Recovery

Work and Recovery

Articles on the role of work in the process of recovery

Par Mr Rob Walker, DMH External Consumer Engagement Liaison, Massachusetts, USA

Work was always important to my family, and to me.  I was raised in a family where everyone went to college, and work was a measure of your self worth.  In the US, when people ask  “what do you do?” they are looking for what your job is, what your occupation is.  Overseas, when people answer that question, it’s “I garden, I play football, I run, I play the clarinet, I have dogs, etc.”   Work has always been important to my mental health, and when I couldn’t work, it was devastating.  I still pinch myself that I get paid to share my lived experience, and I get paid because of what I went through with mental health.  Work makes me feel better, helps me give back to a system that helped me so much, and going to work is part of my wellness plan.

Recovery: A System and an Individual in Parallel

About 20 years ago, I was in a bad space. I began to hear things that others didn't hear, missed a lot of work and sank into great despair. A year later, I was unemployed, disabled and collecting SSDI. I was in and out of psychiatric hospitals, and feeling very hopeless. Each time I was hospitalized, it was a different facility and I had a different psychiatrist, and was put on different medication.  There was little continuity at all.
 
 This continued for a few years, until I connected with Mass Rehab Commission.  At Mass Rehab, we talked about my skills and strengths, rather than my symptoms and deficits.  MRC paid for me to take some computer classes, and helped me find a volunteer position at the Career Place.  While working there, I saw an opening for a Computer Instructor with Staff Development at Tewksbury Hospital with DMH. Little did I know that this was the beginning of an important part of DMH recovery history and more importantly, my own recovery history.
 
I landed that job at Tewksbury and taught computer classes to DMH staff in the Rehab Center. I noticed that I often wasn't teaching as I sat in an empty classroom. It dawned on me that I could teach patients the same classes I taught to staff. I was too naive to know any better, and just did it. This worked out so well that it gave me another idea: I asked if one of the patients could get paid to help me teach the classes, to both other patients and to staff. To me back then, that just made sense. Today, one would say I was approaching my job in a recovery-centered way, although at the time I didn't know what recovery was for me or for anyone else.
 
I told the patient who helped me teach those classes that I had a diagnosis of bipolar illness and that I struggled with many of the same issues she did. That was the first time I had told anyone about my struggles in the workplace. I was awestruck that she thought it was so inspiring that a staff member would tell a patient something so very personal.  She was so very hopeful after seeing how far I had come.  That was my first realization that sharing your story of recovery could offer hope to others.
 
A few years later I was hospitalized at McLean Hospital…. And I came back!  And when I came back, I let most people I worked with know where I had been. That was the first time I had told almost anyone, even though I had worked at the Department of Mental Health. Almost all were very accepting, with a few people wondering why I would ever reveal that part of myself to anyone.
 
Eight years ago marked another turning point for me when we started to bring in national speakers on subject of recovery to Tewksbury as part of our Staff Development training. We had the idea to invite staff, patients in the hospital, and individuals receiving services in the community to sit side-by-side in these trainings, which for us was untried on this large a scale. Something magical started to happen when both staff and individuals receiving services treated each other as colleagues in a shared human experience.
 
Five years ago, I asked to attend the Certified Peer Specialist class, a first for someone in the DMH Staff Development Department. And when I did, it was another life-changing event. I completed the classes and established a monthly meeting for individuals in peer positions in the North East Area. Peers from different providers in different roles sat down together every month, supported each other and figured out how to make the job and the mental health system better.
 
In 2012, I joined what is now the DMH Office of Recovery and Empowerment.  I am involved with supporting and expanding the peer workforce in MA, and making sure that the voice of the individuals served is represented in everything we do at DMH.  I am very active in supporting transition age youth and older adults in our state. 
 
In my 16 years with DMH, my professional role has evolved along with my personal growth--from someone who was keeping secrets about my diagnosis while serving in a non-peer position to one that is using my experience, strengths and skills to infuse a person-centered approach for the services provided by the Department.  None of this was ever done in isolation.  Through most of my years living in MA, I was supported by a great psychiatrist, Dr. Larry Peltz, who always first asked me what was going on in my life, rather than what my symptoms were.