Before I came to Advocates, I had been in hospitals for 15 years. I had given up on ever being successful at leaving a hospital. To me, the “future” consisted only of unending pain. Having started out young in private hospitals, I was already institutionalized before I arrived at my last hospital, Westborough State. Basically, I had been abandoned as a lost cause before I started learning DBT at Westborough. Although I was blessed with good insurance for a while because my father worked for AT&T, it ran out and I was faced with either a state hospital or a state run halfway house. I have been all over in my hospital odyssey. I needed to unlearn many, many things that had rendered my life a living hell. Advocates’ staff and program have lessened my mental scars and turned my life around.

I am in the DBT house Advocates runs at 20 Front St. Dialectical Behavioral Therapy is a new therapy combining cognitive and behavioral approaches to mental health. Actually, it is more than a theory of mental health; it is a healthy approach to life in general. It also throws some Eastern philosophy in to make it a very applicable, functional theory. By promoting DBT, Advocates is opening a doorway through which people like me have a chance to escape their own mind’s relentless traps and the label of being “untreatable”. Even better, it helps us unlearn the shame of mental illness, a long-lived and paralyzing stigma.

At the DBT house, I have learned how to stay out of a hospital. More importantly, I have learned how to have a life. I have more fun, actively work on attainable goals, and am interested in the world -- the same world I was separated from for so long. I learned by talking and having the freedom to make mistakes. In the hospital, all treatment is behavior-oriented. That is fine, because it is the all-important first step. However, I have found that being well doesn’t end with quitting self-destructive behaviors. It merely starts there.

At Front St., I have found sides to me that I actually like. These sides are being strengthened by the help I receive here. Hospitals have a way of grinding you down, especially long term hospitals. Too much focus lies on what are considered faults. Front St. introduces you to the strengths you have and shows you how to put them to work in practical, successful ways. I started a volunteer job soon after coming here. I started baking again, something I had used as a teenager to make money. Slowly, I am even revising my picture of human existence from one in which we are motivated mainly by our insecurities to one where people’s behaviors are based on their talents and morals.

At Front St., I had the space to sort out what worked and what didn’t work for me. This included behaviors and assumptions about reality. I had very practical advice and positive role models. I find the staff here to be carefully selected for sensitivity and ability to place things in perspective. I have tried halfway houses in the past that didn’t have these essential types of staffing, and found it impossible for me to succeed. I now live in a different world both mentally and emotionally. Instead of believing I am evil, deserving of punishment, and doomed to eternal suffering, I see that I am like everyone else. Omens and signs don’t truly happen to me, predicting and pronouncing an evil future and echoing an evil past. The world looks a little lighter and more hopeful to me these days.

I may have only been here a year, but it has had a profound effect on me. In that year, I have started managing my own medications, something that would have been way beyond me before. I had always been too suicidal to hold my own meds. It was out of the question. I am not paralyzed by my emotions anymore; I am taking a correspondence course; I behave much more confidently. All these things were impossible before. In hospitals, I was always the one in restraints, on one-to-ones. People would tell me that there was a world out there, but I wasn’t interested. It wasn’t for me, if such a place existed at all. I didn’t see why or how anyone could want to live instead of die.

I have two valuable role models for me here, A.M. and M.R. A.M. is the head of Front St. and has extensive knowledge and experience as a counselor. Perhaps it is her rich and varied life that has allowed her such insight. When you talk to her, first she makes you angry because she’s not agreeing with you. Once you get over that, you see why, and you appreciate that perhaps you weren’t so right about everything after all. Moreover, that may be quite a blessing if looked at correctly. For example, would you really want someone to agree you’re the worst thing to hit the Earth since the Plague?

Amongst the other staff, M.R. has taught me how to enjoy myself, a feeling I rarely had in the past. The only time I used to be happy was when I was walking, even though usually I was only pacing up and down the hallways, or at times worse -- back and forth in a room. I did it fanatically because it made me feel free. Mary just makes me laugh and that provides much more freedom than walking. I have started to actually feel alive and see why people like to feel alive. Mary is now moving on to Advocates supported housing, which is sad for me right now, but it means I will have a staff I trust when I get there. Advocates is growing with me.

I also rely on my therapist, Y.A. She has explained the DBT concepts so they are clearer than they were before. She highlights things with her own unique perspective and has always a practical suggestion to offer for a solution. If she is stumped, she won’t be afraid to say so either. She goes to the DBT consultation group and brings back everyone’s suggestions. As a DBT therapist, she is available by beeper at any time. I used to call her at two in the morning. She was always there.

Front St. builds in time to relax. This summer, we went camping. Last spring we played frisbee. We are going inner tubing this winter. This program doesn’t only teach you the theories behind healthy living; it immerses you in healthy living. It shows you that this kind of life can be possible for you too. There is no real reason why it can’t be. I am applying for jobs so I can earn money and have a productive life. I want to have a purpose and a goal. No other program has provided this for me.

A very major and life necessary shift I have made thanks to Front St. is I finally decided to stop hurting myself. In the hospital, I didn’t hurt myself because I still wanted to be able to smoke. Now I don’t hurt myself because I no longer equate it with being me. Hurting myself dictated how I saw everything. It was how I reacted to or solved everything. I firmly believed that I absolutely needed to do it to survive. In actual fact, it may be a survival tool, but it is a very crude one. You exchange life for mere existence when you do it, because the behavior is all you think about. All the time, you are either doing it or not doing it. There is no escape. Now that I know I am not going to do it anymore, I hardly ever think about it. The idea of suicide is less easy to dismiss, if one could be said to dismiss anything that powerful. I make no attempt to act on it now, however. I have used DBT’s tool of radical acceptance to deal with that. It’s there, but it’s OK. I don’t have to be afraid.

I can’t tell you how different it is for me to be looking forward to life. I have spent such time dreading it. All my efforts have gone towards ending it. I feel my time at Front St. has put a solid base beneath me. I have been steeped in DBT. The flavor of my life has ripened. It is like having food when you’ve never tasted it before.

Anne Marie

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