RE: Debilitating Mental Illness in Cohousing & Society
From: Casey Morrigan (cjmorrpacbell.net)
Date: Wed, 2 Oct 2002 20:18:02 -0600 (MDT)
There is no formula for talking about the deep things.  Skilled facilitators
can help structure things, but only true intimacy and trust will allow
discussion of personal matters such as mental illness.  And those take time
and commitment by individuals to getting to know one another.

Why would you wonder if cohousing attracts a disproportionate number of
mentally ill people? I'd be interested in hearing more about how you came to
raise that question, Zev.

Lots would depend on how you define mentally ill.  Some of our neighbors and
a few members of the city council thought we were crazy to build this
place....:)     But seriously - I have noticed that it takes a high degree
of iconoclasm and a willingness to "buck the trend" to even contemplate
creating cohousing.  Then a whole different skill set is needed once
construction is complete - individualism and "I'll do it my way" don't work
as well when trying to work out things cooperatively.  Which is to say,
skills and behaviors that are helpful in one context are not as helpful in
others. What's my point?  that mental health and illness are partially
contextual.

Second, I found that the question to ask myself, when confronted with
behaviors or beliefs or emotions that I found irrational, odd, or downright
destructive---  whether part of a diagnosed mental illness or not (how would
I know, anyway)---- was - is the community resilient and skillful enough to
handle this?  Am I?  Can we use this as an opportunity to build our
resilience and skills, or--not?  Is this destructive to the community or can
we use it to build that intimacy and compassion that we thought we wanted
when we moved in here?  This helps me get away from the "identified patient"
syndrome and swing the focus of attention back to myself and the dynamic of
the group as a whole.

Casey Morrigan
Two Acre Wood, Sebastopol, California



-----Original Message-----
From: cohousing-l-admin [at] cohousing.org
[mailto:cohousing-l-admin [at] cohousing.org]On Behalf Of Sharon Villines
Sent: Wednesday, October 02, 2002 3:42 PM
To: Cohousing-L
Subject: [C-L]_Debilitating Mental Illness in Cohousing & Society


on 10/2/2002 2:10 PM, Zev Paiss at zpaiss [at] attbi.com wrote:

> First, I am wondering if cohousing is attracting a disproportionate number
> of people in this situation, and secondly, and much more problematic, is
how
> might a cohousing community in its development stage, openly have
> discussions about this as the future members are getting to know one
> another?

I added "debilitating" to the subject line because that is really what you
are talking about I think. An illness that prevents a person from
participating in the community or may disrupt community activities.

One of the reasons to have work shared equally from the start and to have
realistic estimations of what work is required in cohousing is to be
realistic about how much support a community can provide.

If a group is realistic about this, then things should proceed with
realistic expectations. The one reservation I have about the development of
cohousing groups becoming easier, is that it become too easy. If members
think they can move in and then sort things out, all kinds of difficult
imbalances will take place.

We were required to have 10% (right number Ann?) of our units built as
accessible. Presumably that number was reached by some association that
determined that 10% of the population would be physically challenged at some
point in their lives. (All our fire alarms have incredible flashing lights
and  very loud sirens that literally vibrate your ears. When they go off,
from the piazza we look like a Christmas Tree.)

With 50 adults in a community, that means 5 would need extraordinary
supports if the community was serving its proportion of society at large.

Sharon
--
Sharon Villines
Takoma Village Cohousing, Washington DC
http://www.takomavillage.org


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