New Haven Independent

On the occasion of New Haven’s first ever Schizophrenia Awareness Vigil, held on the Green Thursday beneath a bright optimistic late afternoon sun, Williams, cheered on by friends, was determined to tell others not quite as far along that road as well as the general public his inspirational story.

Organized by Schizophrenics Anonymous (SA), a national organization with 14 chapters in Connecticut including one that meets at Fellowship Place, which was co-sponsor of the vigil, the gathering featured songs, dance, and prayer. Most of all, people shared their struggles and coming out of the shadows and isolation, which in the words of Billy Bromage (pictured), Fellowship Place’s manager of social programs, all too often still characterizes people struggling with mental illness.

“These people are out there today,” said Bromage, “to say ‘Yes, I have a mental illness. But I am a lot more than my disease.’ There’s still this stigma that mentally ill people are scary, and that’s simply not true. And people, given the right kind of help and support, do indeed recover.”

An inspirational case in point is Rosalyn Bell, standing beside Bromage, who was the main organizer of the event. “Within two years Ros has gone from being a recipient of services because of schizophrenia to being a provider. Now she runs the SA group at Fellowship Place and also the most successful pre-vocational training program there. I mean the women she works with get jobs as secretaries or clerical workers far and away better than any of the groups run by people with all kinds of degrees. You overcome this lack of confidence, as she has, and then it’s just fantastic. And in 2005 she was a recipient of a prestigious award for her work at reintegration and mentorship of others.”

Bell, who has overcome many challenges in her life, was facing another one this evening: the electricity at the band platform was not working. She had applied for the permit, everything was in order, but when they got there, none of the outlets had power and repeated calls to the mayor’s office didn’t produce results. With a few tears wiped away from her eyes, and regrets that without power the tales of recovery could not boom across the Green, she said that the program would carry on.

And it did. These little girls, led by four-year old Mattiah Smart (front and center) and attends the King-Robinson School, and her sister dancers, would perform their contemporary gospel dance without recorded music, but that was OK.

Everybody in this crowd knew the true, or rather additional meaning to the lyrics of “We Shall Overcome ” — we are not alone, we are not afraid — which was the first of many songs sung by the group, in circle, with hands firmly clasped.

The lead singer, Crystal Pittman (on the left along with Fellowship House’s clinical coordinator Brenda Cullom, and Fellowship House members David Przygocki and Jonathan Singer) said her first solo was going to be “Amazing Grace.” Why?

“I have people in my circle who are fighting schizophrenia,” she said, “I love the lines of the song where it says, ‘He looked beyond all my faults to see my needs.’ That’s why I chose to sing this.”

The informative SA website (see above) indicates that well over two million people, more than the combined populations of the Dakotas and Wyoming, suffer from schizophrenia, a biologically-based brain disease which usually makes its first appearance in people between the ages of 16 and 25. In addition to the personal pain, the social toll can be enormous: one third to one half of homeless people are schizophrenic, and 50 percent of the people who have the disease receive no treatment at all. When treated properly, 25 percent recover fully, 50 percent improve over ten years, and 25 percent make no improvement.

Jonathan Singer, at the far right in the photo above, said he first knew there was a serious problem when he was a student at Yale. “I suddenly began to hear voices that said things to me like: You are a one-thousand-year-old highlander. That was in 1988. For a year I tried to fight the voices by doing things like turning my TV on louder and louder. A year later I landed in Yale- New Haven Hospital. I live alone now, haven’t been hospitalized since 1997, and my goal is to go back to writing, which I was doing when I got sick, so I can write stuff like the Harry Potter books.”

“The big push now,” Bromage explained, “in research and treatment is to have people not only step out of the shadows to the world at large but also to talk to each other, to mentor and to help each other along the way as Ros does and the way these others are doing here.”

In addition to the electricity problem, the event was not as well attended as the organizers had hoped. Nor had a mayoral official or other designated speakers shown up. Then again neither were the events held by others afflicted by diseases, such as HIV/Aids, when they first began to add an element of self-help and advocacy to the recovery process.

Never mind; it was a first-time event, and it had made its statement. Brenda Cullom and Robert Duda, at 81 Fellowship Place’s oldest member, were talking about his 20 years as a guidance counselor in New Haven high schools, and a whole lot more.

The next big stepping-out event for SA and the people at Fellowship Place will be on June 16. As part of the Festival of Arts and Ideas, Puppets for Recovery will feature the creativity if people recovering from mental illness, when huge puppets, built at Fellowship Place during the week of June 9, will perform, and even soar, over the Green.

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