Traps of Mental Illness

Denise is in her early 50's. She is a cheerful lady, who at one time had the world in her hands. She lived with her husband and child in a beautiful upscale home in the West Island. She had a nice car, lots of friends and was busy about her church community. Then, sickness struck. Her husband left her for the baby sitter while she was in hospital. Denise went into a spiral of depression that became OCD somewhere along the way.

Today, she finds herself living by herself in a one bedroom apartment in a poorer neighborhood in the West Island, depending on our food bank to get by. In losing everything, she has become fearful of having nothing, so she hoards. It came to a head in the last months because her radiator in her apartment blew and nobody could get to it, because it was covered in junk. I say covered, knowing that I could never adequately explain what her apartment has become. Denise collects everything, and she has been doing this since 2002. Her apartment is full of junk. 6 feet high. Not piles, the whole thing. She has to crawl and climb to get anywhere, not that there is anywhere to go. Her kitchen is only recognizable because you can see one top corner of her fridge. Her bathroom is unusable.

Denise called me last week, desperate for help. Once her landlord saw what was going on he moved to have her evicted, and rightly so. This is a major fire hazard. The Rental Board has demanded that she get rid of everything or lose her apartment. So, I recruited 6 friends a trailer and a pick-up truck to go clean house.

5 hours , two trailer and pick-up loads later, Denise now has a small path where she can get from one end of her apartment to the other. Her bathroom is usable, but we have only scratched the surface. Her bedroom and kitchen are still buried. Unfortunately Denise will still be evicted, if she can't allow us to remove the rest.

Denise knows in one part of her mind how crazy this is, but, at the same time can't let go. All of her friends, except for one older couple, have abandoned her. So she has very little rational feedback on a regular basis. As we are loading stuff into the trailer, I see the pain in her eyes, like we are ripping out a piece of her. She know it is for the best and she must go through this, but it hurts.

I am not sure how this will end up, but we are committed to being there for Denise. She is a great lady with artistic ability and a desire to help people. There is much good in her. The question is will she ever be able to find it and let go of her fear of rejection and loss.