Hidden Homelessness: One woman's story...

I often say to my students that "teaching is learning" and the same is true of journalism and perhaps even more, of blogging. There is a visceral connection between you and me in the blogosphere, often it grows beyond a virtual connection, too. It's very affecting and inspiring. 

This is the story of one of those times.

On Saturday night, I had a tough time falling asleep. My mind was whizzing. 

The day before, on Friday, while achy, feverish and sleeping most of time, felled by some sort of bug, I received an email from a member of our community here at Coming Out Crazy named Sandra Dawson.

She was clearly upset and for good reason. Through a series of emails and then a five-hour telephone conversation on Saturday evening, I discovered that Sandra's recovery journey is nothing short of miraculous. 

"When I was eight, my depression started. For no reason. I became glum, sad, moody cranky, often during the fall and spring. It was biological. I wasn't diagnosed at all until years later," she said. 

Sandra grew up in a comfortable and "privileged" military family, and as she was moving all over the country growing up, her behaviour began changing along with her moods.

"When I was about 10, I wrote a Christmas play and my teacher decided that I could direct it, but she fired me as the director because I was too bossy," she said, laughing at the recollection, perhaps a harbinger of the more exuberant moods she would experience later.

Initially, her mood swings were characterized by short episodes of increasingly severe depression, and occasional suicidality – her first attempt was when she was 11 years old, in school, with a pair of blunt, round-edge scissors. "I just knew I wanted to die," she said. A schoolmate spotted her and called her "Freak!" Nothing else happened. 

"We didn't talk about it in my family," she said. "We were repressed and didn't discuss our feelings or our emotions."

By the time she was in her early 20s, she was beginning to experience wildly euphoric manic moments as well as depression. Sometimes the two extreme moods occurred coincidentally, with "mixed episodes of mania/depression and hypomanic/euphoria. Depression with spikes of mania," she said. 

Eventually, Sandra started seeing a counselor, to no avail, then a psychiatrist who prescribed medication. "I was misdiagnosed as being depressed," but because of her own ignorance and fears about mental illnesses, her prejudice and discrimination, her negative stereotypes, she wouldn't take those drugs, even though she was suicidal.

She never went back to that doctor.

Sandra is now 42. She has been hospitalized approximately 35 times, calling herself a classic 'revolving door.' Most of those hospital stays, she stresses, were for relatively short periods of time – from a few days to two months.

"There were many times when my doctors didn't know what to do with me," she said from her home in Vancouver. Sometimes, they still don't, she added. 

Between these episodes, she typically has much longer periods of independence, emotional stability and productivity. 

At 27, a GP misdiagnosed her again and prescribed Prozac. This time, Sandra decided to take the medication, but it was disastrous for her. "It made me more manic."

Coupled with the death of her father, insecure living arrangements, travel, and another serious manic episode, her life started spiraling out of control. Suffering from Post Traumatic Stress Disorder, unable to work, for the first time in her life, she experienced hidden homelessness.

Four out of five (80%) homeless people in Canada don't live on the street. Most are improperly housed or on the verge of eviction, far too many are children. Women who earn less than men are more vulnerable to homelessness. The hidden homeless live in cars, couch surf or find temporary shelter in church basements or abandoned factories. 

Over the decade between 1994 and 2004, Sandra became homeless – but only four times. Years apart. Those episodes were short. She stayed in shelters for abused women, hospitals, or on friend's couches. She also lived in marginal housing like rooming houses and Single Room Occupancy hotels.

"I've been lucky," she said. "I've never lived 'on the streets' as in the stereotypical sleeping bag on a sidewalk. I am considered high functioning by my psychiatrists. Although my disorder is severe, I can look after my basic needs. Low functioning people need more help, but high functioning people can and do fall through the cracks and become homeless or at risk." 

These experiences were so searing, they turned her into a crusader, a passionate advocate, working professionally and within the community as a volunteer to help to understand, enlighten and fight hidden homelessness, and to ensure that more supportive housing is available especially for people with mental health issues.

She has a steady part-time job on the Mental Health Commission of Canada as a consultant, a person with lived experience of hidden homelessness, working on its newly launched, national multi-city study called At Home/Chez Soi.

Sandra is also on the board of Vancouver's Marine View Housing Society, a licensed and supportive housing project that began in 1975 and owns residential buildings in Vancouver for people with mental health difficulties. For years, she has also volunteered with her local arts community in several capacities. 

"It's so important to me. It makes me feel useful," she said.

Her work with the Mental Health Commission of Canada is one of her passions. 

On Sunday, Sandra was a presenter at a major national Vancouver conference on homelessness called Into The Light, which winds up today. She participated on a National Consumer Panel of peers with lived experience of homelessness and/or mental health issues involved in the At Home/Chez Soi project. These panelists represented cities of all sizes and discussion focused on pressing local issues in their respective areas. 

So why was she so upset when she wrote to me last Friday? 

When this four-year Housing First study was launched at a media event last week, Sandra bravely spoke out, telling her story about her own experiences with homelessness. She gave an interview to the press. Somehow, she was misrepresented and her story was badly distorted, so much so that she feared her credibility would be damaged and her reputation besmirched.

So she reached out to me and I'm so glad she did. I knew virtually nothing about hidden homelessness. It wasn't on my radar screen. Indeed, it was hidden. Invisible. Buried under the stereotype of the homelessness we see. I have started to scratch the surface. I will keep digging. 

Best of all, I've become acquainted with Sandra Dawson, one of the most courageous, generous-hearted people I have ever had the honour to engage with... and I sense we are more than acquainted. We have made a connection. I hope it will continue. There is so much more to share about the nature of homelessness – visible and hidden – especially among children and youth.

I have so much to learn. 

Thank you, Sandra.

Comments

[Carolyn]

Sandra D bravo on your courage to put one foot in front of the other and to help others. I believe she makes an interesting point about high functioning. I suffer terribly, but I always keep going no matter how out of control the symptoms are "just keep swimming" Dori-Finding Nemo. So, I don't have a psychiatrist, or psychologist or anyone other than my beloved GP. Why? Because I'm a contributing member of society, my level pain doesn't matter, to them (OHIP) the severity of mental illness is measured by how much it has impacted my life.

I work very hard to stay well, avoid caffeine, monitor my stress, get enough sleep every single night, eat properly, keep healthy relationships and take my medication. It doesn't make the symptoms stop but it allows me to function. Yet, sometimes I feel punished by a system that won't help because I'm too well.

Sandra is a great example of why we can't think like that. The severity of "Mental illness" should not be measured in hospitals stays but by the perception of the patient. If Sandra had of been cared for earlier she might never have been "hidden". She is a light that should be seen.

[Josh Schmiedchen]

I give her tons of kudos for getting through what she has. It takes a lot of a person to do what she did. I commend her for doing what she does now after everything she went through.

As for the high functioning person, myself who deals with anxiety and stress on a daily basis especially in my job as an Information Technologist for a school board I deal with my share of it on top of just daily life things. But like Carolyn said "just keep swimming" that's what I do no matter the symptoms, I learn to manage it and have council now. Still though like Carolyn it took a lot, as OHIP doesn't seem to care about the severity of mental illness or pain and when they can't find nothing through x-ray's, MRI's etc. They deem you healthy and cannot help any further and push you out the door.

Myself like Carolyn still have symptoms that don't stop, but I am at least able to deal with them and still function. I take my medication faithfully and what the situations I end up in, try to eat well, sleep well and keep positive as I'm a bit of a pessimistic person.

Sandra is a great example of how people are judged based on visits to the hospital and outter perceptions of the body. It's like a book, they tell you never to judge a book by the cover yet doctors do that often and prescribe you medicines or don't fully look into a matter such as mental health.

I applaude Sandra for doing what she does, there needs to be more assistance for people with mental illnesses and disabilities.

Just a tad of an update about my friend who I had mention earlier that I've been supporting in his fight with anxiety who is currently having a hard time.

He is currently trying to go back to school to obtain a degree in audio recording as computers isn't panning out well. His family is all over him about him going back especially his sister. It's hard for him to deal with things when his sister is always going off the handle about things and causing him unneeded stress and I wish I could be there more in person because she just belittles him so much, I feel that she is jealous cause he gets more attention because of his physical disabilities.

He has unable to get in with a councilor yet in sault ste. marie where he resides as usual the hospitals and what not are chaos with trying to get a doctor to see him before. Also he is
awaiting a doctors appointment still to get check out, which I think shouldn't be needed, but i'm not a councilor etc.

I believe that the health sector though needs to step up so that less people have to go through what Sandra D did and fall into the cracks on the path that leads through society and life.

It's good to hear from you again as well and glad your feeling better.

[Wendy Love]

Thank you for sharing that great story about Sandra. I am inspired and encouraged to keep plugging away at life with bipolar. No matter how much medication and how many strategies I put in place, the challenge is still huge to the point of wondering if they even work. And then I hear a story like this and I say 'if she can do it so can I'! thanks so much. I needed this today....

[Melissa]

Hope and inspiration is a gift to share. I appreciate the wonderful story. You might also be interested in another story of inspiration by someone with bipolar. The book is titled, "Blessed With Bipolar," by Richard Jarzynka.
http://www.bipolarman.org/

On a personal note, I do not have bipolar, but my sister does. I love her dearly and will send along this post to her. I'm sure she would love the story as well.

[Sandy Naiman]

Hi Carolyn, Josh, Wendy and Melissa,

Last evening, Sandra Dawson sent me a note saying "I'm glad the response (to my profile) has been positive." She seemed sincerely touched by your comments, your empathy and your support.

I, too, was overwhelmed by her story and her recovery. For me she is a beacon, a person who proves the desperate need for supportive housing for people, like us, with mental health issues. She is an inspiration to me, and at the same time, I wish I could do more than just write about her life.

Sometimes, I become inpatient. I want to see change, major change, happen faster. Now.

I was reading a blogger in the U.S. bemoaning the fact that the mainstream media seems to be ignoring mental health issues these days.

http://www.furiousseasons.com/archives/2009/12/winter_fundraiser_cheaper_and_better_than_the_washington_post.html

It depends on your point of view and perhaps the issues that are paramount to you. Frankly, I don't agree. Here, I see more and more space in the mainstream exploring mental and emotional health.

All this, to say, thank you for your commenting and for caring. Keep caring. We are a community here and caring about each other is what "community" is all about.

I thank you for joining the conversation. Keep talking.

Speak soon.
sln