Advocacy Unlimited, Inc. Newsletter

Advocacy Under Lock and Key

By Guy Levine

As a person living in a hospital I have very limited access to the world. We have no access to the Internet – we can't send or receive email and our visiting hours are curtailed. We are in a place apart from the world. This is Whiting Hospital at CVH in Middletown. My days are dull, tedious and uninteresting. I receive a limited number of telephone calls. Recently a dear friend introduced me to Advocacy Unlimited and the organization was also part of a Health Fair in the Whiting Gymnasium. Advocacy Unlimited means new hope for individuals with psychiatric disabilities in confinement and in Connecticut. I am a firm believer of the proverb "Knowledge is power".

So, it is my belief that AU has the right mission to educate hundreds of us. In other words, AU is creating hundreds of Watchdogs inside State Hospitals and in the community. This is the reason I have become a sponsor for AU and I am making a contribution each month. Our mission is important. I volunteer to serve our cause and breathe new life in our organization.

I was diagnosed with psychiatric disabilities in my teenage years and have been placed for treatment in numerous hospitals in the USA. It was not my choice and I didn't choose to be mentally ill. It was God's will or the nature of my genetic code. My longest and loneliest hospitalization was the past 15-years here at the Whiting Division of CVH.

My stay here is adverse to the process and concept of recovery. I hope that the AU Newsletter will allow me to express myself as a person in a harmful system. I also hope that you the reader may be interested in corresponding with me by mail or telephone.

I am ill from the monotonous opinions of the people who work here and I would like to correspond with individuals who:

Emphasize the uniqueness and worth of each person rather than the differences among individuals or people;
Avoid emphasizing the psychiatric disability to the exclusion of individual qualities and achievement;
Avoid fostering the attitude of "one of them" versus "one of us."
Depict the typical achiever – not just the super achiever;
Show people with psychiatric disabilities participating in activities in a manner than includes them as part of society and interacting with people without disabilities in ways that are mutually beneficial.