Healing the Damaged Self
Richard Weingarten, M.A., CPRP – April 20, 2011

I have had seven psychotic episodes, three clinical depressions and 19 years of dysthymia, a mild depression that comes and goes. These mental illnesses have caused severe damage to my self. I define self as the agency in me that directs how I function in the world. But one’s identity, emotions, self image, body image and self esteem are also parts of the self. When you are afflicted with serious psychological problems of this kind, you know that you aren’t the same person you were before all this started to happen. Your self-esteem takes a really big hit. You feel very ashamed for your new lot in life. You feel diminished and you don’t feel like taking on day to day activities nor challenges of any kind. In the beginning, you get angry at your God for having devastated your life. You get angry at yourself for making such a mess of your life. You are angry at society for labeling you violent, dangerous, unpredictable and for making you such a marginal and second class citizen. Society offered me very little if any employment opportunity, a monthly government stipend that didn’t cover bare necessities, substandard housing in dangerous neighborhoods, all of which infuriated me. My biggest struggle each day was getting out of bed and facing the empty day before me.
I literally lost control of my mind. In a psychotic state you lose touch with reality, and you know at some level that you’re nuts, loony, crazy, wacko, out of your mind. When depressed, I saw myself as a character in the movie, “Invasion of the Body Snatchers.” Some alien being had taken up residence in my mind. I saw the world around me through a dark, troubling and delusional prism. Everything I thought of seemed wrong and not worth doing.
These dark and fruitless thoughts were accompanied by a searing anguish so painful that I thought seriously of killing myself to escape the pain.
These dark, disorienting and doubting thoughts didn’t go away even when I wasn’t depressed. The illness left me feeling helpless, hopeless and despairing. It gave me a new complete and undesirable identity. I learned that “mental patient” is way down there below ex-con and alcoholic in the minds of most Americans.
Recovery for me meant looking candidly at these blows and deficiencies and trying to reconstruct my battered self from the ground up. Therapy helped me remember who I was and where I came from before my life was derailed by the illness. One goal of therapy was to change my negative self-image to positive. My therapists treated me like an intelligent, sane, able, sensitive person who was capable of functioning again in American society. This respectful treatment bolstered me. In therapy I identified my strengths. One therapist encouraged me to become a writer. I started journaling. Another therapist suggested I submit an article to a prestigious mental health journal. I did and got published. While compiling information on a resource directory of mental health services and programs in the Cleveland area, I heard myself gradually become in harmony with local communication practices, and I felt a social acceptance from the agency workers I interviewed by phone for this project. My first therapist commented on the resource directory. “It’s very professional-looking,’ he said. “You should become an ‘information giver’ for other consumers and society in general.” With this valued social role, I began speaking out and writing on behalf of people with mental issues, gaining confidence and a positive identity the more I did it.
In the darkness and despair of depression I joined a mood disorder support group. The honesty and support exhibited by this group made me feel better. I learned how to facilitate
these groups. I discovered that my intellect and life experience could be helpful to other consumers. After a two-year job search I found employment as Director of Peer Support in New Haven, CT. I left my friends and family in Cleveland, Ohio and moved to CT. I took a big risk.
However, before I left Cleveland, I took other risks to test my sanity and effectiveness working with the “chronically normal.” I did fundraising successfully on a United Way Phone-a-thon for three years running. Having been in the Peace Corps in Brazil before I became ill, I joined a returned Peace Corps volunteers group in Cleveland and made friends with other ex-volunteers. I organized and led an “American Media and the Third World” workshop at a national Peace Corps conference despite thinking that I was totally unprepared to take on such a role. The workshop went very well to my surprise and disbelief, and I made an important new friend on one of the workshop panelists.
I learned how to form good relationships, partly through my relationships with my therapists, but mainly through my own efforts. I wanted supportive people around me, and developed good relationships in Cleveland with people who liked me and saw my value. I joined a spiritual community where I could be upfront about my disability and people didn’t hold it against me. I made friends there who helped me regain interests i.e. playing golf that I had before I became ill.
Romantic relations with women gave me confidence and a vital sense of self. One woman friend encouraged my writing. “You are a writer, Richard!” she would say to me. I began publishing articles in mental health journals. Even so, I still experienced psychotic symptoms, chiefly delusions and paranoia, and was scared out of my mind half the time.
I got more in touch with my anger in Cleveland. I learned how to sense it and watch it evaporate when I wasn’t able to express it outright. I exercised on a regular basis to get rid of the anger, and to give myself a positive body image, another aspect of self that I pursued religiously.
I engaged in other normative activities, refusing to limit myself to mental health activities and people. Once, in the middle of a depression, I organized a Portuguese continuing education class for adults at John Carroll University in Cleveland. The depression lifted and I felt at ease speaking Portuguese. I was invited to teach undergraduates at John Carroll. I started a Brazilian Students Club in Cleveland. I began to feel more at home in Cleveland. Teaching my classes in the early morning, even while depressed, gave me added confidence that I could work full time and regain my financial independence, two firm goals of mine.
I learned how to avoid being stigmatized after reading up on stigma, and much of my shame for having mental issues went away. I presented workshops on stigma, and when I moved to Connecticut I organized a NAMI-sponsored, stigma-busting, video program, “In Our Own Voice.” I won an award for initiating that program.
Working everyday for 15 years as Director of Consumer Initiatives and Education first in New Haven then in Bridgeport reinforced my by now professional identity, increased my stamina (strength) and bolstered my self-confidence like no other activity. Knowing the healing effects of permanent employment, I created dozens of jobs for my fellow consumers. My work and commitment to the consumer movement gave my life purpose and direction, and a steady income.
Although much-healed, my self, is at times, filled with self-doubt, and second guesses itself. When I begin a new project these self doubts can be overwhelming but I know to wait them out and return to the endeavor when they’ve passed through me. After being depressed for
so many years, I often see the world through pessimistic glasses. I’m prone to turn down opportunities and overtures when they arise. But now I know to rethink these offerings and come around to accepting them. My girlfriend knows of this foible, and we laugh over it. I’ve always been very resilient but now I definitely have more resilience and stick-to-itiveness than before I became ill.
I have wonderful relationships in my life. I have people around me who love me, warts and all. I’m kinder to myself. I know how to be a good friend and mentor to young people. I take an anti-psychotic medication daily which eliminates the remaining psychotic features of my illness (which appear much less disruptive than before). With an anti-depressant that I take nightly, I no longer have morning depressions. I follow a healthy life style that promotes and maximizes my wellness and recovery. While I’m no longer angry at society or myself, I channel my anger into anti-stigma work, legislative advocacy, critiques of American society and exercise. Now in retirement, I am leading the life of my dreams with exciting projects here at home, and work and travel abroad. I see my damaged self as greatly healed and changed by much hard work and effort over many years. I recognize how I’ve benefited from the love and support of many people while engaged in the process of rebuilding my self. I know this work is unfinished and like my recovery, holding up and healing my precious self is a process that I’ll be engaged in for the rest of my life.