Creating a Safe Space at The Gathering Place

May is Mental Health Month, and this year’s theme is about how our surroundings impact mental health. Nowhere is that more evident than at The Gathering Place, which has offered a safe and caring environment for people with serious and persistent mental illness for more than three decades. Glen, a member of The Gathering Place, shares how the clubhouse’s warm and welcoming atmosphere and staff have made all the difference in his mental health, and his life.

I have been coming to The Gathering Place for 11 years.

The clubhouse has helped change my life. I don’t feel alone anymore. I don’t feel abandoned anymore. I feel uplifted. The Gathering Place is such a beautiful place for me.

Being bipolar and schizophrenic, some days are hard. I used to hang out on street corners because I didn’t have anywhere to go. And when I came to The Gathering Place, it uplifted me, and it made me into a better person than I was. I used to be angry all of the time. And now I am not angry; I’m happy.

I am one of the first ones in the door of The Gathering Place in the morning. And when I come in, I do my work in the “Country Store.” I have learned a lot. I have learned how to run a cash register. I have learned how to count money properly. And I have learned how to give the proper change back to the members. When they come to the window, they always smile, and I smile back. And we treat each other with the utmost respect.

The Country Store is my safe space. I feel that the voices I hear, they can’t touch me when I’m in the store. They can’t bother me. If I am feeling bad, I go into the Country Store. I go there for maybe 10 minutes, 15 minutes, and it’s like, all my troubles, all my problems, they go away. Sometimes I go outside, and I feel safe by the garden, too. Especially when Mr. Bobby’s around, because I feel he is not going to let anything happen to me.

There’s another place I feel safe here at The Gathering Place, and that’s when I go sit in Miss Shalla’s office. She has a round table in her office. And I’ll go there and sit at that table, and I feel so safe and relaxed when I’m sitting there in her office, having a conversation with her.

I also like going to groups. My favorite group is Ms. Mary’s group (ReMIND), because this group supports me and helps with my bipolar.

And I enjoy giving tours of The Gathering Place. I want to give people the best tours they have ever had. And maybe two or three days later, I see them coming back through the front door, and it is something that I said, or something they saw that they liked, and they come back. And when they come back they have a smile on their face.

I am grateful for that. That’s the biggest part that I like here at the clubhouse — encouraging people — and serving people out of the Country Store.

The Gathering Place has been so amazing to me. And so uplifting to me. If it were here seven days a week, I would be here seven days. I am just truly grateful to be around people like me, and around the staff, and to have a place that I can come to five days a week.