Inner voices, inner strengths
Peer-support approach challenges long-held views of mental illness

By TRACY FRISCH
Contributing writer

This article was orginally published online at the Hill Country Observer, http://www.hillcountryobserver.com/

GLENS FALLS, N.Y.

Brad Morrow had his first encounter with the mental health system when he was in his late 30s.

In the space of 15 minutes, a psychiatrist he’d never met before told him he had bipolar disorder, gave him some prescriptions and told him to come back in a month.

The diagnosis, so quickly pronounced, became “like a death sentence,” more shattering than the psychic pain for which he was seeking help, Morrow recalled. He’d previously considered himself a “really creative person,” but the diagnosis changed that. Now he had a label -- and a stigma.

“I felt like my life was a complete fraud, and everything I did and all my accomplishments were based on an illness,” Morrow said.

A major life change precipitated Morrow's initial difficulties. In moving upstate from the New York City suburbs to give his daughter, then in second grade, the kind of small town childhood that meant so much to him, Morrow left behind his successful career as a chef. He’d owned a restaurant that had absorbed his energy and imagination, and without the identity that came from that, he found himself lost and depressed.

“I just hid inside myself, and I am a very social being,” he recalled. “It got to the point that I was drooling in my living room.”

 

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News and Updates

Denmark group studies local nonprofit's nontraditional health care QUEENSBURY -- Soeren Ravn and his colleagues from Denmark were happy to be visiting America.   "I’ve grown up with your music, with your movies and with your jeans," he said.   Ravn is one of five Denmark researchers who spent last week studying methods at Voice of the Heart, a nontraditional mental health program in Queensbury that emphasizes interaction with peers instead of hospitalization.   The researchers are part of Denmark government-funded project studying ways to improve mental health care in their country. They were referred to Voices of the Heart through another U.S. organization. Read more: View the rest of this article on Poststart.com

Messengers of Joy Messengers of Joy is featuring Voices of the Heart, Inc. to be the recipient of your gifts of love and healing. You can donate healing gifts to Voices of the Heart by contacting Messengers of Joy here to specify a gift that you wish to donate to VOH, and then you will be contacted by email with your total payment amount for your gift order which you may then enter via the PayPal Donation Button. Visit Messengers of Joy to view the full article.

VOH Featured on Poststar.com Voices of the Heart has been featured on Poststart.com in a wonderful article by Maury Thompson View the full article on the Poststart.com website