On an overcast morning, on a bench outside NorthPoint Health and Wellness Center, Linda described the day, nine and one-half months earlier, that she hit rock bottom.
It was Monday, November 4, 2013, and Linda — who was suffering from severe depression and a crack cocaine addiction — arrived at NorthPoint for an appointment with her therapist, Marylee Temple, LICSW. “I’ve got to go somewhere,” Linda told Temple. “I think I’m going to kill myself.”
Temple immediately picked up the phone and called the Nancy Page Crisis Residence, a People Incorporated residential crisis stabilization facility for adults with mental illness and, often, co-occurring disorders like chemical dependency. The staff agreed to admit Linda the same day.
A cabdriver transported Linda from NorthPoint to Nancy Page, which is located in a three-story Victorian mansion in the Loring Park neighborhood. She stayed there for 11 days, then spent four months at Park Avenue Center, a drug and alcohol treatment facility in south Minneapolis. She completed her inpatient stay on March 15, 2014.
Today, Linda lives in RS Eden’s Emmanuel Apartments, a 101-unit sober, supportive, permanent, singles housing facility in downtown Minneapolis. She has been sober for nine months.
RS Eden’s Emmanuel Apartments
A Rough Start
“I felt like it was time to give this life up because nothing was going right for me,” Linda said, in reference to her mindset leading up to November 4, 2013. Yet, it took an act of courage to admit her thoughts to Temple. “I was embarrassed to tell anyone that I needed help,” she explained.
When asked to provide a synopsis of the life that led her to Nancy Page and Park Avenue at age 53, Linda did not flinch.
“My life had a rough beginning,” she said simply, revealing that her parents gave her up to an older couple they knew from Chicago when she was two. The older couple, in turn, gave her up to a woman named Alice who they met while riding a train in Chicago.
Alice became Linda’s mother, the older couple her godparents. Linda never saw her biological parents again. In the years that followed, Linda endured physical, verbal and emotional abuse from Alice’s mother and sexual abuse from Alice’s husband.
Linda was also introduced to drugs at 14. It was the event, she said, that caused everything to topple. By the time she was in her twenties, she was addicted to crack cocaine.
Linda completed her GED when she was 20 and moved to Milwaukee when she was 28. She had five children — two daughters and three sons who now range in age from 27 to 37 — and she worked as a licensed beautician and a certified nursing assistant, among other jobs. But her drug addiction affected every facet of her life, especially her relationship with her children.
My children “have seen it all,” Linda said. “My attitude, violence, manipulation, stealing, prostitution, and crime. They’ve felt unsafe and unsure.” But they’ve “never turned their backs on me,” she added.
Linda’s drug addiction spiraled further out of control. In 2007 she became homeless. “I lived in shelters, in cars, under bridges and with family members,” she recalled.
Then, in 2011, Linda’s oldest son, Eric, convinced her to move to Minneapolis, believing that a new environment might help her turn her life around. Eric lived a few blocks from NorthPoint, and Linda started using the clinic. She liked it immediately. “They listen to me at NorthPoint,” Linda said. She noted that the care coordinators are “insistent” and call to check up on her multiple times per week.
A member of Hennepin Health, Linda has found the integrative care she receives invaluable. In addition to addressing her behavioral health and social services concerns, Hennepin Health care coordinators have helped Linda with a myriad of medical issues. She’s received dental and primary care services, eyeglasses, and help for frozen shoulder, arthritis, and a deteriorating spinal disc. “It’s been a wonderful ride,” Linda said, of her experience. “I cry, sometimes, because I’m so grateful.”
Three Lessons Linda’s Learned
- “Help is available if you ask for it,” Linda said. “People don’t know you’re struggling if you don’t open your mouth.”
- “Some days I’m overwhelmed. But taking small steps and living day by day is all that matters.”
- Consistency is key, “in taking meds, in being involved in support groups, and in being honest about what is going on in your life.”
The Future
In September 2014, Linda enrolled at Minneapolis Community and Technical College, where she is taking general education courses. She hopes to become a social worker or a chemical dependency counselor.
Article appeared in the May 2014 Hennepin Health newsletter and is available here.