Instead, I decided, it would be best for me to get my law degree after I’ve retired, after I’ve made my finances more secure through a career I still love and in one which I have great ability.  Additionally, I was interested in giving my all to a then new relationship I had hoped to grow while near rather than far away.  This relationship has become a very nice friendship involving travel and companionship for both of us.

Since returning to this program, I’ve been able through additional Housing Option board policy to move from a transitional slot to one of permanency.  This has been huge for me and others in the same situation!  We now live, or at least, I live without the same fears of eviction, stigma, and uncertainty as before in my living situation.  This program provides other supports for me, too.  All the stories and studies you read telling us people living with mental illnesses recover best when they have a large support network.  Well, it’s all true!  Housing Options provides this network not only by providing staff encounters, but because we have each other. Housing Option programs provide social and educational activities and settings that allow us to see, talk with, and support each other.  This, too, is huge for our recovery.  After all, who better understands the nuances of stigma then we do?  Who else will listen with full understanding to what we say about some issue we face or may face one day?  We do, when we support each other as we do.

Still, as important as understanding is, as important as talking is, we need advocacy, which staff provides for us when we need it.  Stigma can be insidious.  Stigma may end up discounting what we have to say when we advocate for ourselves when others know we have a diagnosis of a mental illness.  Although our logic or our words or our manner in advocating for ourselves may be perfectly acceptable, it is the fact that we have a diagnosis that may get in the way of our fully realizing a good result, advocacy otherwise permits.  So, we do need someone else, in these cases, to advocate for us.  Housing Options is there for us then and it is reassuring to have them support us in these ways.  It is easier to be more resilient in our own recovery when we have good support.  It is then possible to keep recovery on-track rather then having it get derailed.

The truth is that recovery has its high and low swings or good times and less than good times in our lives.  Recovery can get dicey on the low end of life’s turns.  Resiliency is easily undermined if the swing is low enough and little or no support exists to help us through this period of life.  Often, we need staff to monitor us, to support us, to advocate for us to get help; then to help us manage what sweeps over us, which can be a kind of paralyzing inaction or indecision from getting the help we need without the assistance of another person able to assist us.  It may be medication that needs to be adjusted.  It may be some sadness that sets us back like a dear one’s death.  Whatever, the cause or reason, we need help when we need it and outpatient service is far less scary and far more desirable an outcome than is hospitalization.  This program helps inpatient hospitalization from needing to happen frequently, if at all.

I have not needed to be hospitalized, psychiatrically, since coming into this program.  I have been here five years now and I’m going strong because of these supports.  Because of this program, I have a full life where I can and am thinking of others.  I am doing for others, too, because I have a stable home life.

I’ve just found work in my career field again.  I am on the board of WilPower as a consumer advocate.  I am on my temple’s auxiliary board as well.  I’ve returned to horseback riding, taking lessons in Morton Grove at an Equestrian Center there once a week.  I exercise six days a week on my recumbent for, at least, 30 minutes.  I’ve joined the YMCA with the idea of returning to swimming laps and working out on strength training equipment.  I eat healthily though I need to lose weight to avoid needing to take a statin for high cholesterol or in getting diabetes.  Diabetes is part of my family’s genetic history, as is cholesterol, but my medication can bring on its onset, as well.  Being medically obese makes more possible the onset of either for me.  Yet, I’ve involved myself in Housing Options classes on wellness and diabetes with groups this program provides for its residents; though with Bill leaving us, these offerings are in danger of not existing for us any more.  I hope Tai Chi will come back as a Housing Options class offering, too.  In the past, I’ve involved myself in this healthful mediation and physical health exercise class to manage stress levels successfully and maintain good levels of strength and flexibility.

Because my chronic illness necessitates managing stress levels for complete health, I take this seriously.  Eating well, that is, establishing and practicing good eating habits, managing stress levels, exercising, maintaining structure in my day, sufficient sleep time, taking my medication as prescribed, being self-aware and reporting honestly to my doctors and to staff are all important keys, I have found.   Obviously, all this is good practice for anyone’s lifestyle, but I find I need to pay close attention to these and employ them daily.  Housing Options helps to remind us through classes, through community dinners or other food gatherings, through social weekend outings, through staff visits, encouraging spiritual or religious practice and sexual well-being that we are all striving to heal the whole person by treating all our social, educational, nutritional, sexual, and psychological needs for complete wellness, for our personal best recovery.  Because, it’s important to remember that recovery is an on-going, never-ending process we go through to maintain or to restore wellness in our life.

Without Housing Options, I’d be living in a very different interior and exterior world than I do now.  Housing Options has changed my life for the better!  Housing Options needs to be here for a long, long time to come.  It does a lot of good for people living with a mental illness.  Housing Options is the best! I hope in telling my story you better realize just how important programs like Housing Options are to us all.  And I mean all of us, not just people living with mental illness.  Programs like Housing Options are changing the face of and the treatment of people who live with a mental illness.  We are better integrated into our communities with programs like Housing Options.  Programs like Housing Options don’t only offer lower costs for the humane treatment of mentally ill people, they offer a new hope for people living with a mental illness with a happier life outcome than without it.

Yes, Housing Options has changed my life for the better!  I hope you’ll partner with or continue to partner with Housing Options and find ways to support us.  I hope you’ll join us in changing stigma and in changing people’s lives for the better!

Thank you for your kind attention and good night.