By Perry Dixon
Before providentially finding Covenant this past June, I was amidst a year working with Wellspring, in Louisville, Ky. With Wellspring, my job was to help clients with severe and persistent schizophrenia learn to live independently in the city. Each day, I traveled all over, helping clients manage medications, attend appointments, manage budgets, learn cooking skills, develop healthy habits and navigate the labyrinth of dysfunction that is any government office. I could never explain all that I encountered in that wild, difficult, beautiful year.
When I first began, I was somewhat afraid. Those of us who have grown up in major cities know the unsettling feeling of a mentally ill person roaming nearby unmedicated on the street or on a bus. How easy it is to ignore someone we do not understand. My clients experienced persistent symptoms despite being on serious, regimented medications. The reality is that living in recovery from mental illness is complex, individually unique, and nothing like those of us in relative mental health might imagine.
One of my clients was a few years older than me, had survived homelessness for years in Chicago, lived with severe schizophrenia, as well as borderline intellectual functioning and Asperger's. Truly, he was a joy to work with each day, and hilarious too. As we tried to make brownies in a waffle iron one morning, much to his delight, God's love for him and for me could not have been more apparent. This Christmas, we remember that God’s love has abundance for the mentally ill, and even for us, too.
No comments:
Post a Comment