Letters et cetera

What lies beneath

I was pleasantly surprised today when I opened the October 2005 Arts & Sciences and found articles on mental illness on campus. Similar to Tara Fitzgerald, I live with a serious mental illness. My illness started to seriously impact my life during spring semester of my second year at U.Va. after I participated in a study abroad program in Paris. I was unable to attend class, go to the library, or eat in the cafeteria. I managed to hold it together enough to stay enrolled in school. Eventually, I learned to cope with my mood swings and did well in school while working at a variety of jobs on campus and in Charlottesville. I graduated in Spring ’97, but I was so paranoid that I did not even attend my own graduation. There was no way I could cope with the enormous crowds on the Lawn.

I returned home to Richmond and worked in positions that left me unfulfilled. After two years, I decided to apply to law school. I received a full tuition scholarship to the University of Miami. I had some success there. I was on the National and State Mock Trial Team, and I received an award for receiving the highest constitutional law grade in my class. During my second year, I began working at the Broward County Public Defenders Office and as a research assistant.

I still dealt with the symptoms of my illness. The progression was similar to a balloon that is slowly filled with air. My balloon popped in the summer of 2000 between my second and third year. I became extremely paranoid and delusional, and I began hallucinating. Within a week, I went from sustaining myself in my own apartment to wandering the streets of Miami, digging food out of garbage cans, and sleeping in public parks. Fortunately, my professors and fellow students called my mom,and I returned to Richmond.

I applied for and started to receive Social Security Disability Insurance. In the fall of 2002, I participated in the Virginia Human Services Training Program at Piedmont Virginia Community College in Charlottesville. This program teaches those with mental illness to work in the mental health field and aid their peers. I graduated with honors and received a certificate in human services. I began working as a peer counselor at a mental health clinic in Richmond. About two years after that, I first learned of the Virginia Organization of Consumers Asserting Leadership (VOCAL).

VOCAL is a statewide non-profit mental health advocacy organization based in Charlottesville. It started from the efforts of a small group of mental health consumers living in Charlottesville. Its goal is to improve Virginia’s mental health system by making it consumer directed and recovery based. Now, I work as VOCAL’s outreach manager.

My education at U.Va. has done a lot to prepare me for this job that I feel was destined for me. I just wanted to say thanks.

For more information, go to www.vocalnetwork.org or email .

Byron Stith (English, French ’97)
Richmond, Va.

Thanks so much for the article on the prevalence of depression among college students. I am grateful to the two students
who brought more awareness to the issue.

When I was a second-year student at U.Va. in 1990, I suddenly and inexplicably suffered a major depressive episode. It came out of nowhere — the day after my 20th birthday, a beautiful sunny Saturday during a year when everything was going so well for me. The pain and confusion was such a shock to my system that I had to leave school completely for three weeks. For the next 10 years I struggled with depression, but a combination of medication and counseling made an enormous difference.

The more I have talked about these experiences over the years, the more I have learned how many, many other people have suffered similarly. Here in Rochester there is an amazing organization — Compeer — that operates all over the country and world. This from their Web site (www.compeer.org):

“Compeer Inc. is an international, not-for-profit organization that helps adults and children overcome the devastating effects of mental illness, such as loneliness, low self-esteem and isolation — through friendship. Compeer’s volunteer-based programs and services provide sup-portive friendships for people receiving mental-health treatment. Headquartered in Rochester, N.Y., Compeer Inc. has nearly 100 affiliate locations across the country and around the world.”

Perhaps Compeer or something similar could be established there at U.Va. — maybe through Madison House?

Evan Lowenstein
(Rhetoric and Communication Studies ’92, M. Pl., Architecture ’98)
Rochester, N.Y.