Bay View Center offers understanding ear to those with mental illness | News, Sports, Jobs – Alpena News

News Photo by Julie Riddle Nina Barres, a member at Alpenas Bay View Center, plays hand pool with the help of a friend Friday in the centers welcoming family room.

ALPENA Bay View Center, the printing on Jacqueline Fitzgeralds teal blue shirt reads. Where You Are Accepted.

Located in the former home of Dicks Toys and Small Appliances on Alpenas north side, Bay View Centers comfortable couches, plentiful craft supplies, and pool table offer a friendly welcome.

The centers members, all individuals struggling with mental illness, drop in when they like knowing, each time they do, that theyll be understood in at least this one place.

Faces flit through the centers main hangout space and back hallway with smaller meeting rooms: a petite, cheerful young woman with vibrant, red-tipped hair. A 30-something man in a neat white shirt, sweatpants, and headphones. A white-haired woman in a gentle, flowered sweater.

Friendly faces, peaceful.

And behind each of them, a very personal struggle with mental illness.

Mental health is like a piece of cardboard in a toilet bowl, Fitzgerald, the centers director, said.

A person fighting frightening mental and emotional struggles can begin to spin, to be sucked into a frightening and dangerous place. If theyre not helped, if the swirl in their mind isnt stopped, they can suddenly end up in the hospital, in deep mental distress.

Or worse.

The goal of Bay View Center is to catch them at the top of the bowl, Fitzgerald said.

I DO HAVE MENTAL ILLNESS

The average person struggling with mental health issues dies up to 25 years before their healthy counterpart, Fitzgerald said, citing a study by the World Health Organization. Many factors play into that statistic, from lack of self-care to increased suicide rates to the economic disadvantages that sometimes accompany mental illness.

Loneliness, many scientific studies have shown, greatly increases the risk of heart disease and death. Being alone in the world can weigh heavily on people with mental illness, their struggles with social and economic factors often isolating them from the people around them.

Thats why Bay View Center opened its doors nine years ago, Fitzgerald said.

The center employs three certified peer-support specialists, people who have struggled with their own mental health and now support others going through the same difficulties.

In her role as director, Fitzgerald is always hustling, finding funding, coaching volunteers, and attending training. One day, she may find herself praising a member who sent only half a desks contents flying in a fit of frustration, instead of the whole desktop, like the week before. Another day she may spend talking on the phone for an hour and a half to keep another member from jumping off a bridge.

Like all staff and volunteers, Fitzgerald has a mental illness story of her own.

Ive never slept under a bridge. Ive never decided to jump off a bridge. But I did sit on a couch for a week, and the only thing I did was go from my couch to my bed, Fitzgerald said in matter-of-fact tones, the voice of someone who has been there, who gets it. Im not as visible as the guy who jumps off the bridge. But I do have mental illness.

YOURE STILL ALONE

Being understood makes all the difference, Bay View Center member Laura Smith said. Family and friends are supportive and want to help. But when they look at her, she said, she sees the pain in their eyes.

You can have 100 friends or family that love you, but youre still alone, Smith said.

When you walk in the door of the center, though, you dont feel judged, the bubbly, bright-smiled woman said. You feel understood.

People who havent struggled with mental health themselves sometimes, even those with professional training in counseling dont get it, Smith said. She has been told many times to be a duck, to let her troubles roll off her back.

You dont know! she said. If I could, thats what Id do!

When people with mental illness are in a bad stage, they can seem like bad people, Fitzgerald said. Social irregularities and questionable choices associated with mental health troubles can keep people from being accepted by a landlord or offered a job, exacerbating their struggles.

Members at the center are sometimes quarrelsome or rude, and sometimes bristle when given directions, Fitzgerald said. She understands why.

Theyve been called stupid their whole lives, she said. But mental illness is not just stupid people.

She counted five bachelors degrees in the building at that moment. The centers members and workers include a registered nurse, a teacher, several high-level degrees.

One out of every six adults lives with a mental illness, according to the National Institute of Mental Health.

Still, its a taboo topic among many.

Its easier to talk about erectile dysfunction than about mental health, Smith said wryly.

YOU CANT SAY IT

Public figures, from Whoopi Goldberg to Lady Gaga, have made recent efforts to bring mental illness into the public eye, talking about their personal and family experiences. Smith and Fitzgerald applauded those efforts, expressing a longing to see them repeated in Northeast Michigan.

Theres got to be an MD, a lawyer, a dentist, a head of some big corporation, theres got to be one with mental illness, Fitzgerald said. But you cant say it.

Her wish is that the next generation doesnt have to be ashamed to talk about mental illness.

Id like them to brag about it, she said, earnestness in her voice.

Dont ever let anybody tell you that youre not worthy, she tells members. Youre carrying around an extra cement block. Youre dealing with it every day. And youre moving forward.

Amid the craft supplies and couches of Bay View Center, people strengthened by companionship and acceptance keep moving, fighting their fights.

Smith envisions more centers like Bay View, with an even wider reach. Places welcoming to anyone who struggles with substance abuse, domestic violence, poverty, terminal illness, emotional trauma. A place with calming craft supplies at the ready, pool tables and couches, and understanding ears of people who have been there, who get it prepared to listen.

If everyone got together, it would end the stigma, Smith said. They could save lives.

Julie Riddle can be reached at 989-358-5693, jriddle@thealpenanews.com or on Twitter @jriddleX.

Mental illness, by the numbers

Statistics on mental illness in 2017, the most recent year data is available:

An estimated 46.6 million (18.9%) of U.S. adults aged 18 or older had a mental illness.

Mental illness was higher among women (22.3%) than men (15.1%).

Young adults aged 18-25 years had the highest prevalence of mental illness (25.8%), compared to adults aged 26-49 years (22.2%) and aged 50 and older (13.8%).

Among the 46.6 million adults with mental illness, 19.8 million (42.6%) received mental health services.

Source: National Institute of Mental Health

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Bay View Center offers understanding ear to those with mental illness | News, Sports, Jobs - Alpena News