Ready for something big?

This afternoon, Paul and I (with several others) spoke on a panel about why we need an independent clubhouse in Rhode Island, and how we hope to open Harbor House in Providence by October 2010. Paul and I are experts on clubhouses because he was a member of a clubhouse called Threshold when we lived in North Carolina. It was my job to tell a bit about what Threshold was like and how it made both Paul's life (as a person living with a severe mental illness) and my life (as his family member) better.

I asked people to focus on three words: member, community, and work. I said a bit more than this, but basically I said that Threshold was the only time I can remember in Paul's adult life where he had a community around him who was invested in him for his own sake. (As opposed to my wonderful friends who are friends with him largely for my sake, and as opposed to mental health professionals who service his needs, but have no real investment in him.) I also talked about how the community only functioned when the members worked to make it function, but that meant that Paul (like every member) was expected to work and to contribute. This is very different from how he is treated anywhere else in his life. Here he is a member, not a patient or a client or a resident. He belongs and contributes.

We had planned it so that Paul's part would be more question-and-answer than monologue. Ralph, the executive director of Harbor House, asked Paul some great specific questions about his experiences at Threshold. And Paul answered. You have to understand how often I have tried to pry words out of Paul and was lucky to get "Fine" or a yes or no. Paul answered well. He told about the work units he was a part of and how much he enjoyed the fellowship at Threshold. At the end of Paul's part of the panel, Ralph asked him why he wants to be part of a clubhouse again. He said, "I think it will help with my recovery." I was hoping he would say a little more, so I leaned over and said, "Can you say how it will help?" He sort of mentioned fellowship again and I was sort of afraid he had hit the end and just had no words left, and then all of a sudden, he just whipped out something like, "Clubhouses make it possible for people to live well with mental illness. We need them."

I was so proud. I really don't think I've ever heard Paul say so much, and to speak in public like that ... I was really surprised and delighted that he did so well. I took him out to dinner afterwards and we talked a bit about all this. He was very pleased with himself as well, which was great. We decided that he really is doing much better than he's done in a long time, perhaps since the onset of his illness. At a certain point he said to me, "I think I'm ready for something big." He didn't really have a sense of what that would be, but it suddenly feels like it might be just around the bend.