This letter was written by one of our supporters after a conversation she had at a bus stop with a parishioner of Our Lady of Sorrows church who opposes the propsed development of mental health offices at 2750 E. Hastings.
I sat beside you on the bus the other night on the way home from downtown. I am glad you are now well, and am truly sorry for the injustices you experienced in the hospital.Your spirit of humanity was delightful; your willingness to listen and hear with an open heart was profoundly moving. In a city where I see daily the lack of humanity I was moved by your recognition that people need help, that our homelessness issue is out of control, your offering of food to someone in need felt like hope.
There was much I wanted to tell you, but I found it too emotional to speak of in public.
You brought up the proposed mental health facility and the community division around it.
I tried my best without sharing my own story to relay to you, that the fear mongering by a group in our neighbourhood is without warrant and saddens me deeply. Coastal Health offices of this nature exist in other communities all over the lower mainland, and there is nothing to fear. They will not re create the downtown Main and Hastings issue in our neighbourhood.
The reason those situations exist is due to a lack of services in many areas, and the unsavoury characters who arrive alongside gambling facilities, pawn shops, liquor stores etc.
This mental health facility will serve people in our neighbourhood suffering from loss, grief, post partum depression, divorce, mental illness, dementia and illness. It will assist children who may have difficulty in school, or are handicapped, it will ease the loss ( due to gov't cutbacks) of what used to be in house counselling in our public school.
And it will serve us in our community, which is where we should feel the safest, and find unconditional support. Within our community there is the best possible chance for recovery from illness without the cold injustice you yourself felt alone in a hospital corridor.
_____, you talked of how you offer gifts to a child in need at Christmas, I had tears in my eyes, and it could have well been my own children who were gifted by kind people like yourself. I struggled as a single mother of two when my husband a long time parishioner of Our Lady of Sorrows became mentally ill.
He simply could no longer function and our relationship ended, at the time there was no help in our community for the treatment he needed. The stigma within his family meant that it was pushed forever into the closet. I cannot tell you what it means to know that someone eased my burden, wishing to gift my children, being incapable of doing that due to financial hardship, and finding a box on my door...with gifts on Christmas Eve.
That was twenty years ago.....
So I am going to ask you all to open your hearts and set aside your fear now.
That little boy that received your gift that Christmas, and lost the relationship with his father due to his mental illness grew up in our neighbourhood, he was not perfect and struggled in school, but his heart is huge.
When his sister came home from school crying because some kids teased her for doing too well on a test....I overheard him tell her how much he loved her, that in his eyes she was awesome, and no matter what she always had him, and to ignore those other people.
When he had a little sister join the family he simply adored her, he loved to cook and spent most Sunday mornings in the kitchen making the family waffles. On my birthday he would take extra care to make sure the kitchen was clean, he knew that for me this was how he could gift me.
When his sister in law showed up on our doorstep in tears due to a tragedy, he made her tea, and sat with her.
His sense of empathy and compassion were unwavering...to anyone in need
At age 15 that same little boy became ill with the same mental illness his father suffered from; he became slowly lost in delusion, paranoid and fearful of everyone and everything. I had no idea that these illnesses could be genetic and for me this was the cruellest and most difficult moment.
From that time our beloved son, brother and friend has spent most of the last six years in and out of hospital, he was too ill to live with us. It has been unbelievably hard to maintain that relationship. For me beneath the illness he still struggles with he would never want to find himself homeless or shunned by his community...and yet this is what has happened many times due to many factors.
We have lost many friends, who simply could not deal with their own fear around mental illness. Others have remained steadfast and compassionate.
This year, I ask you to consider reaching out to those on the streets...
When paranoia and fear overtake the brain, there is no safe place. That little boy has, since being diagnosed found himself homeless more than once, released into the night by uncaring hospital staff without regard for family- I guess when mental illness is the reason they simply assume no family is still involved- in his paranoia over food, he felt it safer to randomly eat out of a garbage can, than take the risk of being poisoned by food offered. (how many times have you seen someone looking like a frightened rabbit trying to find food in a garbage can on Hastings St.?)
This may sound difficult to understand...but I will explain it like this...
My son, experiences extreme irrational fear, and from that fear comes physical symptoms that overtake his body. His mind tries to explain the fear by logically reasoning the surroundings and people in front of him, so if he is now feeling very ill, and the nurse just gave him pudding, then his mind tells him there must have been something in the pudding...this progresses until at one point my son was near to starving...he was simply terrified by his own mind. In that place there is nothing a parent can do except stand in that, demand treatment and pray that medication will ease this suffering.
For my son, they have finally found a medication that works, however he has lost most of his memory, he suffers now from physical ailments, headaches, and joint pain, and sometimes he does not know why he just went to the store...
This year I ask that you open your hearts and minds to understanding those on our streets.
I ask that you educate yourselves, but most of all to give compassionately in your daily life, and to not allow fear to destroy community.
I have a dream that we as a community welcome anyone with mental illness, and reach out to those families who are struggling with this, just as we reach out to someone who needed surgery for another form of illness. When mental illness strikes a family, no one shows up with flowers, or casseroles, no one calls, in fact the entire family feels depressed as the loss of community.
....when you walk away today.....I ask that you consider this deeply- how have I responded to a family member who is mentally ill, depressed, or no longer able to function in society? Did I respond to my community without bias...or has my own fear isolated me from understanding.
No one asks to be mentally ill.
My son is doing well now...he lives in this neighbourhood, and by all outward appearances you might describe him as a hoodlum, gang member or street person, depending on how well he is doing. Mentally ill dress in bizarre manners to protect themselves-they are mostly terrified...
So I ask you all to set aside your assumptions and to consider that "sometimes scary looking" young man on Hastings St. with as much regard as you did twenty years ago at Christmas when we struggled to make ends meet. His heart has not changed.
Compassion is Fearless, and from that place all is possible.
with Loving kindness,
Kara Ardan & Family
