Steady After Life's Ups and DownsNEW YORK CITYVOICES: November/December 2001
Return to: NYC Voices Home - 11/2001 Voices
By David C. Kaplan
Most of my life I have suffered from mental illness. I have never denied it to my family or myself but hid it from the rest of the world. I have always felt that I was different and weaker than other people. I've seen a psychiatrist since elementary school. Therapy and later medicine would stabilize me as I was able to do well in an academic setting, but I remained pessimistic about my life. I would deal poorly with stress, which led to episodes of severe depression. My inability to deal with stress led me to attempt suicide when I failed the Bar Exam. My mental illness caused me to behave so poorly that it led to the breakup of my marriage to a woman that I still dearly love.
In 1986, I began attending Temple Ansche Chesed on the Upper West Side of Manhattan. There, God entered my life and my life began to change for the better. There I discovered the joys of a religious faith, coming to feel that I had a personal relationship with a loving God who cares for me. This belief was expressed in this caring Temple community where I first started to feel a sense of hope for the future, a belief that I could change my life.
In 1989 I failed to get a teaching job that I wanted. I asked my doctor how I could improve my life. I had been successful in earning two graduate degrees in law and teaching but I could not hold a job. My doctor gave me a book titled "Sick and Tired of Being Sick and Tired." This book taught me teaching methods, simple exercises and the practical ways of coping with stress. It emphasized developing a positive view of the world. Until then, I had believed that the world was a hopeless place. Stronger, I began to teach again. I joined the Sierra Club and started biking as a part of my physical exercise program, and this led me to join the club's conservation work. Starting in 1991, I chaired subcommittees, lobbied public officials, testified before legislative committees and wrote for club journals.
Deciding to turn my interest into a public policy job, I won an internship with the New York League of Conservation Voters, an environmental political action committee where I later won a promotion to research assistant, but the job paid very little. Later Mayor Rudolph Giuliani would appoint me in 1995 to the Council on the Environment for New York City, a position that I still hold.
Then my father died in 1994. I had to build a new independent life on a very limited income. My strong religious faith, the caring Temple community and a loving aunt who recently passed away helped me to cope with my father's death.
My search for a better paying public policy job was unsuccessful so I applied to the Post Graduate Center for Mental Health's FOCUS Program; a program which helps people with mental illness reenter the world of work through meaningful internships of their own choice. My acceptance in FOCUS and the internship at the "Morningside-Westside Bulletin," a consumer-run journal brought about a total life-change in me, making me look at my life in a new way. For the first time, I found myself sharing my mental illness and vocational difficulties with others. Finally, I was in a safe place with understanding people like my counselor at FOCUS Pat Gannon and Ken Steele, a movement leader. Ken Steele's recent passing was a great loss for all consumers. He coordinated my activities at the Bulletin.
The process of going public with my mental illness continued at a citywide Mental Health Legislative Breakfast where I volunteered to serve as an escort for legislators. I was afraid. I knew a number of these officials from my environmental work and sure enough Assemblyman Jim Brenan recognized me from my past work with the Sierra Club. I stood there talking to him about my mental illness and he was accepting of my opinions and me regardless.
After I finished FOCUS, I continued working for the Bulletin as an Associate Editor. A couple of months later, I got full-time work at Borders, a national bookstore chain that was opening its first New York City store. I remained at Borders for over two years. Since, I have been steadily working basically. But I have had periods of unemployment. During these times my recovery seemed to stall and I had bouts with depression and sometimes thoughts of suicide. However, medicine, therapy and especially prayer got me through.
Even since I started working as a peer advocate in the Bronx Peer Advocacy Center, my life has been on a great upswing. I look forward to coming to work everyday. I thank God that I have a decent paying, interesting, and meaningful job where I can help others. I am especially grateful that I can for the first time in over 20 years do legal-related work. At the age of 52, I look forward with hope to the future.
Return to: NYC Voices Home - 11/2001 Voices