I'm a dual citizen. I was born in Albany Oregon and moved to Canada with my parents in the early 1970s. In my 20s I suffered through several episodes of depression. My symptoms would come and go, but over the years they steadily got more severe. In my late 20s I suffered a lot. On my worst days I would sleep for 20 hours, and my mind would become completely clouded over. I believed my brain was falling apart. One of my good friends saw that I got help, she took me to the psychiatric ward at the downtown Hamilton hospital where I stayed for 8 days.
In Canada health care is free, although finding a good doctor is not always easy. My father helped me by locating a psychiatrist in Toronto who had time to see me. I liked this psychiatrist a lot. I think the most profound thing he said to me was that depression was the common cold of mental illness and that I could get better. Initially when he told me this I didn't believe him, I thought I was exceptionally sick. I met with him for about 10 years and in time he changed my mind.
While I think my psychiatrist in Toronto deserves a lot of credit, since he listened to me patiently for years, in my late 30s I still didn't feel well. I often spent the day in bed, and when I lost my job and had to start looking for a new job I once again slipped into a deep depression.
Since I was unemployed at the time I used to go out to the University library in the afternoons. I found the Recovery Canada web site on the Internet and a copy of Mental Health through Will Training at the library. Over the course of several weeks I read about 1/3rd of the book before attending my first Recovery meeting. I was surprised by the meeting format. I had imagined it would be like an AA meeting in the movies, with 50 chairs and lots of people giving testimonials, drinking coffee out of styrofoam cups, and that I could just listen in the back row and not participate.
Instead I met Dennis and his wife Bee, and the 1/2 dozen or so people who attended that meeting all sitting around one table. Everyone was very nice to me, and I soon felt at ease in the group. Dennis runs our group, and he follows the standard Recovery meeting format. We meet at Binkley United Church in West Hamilton. Recovery meetings have been held at that location for over 50 years hosted by several different leaders during that time. Our group remains small, we have several core members who attend almost every meeting, and we have some satellite people who come occasionally. We consider 10 people to be a big turnout.
My initial interest in creating a blog site for our group was motivated by the fact that I kept telling our group members about Internet resources describing Recovery. I'd explain that beyond just the Recovery web site there were videos on YouTube and other interesting books. I talked to Dennis about this, and my basic idea was that we needed a handout that included a list of Internet addresses describing Recovery.
My blog page is inspired by Rob Winike's pages and what I believe I can contribute. I work as a software developer and at work we have a number of internal Wiki pages that we use to explain our processes to new employees. I believe that I can do something similar for our local Recovery group in Hamilton. See:
Rob asked me to provide a photo of myself for his news letter, and I thought about this a lot, but I decided not to. A common practice that occurs in the computing industry is finding personal information for new employees or co-workers on the Internet based on something like a phone number, e-mail address, or first and last name. Stigma surrounding mental health remains an issue, even in our enlightened times. I include a picture of our family dog as my representative. He is a great inspiration to me to be kinder, less ego driven, and more patient.
If you'd like to correspond with me I set up a gmail address for our group that gets redirected to my personal address, and I'm happy to respond to anyone. You can write to me at:
recovery.hamilton.meetings@gmail.com
