The Day the Voices Stopped
Ken Steele, Claire Berman
Language: English
Pages: 159
ISBN: B00BTM96NK
Format: PDF / Kindle (mobi) / ePub
For thirty-two years Ken Steele lived with the devastating symptoms of schizophrenia, tortured by inner voices commanding him to kill himself, ravaged by the delusions of paranoia, barely surviving on the ragged edges of society. In this inspiring story, Steele tells the story of his hard-won recovery from schizophrenia and how activism and advocacy helped him regain his sanity and go on to give hope and support to so many others like him.
we boys would be seated. Customers would sit at the bar, looking us over. (According to the rules of the game, we were prohibited from sitting at the bar unless invited by a customer.) Generally, customers would express interest in a particular young “entrepreneur” by sending over a drink, or they would approach the table to negotiate a price or a sexual practice. We would refer them to Nick or Ted, one of whom was always seated at the bar during the times we were there. A nod meant that we were
been able to think about before, let alone put into words. When it was over, I sat looking down at the floor. The good father absolved me of my sins. “God has forgiven you,” he said. “Now you must work on forgiving yourself.” Leaving a prayer book with me, he asked me to read from it every day. My tears fell on its white leather covering. At his next visit, Father Luke told me I would not be returning to my ward at Harlem Valley. I felt great relief at the news. And, he said, once I was well
staff had a different objective, I soon learned. Many were dedicated to keeping us hospitalized as a means of retaining their jobs. “Generations of my family have worked here,” I overheard a gray-haired senior aide tell two young staff members, “and now my own son can’t be hired unless someone retires, goes on disability, or dies.” She went on to explain that there was a movement, in New York and elsewhere, to close state hospitals and send “these crazies” back into the community. “If they are
symptoms or problems, sometimes they don’t show in the session, but they do show in more stressful situations. Not insignificantly, my accumulated experience and mentoring has supported the idea that antipsychotics quiet the psychotic symptoms but certainly don’t end them. Take the case of Mrs. Smith. She was floridly psychotic with delusions of grandeur when I met her. Dr. Casimir medicated her with one of the traditional medications. One day I remarked to Dr. Casimir that the delusions
an EKG, but they are just as real. The fight for parity seeks to bridge the enormous gap between how physical ailments and mental illnesses are covered. At the time of this writing, thirty-two states have passed some form of parity legislation, mostly limiting coverage to very serious illnesses such as schizophrenia, bulimia, and clinical depression. We need recognition and reimbursement for a wider range of conditions, and we need that to happen in all fifty states. Most striking about New