I can’t tell my story without talking about my mother. My mother was my inspiration even though I did not know it back then. She was my support, my cheering section and my greatest enabler. When I was a child, she was the one who told me I was a winner and though most of my life I felt like the opposite of that, it was mother’s voice I heard when I needed to feel like I was worth something. So, I could not write a true account of my life without talking about the wind beneath my wings …my mother.

My earliest recollections were of how hard my mother worked. She was a nurse, in the 1960’s when black nurses were not treated much better than black maids, or paid much better either. Yet my mother was considered successful. Looking back, I think that was first experience with confusion. I say this because for all of her success, my mother, my mother never seemed happy. She was exhausted most of the time and seemed sad most of the time. But she went to work everyday no matter what. I saw her work when she was sick. I recall her working double shifts and all night shifts. When I asked her why she worked so hard she’d say, “you won’t get anywhere in this world unless you work hard, nobody will give you anything.”

By the time I was twelve, years old I had begun to experience feelings I could not understand. I had no ambition, I was sad all the time and most interestingly, I had no desire to work or do anything else for that matter.

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Editor’s Note: TakePart is collaborating with Community Access to bring you stories from their employees and housing residents. This is part of our Special Report on Homelessness inspired by The Soloist. Check back each week for more stories from Community Access.

Dwayne Mayes has been there and back. He survived extraordinary abuse at the hands of a mother whose mental illness went undiagnosed. He bears a large scar in the shape of a question mark on the back of his skull—the result of hot grease his mother poured on him when he was a toddler. In adolescence, Dwayne felt the stirrings of what would develop into his own battles with mental illness. He has known homelessness and addiction. At age 30, he entered a hospital research study and was diagnosed with depression.

“Until that moment,” said Dwayne. “I believed what I had always been told—I was lazy, I was weak, I had character defects.”

Dwayne has known triumph over mental illness and the joy of fatherhood.

“My daughter was pivotal to my survival. I had to get well. My Aunt Hope had been the first person to hug me. So I named my daughter Hope. She taught me unconditional love. Mothers in the park taught me how to braid hair.”

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Editor’s Note: TakePart is collaborating with Community Access to bring you stories from their employees and housing residents. This is part of our Special Report on Homelessness inspired by The Soloist. Check back each week for more stories from Community Access.

By Kurt Sass

I worked for 18 years, mainly in the mortgage lending industry. Then I had a major psychiatric breakdown. I was hospitalized three times, had 22 electroconvulsive therapy (ECT) treatments, and was out of work for two years. For months I lay in bed, paralyzed by depression and prey to suicidal thoughts. I traveled the route of psychotherapists and psychiatrists. When I finally found the medication regime that was right for me and was able to return to work, no one would hire me…not even in mortgage lending.

I sent out 96 resumes and received not one positive response. Not one invitation to interview. Positions mysteriously disappeared. I was ‘not quite’ what they were looking for.

My 97th resume went to Community Access. They called me for an interview. I was thrilled, yet apprehensive about disclosing my psychiatric history. Soon I found out that the organization’s policy is to hire at least 51 percent consumer staff…meaning people who have been through the mental health system and know how to talk to others who are going through it.

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