A place to restore lost treasures

Any weekday morning you'll find Felix pouring coffee, Kolleen in the kitchen, Laura puzzling over her math worksheets and a smirking James cracking jokes.

Yep, it's a family.

But not like you think.

This is a family -- about 100 members strong -- related through their severe mental illness and drawn together by the need to belong.

And get better. And gain acceptance.

These things happen in an older two-story building you probably drive by often at 411 Broadway in Cape Girardeau. Maybe you even notice it, but you've probably never suspected that it's been a place that has been helping the severely mentally ill for almost 20 years.

This is Someone's Treasure. In short, it's a place of hope.

"I've seen lives changed," said Carol Cochran, coordinator of psychosocial rehabilitation services for the Community Counseling Center, which oversees and staffs Someone's Treasure. "I've seen so many members become so much more independent. Being here really empowers them."

One such member is Pat Patterson. Patterson is one of three people who work part-time at the clubhouse who are also members.

Patterson, 35, suffers from clinical depression, anxiety disorder and panic disorder. He said he has high hopes for the time he spends at the clubhouse.

"I have the hope that everyone else here does," he said. "I want to be a productive member of society. Too often, we're looked on as 'Rain Man.' We're not."

Someone's Treasure is a psychosocial rehabilitation center that has "members," not patients or clients. There are about 100 members, 60 of them active. All suffer from mental illnesses likes schizophrenia, bipolar disorder and obsessive-compulsive disorder. All have to be diagnosed with mental illness in order to become a member of the clubhouse.

The clubhouse is set up as a coffee shop that also sells candy and other small items. But people rarely show up as patrons. Instead, the clubhouse mainly serves as a home away from home for those with mental illnesses, a safe haven from a world that stereotypes and stigmatizes them.

But it's more than a hang-out for people with special needs, said Cochran, who oversees similar clubhouses in Perryville, Marble Hill and Ste. Genevieve but makes her office at the Cape Girardeau clubhouse.

Someone's Treasure is staffed with three psychosocial rehab specialists. The clubhouse offers opportunities to learn new skills, to participate in educational groups, to make decisions as a group and to work toward recovery.

The goal, Cochran said, is to teach the members skills and integrate them back into the work force.

"We want to give them a purpose," she said. "Our role is to break down the stigma. To do that, we have a focus of helping them become independent."

Everyone participates in different "work units," such as kitchen help, housekeeping, clerical work and education. There's also creative writing, working with math and grammar and some peer-to-peer counseling. All the work is overseen by staff.

The hope is that as the members' illnesses improve those skills can be parlayed into real jobs -- maybe as a clerk in a mall, a cook in a restaurant or maybe even something that requires higher education. Some have already done so.

Fountain House model

There are similar clubhouses for the mentally ill across the nation and around the world, Cochran said. She said most, including those in Southeast Missouri, are based on the Fountain House model, which was started in the 1940s by a small group of New York psychiatric patients who formed a self-help group.

These groups became more popular as more and more psychiatric hospitals were closed and mentally ill patients tried to integrate themselves back into the community, their families and the work force.

But each clubhouse is as unique as the personalities who frequent it.

Go to Someone's Treasure in the morning and people shuffle in. Some go right to work answering phones, deciphering worksheets, preparing coffee or working at making lunch in the kitchen. The group prepares its own noon meal, which provides skills at cooking, cleaning up and waiting on tables.

Some spend time shooting pool, chatting with each other or sipping coffee or soda.

When asked, some people talk about their mental illness. Ask others and they either deny they are mentally ill or don't know what their mental illness is. Some say they are there because of non-mental ailments like a heart problem, constant headaches or high-blood pressure.

"I'm as normal as everyone else," said one lady, sitting in a chair in the corner.

Lizzie Willis, 48, sits quietly at a table, working on math problems. She said she is there for her "headaches."

"I love to do math," she said in a slow, steady cadence. "I like coming here. There are chores and we have an auction every month."

'It's fun here'

Behind a counter, a man named Felix Kinsley acknowledges that he has severe schizophrenia. Today he has the job of manning the counter, which entails keeping the ice full, serving sodas, juice and coffee and keeping his area clean.

"I like seeing the people. That's why I like the clubhouse," Kinsley said.

Kinsley frequents government meetings as an observer, sitting in the front row at the city council and gatherings of the student government or board of regents at Southeast Missouri State University. At one time he served on the Cape Girardeau Historic Preservation Commission.

Kinsley lives in a boarding house, as many of the members do. A van comes around and picks him up each day.

"It's fun here," Kinsley said. "I like coming here."

It's a simple statement but one shared by many who were talked to last week.

After work and play are done, Michelle Winkler, 23, comes into the room. Winkler is a fresh-out-of-college worker who has her bachelor's degree in psychiatry. She is one of the three rehab specialists. She asks the group where they want to go next month on their day trip.

"I want to go to Florida," said James, a young man who did not give his last name but is clearly the jokester of the group.

When it's brought up that the group might get to go to a rodeo, he jumps in with "I want to go as a rodeo clown."

Later Winkler says she wanted to get into this field after her grandfather was diagnosed with Alzheimer's disease. She said she quickly grew fond of her new friends after taking the job at Someone's Treasure.

"The thing that surprised me the most, though," she said, "is that with the right motivation, a lot of these guys can do what we do every day ... But this is a good place for them. A lot of times, people with mental illness sit at home all day. For some of them, this is all they have."

Dan Dunlap, a member who goes to Someone's Treasure every day, agrees. Dunlap can often be seen walking around town. He calls it "race walking." Dunlap, who has been diagnosed with major depression and obsessive-compuslive disorder, walks while wildly swinging his arms back and forth at a fast pace.

Dunlap gets laughed at. He said he's tried to kill himself four times.

Now he claims to be almost fully recovered. He lives on his own and is enjoying the independence after years spent in psychiatric institutions in the late 1970s. He credits the clubhouse with some of his success.

"It offers anything you want to take from it," said Dunlap, 50. "It gives you an identity and a place of serenity. Without it, so many people would be adrift. For a lot of us, though, it offers us something we may not get someplace else -- friendship."

smoyers@semissourian.com

335-6611, extension 137