Byline: Gala M. Pierce Daily Herald Staff Writer
Lazarus House clinical director Bob O'Shea bestowed a sense of hope to members of the National Alliance of the Mentally Ill Kane County South on Saturday in Aurora.
'Sometimes in this business, there is a lot of despair,' said chapter president Jim McNish. 'It's nice to hear somebody say, 'This is what we're going to do.' '
O'Shea, a licensed mental health therapist, related case studies that showed how mental illness can be treated successfully.
For example, 'John' was brought to the St. Charles shelter a little more than a year ago. The Fox Valley native with an IQ of 155 suffered so much from depression that he dropped out of the University of St. Louis and could not hold a job.
'He was just a train wreck when we got him,' O'Shea said.
O'Shea uncovered that his problems stemmed from shame of his homosexuality. After getting treatment at the Larkin Center in Elgin, 'John' stabilized and is setting his goals on a master's degree at Northern Illinois University.
Also about a year ago, O'Shea spent some time with a 6-foot-2, broad-shouldered man who was kind and soft-spoken.
A police officer had picked him up on Randall Road and taken him to the shelter, where staff bathed him and provided clean clothes.
After O'Shea gained his trust, he discovered the man suffered from delusions and schizophrenia. 'Mark' said there had been an incident at a Kentucky racetrack when the Army sprinkled the AIDS virus to several subjects including himself.
With his permission, O'Shea sent him to the Elgin Mental Health Center; in about three or four weeks, 'Mark' improved with medication.
'He has been doing this now for a year, and he is totally delusion-free,' O'Shea said.
He related other case studies and discussed the different kinds of people who would check in at the shelters, including teenage runaways with drug problems or mental illnesses.
O'Shea assessed all the facilities in the Fox Valley area such as Hesed House in Aurora, a partial emergency shelter, and PADS in Elgin, which rotates between churches. Lazarus House offers a range of services from its general equivalency diploma program to new and gently used clothes to prescriptions or medical treatment, O'Shea said.
He also updated the alliance members on Lazarus House's expansion. The first phase will add 20 beds to its 40-bed facility by the end of February. The second phase, aimed for the end of September, will provide transitional housing. The goal is to help people, not enable them, he said.
Sharon Glass, a licensed clinical social worker out of Geneva, walked away from the meeting with a sense of optimism for the mental health field.
Instead of ending a normal life, diagnosis can lead to treatment and medication that can lead to a return to a functioning life.
