Michele LeTourneau
Northern News Services

Yellowknife (Oct 04/00) - "As soon as I say mental illness, I don't know what it is, but people just back away."

"It's like if you said 'AIDS'. Well, it's the same thing with mental illness. As soon as I had a diagnosis, people would walk on the other side of the street. It was OK to be moody but...I think it has a lot to do with the way TV portrays us. People with post-traumatic stress disorder go out shooting people."

"And blowing things up."

The three people talking are members of the Independent Clubhouse in Yellowknife, a place where people coping with mental illness can go to get help, and feel supported and accepted.

Caroline Thibault, the first speaker, was diagnosed with bi-polar disorder three years ago after struggling, for much of her life, with the extreme highs and lows characteristic of the illness.

She is a strong, lively woman, exhibiting at all times a sense of humour and candour that is rare and disarming. With the help of the clubhouse, she has come into her own and she has no intention of being bashful about it.

The second speaker prefers to refer to herself as a member and for this story, we'll call her Laura. Diagnosed with post-traumatic stress disorder several years ago -- flashbacks started when she was 13 -- her life is finally coming together.

She, more than most, has learned how important it is to keep her inner workings to herself. But she's willing to talk, especially about the place that has had such a great impact on her life.

The third speaker also prefers to remain anonymous.

Fisherman has battled clinical depression for many years. The illness has effectively incapacitated him, though, of late, things are looking better. He married in the fall. He's the kidder in this trio, tossing out joke after joke with one central theme: being nuts.

Diagnosis for him, as with Caroline and Laura, proved somewhat of a panacea for the turmoil wrought by their illnesses.

Until they walked through the clubhouse door, they battled ferociously for some sense of a normal life -- alone.

Finally, there was a name for the pain.

Mental illness comes in many guises and has, in the past, been named many things. Possession by demons, witchcraft, exposure to moon rays ('lunacy") were typical explanations.

We've come a long way

As British historian Andrew Scull writes: "Where the mad proved troublesome, they could expect to be beaten or locked up; otherwise they might roam or rot." Indeed, history shows that people afflicted with mental disorders were often criminalized and/or incarcerated.

Times have changed, somewhat, and drug therapy has evolved.

Caring health professionals have also done much to change the face of mental health treatment.

In 1997, Gloria Kraft and Helen Croze, two Northern health care professionals, opened the Independent Clubhouse.

Two hundred and twenty-two members currently attend, receiving the knowledgeable ministrations of Kraft and Croze, as well as the care and understanding from co-members.

They are all accompanied by a faithful follower: depression.

"The Independent Clubhouse is very good. It keeps me stable, it keeps me very grounded. I have bi-polar disorder, and when I swing into the bad time, into depression, I can come in here and say, 'I feel so suicidal.' It's a feeling. I'm not going to go out there and do it. But I'm overwhelmed. I can come into this place. I have my friends here. They sit down and they help me through the crying parts," explains Caroline.

"This place for me is like a godsend. Coming here helps me not fall into that depression. I know it does. It keeps me up just that bit more than if I didn't come here."

Laura and Fisherman agree.

Prior to diagnosis, Caroline had no clue what was going on inside her.

A drinker as well, she was a classic case in the sense that, often, someone suffering from a mental illness will become addicted to drugs or alcohol, effectively masking the illness.

"I've just completed seven years of sobriety," she notes.

Fisherman has been visiting the clubhouse almost since it was opened three years ago.

"It's a great place to come. I've met a lot of people who are as nuts as I am--"

Laura interrupts: "The only people who can say that are people who..." know what it feels like to feel nuts.

"We joke about it," says Laura.

Respect for the suffering

"We may joke about it but we also know when someone is suffering," adds Caroline. "We don't intrude. We respect people that are suffering. They need that space to relax, to sort themselves out. But sometimes how I feel is too serious to be serious."

When Laura first visited the clubhouse, she was petrified. So petrified, in fact, that she refused to give her name and phone number. It took a year before she could trust enough, even in this environment.

"(They'd) take my kids away and lock me up in a psych ward forever," she says simply.

"I was just terrified of the psych ward. Part of post-traumatic stress disorder comes from being abused as a child. Being told that nobody would believe you..."

"A smile feels foreign to my face,"she says. Later, she admits that she can't even tell her mother about her diagnosis. Her mother has refused overtures to discuss incidents that have led to her disorder.

When Laura looks up and smiles, you know such a smile is a victory.

Losing her babies was a terrifying possibility for Caroline also.

"People taking away your children...Well, my ex, when I was going through the divorce, was convinced, and he convinced me, that there was no way that I would even get joint custody. He was going to have sole custody and he was going to have my children. Thinking about it now, I can hardly breathe. I thought for sure I was going to lose my children. My children are my life. My absolute life."

Caroline's mental illness did not become an issue in court and she gained sole custody of her two daughters.

The workplace is another area rife with potential disaster for someone who suffers from a mental illness.

"My boss, Lisa, knows all my history. She's adorable. I'm very, very lucky. I can say to Lisa, 'You know, I'm not doing so good today.' Because when I start to go down, my memory cuts out. I can't concentrate as well as I can normally.

"Lisa never says, ''You might as well go home and wait till you snap out of it.' She just says, 'That's OK. Just let me know if it becomes a problem.'"

Laura's experience hasn't been as positive. "I haven't had the best of luck, including in the workplace. I've been told, 'But you look perfectly normal.' or 'People like that wouldn't be allowed to work here.'"

"What? You want me to roll my eyes and drool every now and then?" Fisherman throws in.

"If you miss work, you're lazy," he adds.

A long road

Though all three members of the clubhouse are all well on their way to living full, satisfying lives that might be the envy of your "average, normal person," it has been a long, long road.

Diagnosis, a complicated process in itself, does impose some order to the chaos, but the period of establishing a drug treatment protocol can be gruelling.

"You sort of become a guinea pig for a while. I was on one type of medication and still ending up in the hospital. They've added one to it and since then I haven't been. Without the clubhouse there's a lot of us that would be in and out of the hospital. In '91-'92, all the nurses in emergency knew me by my first name."

In fact, the numbers bear out this point. Kraft and Croze keep an eye on these statistics for their annual reports to the Health and Social Services department of the GNWT, which funds them.

No hospital days were logged between April 1999 to March 2000.

In the clubhouse's first year of operation, just four members logged 62 hospital days.

From speaking with Caroline, Laura and Fisherman, it becomes evident that there is a lot of misunderstanding about mental illness.

They all make it very clear that though they may be a bit different, people should not be making assumptions about them or their illnesses.

As for Caroline, after a short discussion on the crappy way people sometimes act, she has only this to say:

"I've come so far. I've been through so much. I've been to hell and back. I will not be put there by anybody -- if I can help it."

Fisherman says it differently:

"Don't judge us until you've walked a mile in our boots."

Finally, after being questioned incessantly by the reporter, the trio turns the tables.

"How did you feel walking into this place?" they ask.

Truthfully? With a reporter's notebook in hand, pretty damn safe.