Eva María puts her hands on her head as she remembers her life six years ago. Lots of anxiety attacks, fights with his family and one reason for constant problems: money. She suffers from a serious chronic mental illness and qualified to live in one of the Group 5 residences set up for people in the same situation. More precisely in Sevilla La Nueva, on the outskirts of Madrid.
Since then, his daily life has completely changed. She now has time to devote to herself, to enjoy with her family and friends and to participate in the workshops that the center provides. You can choose from all these services voluntarily, based on your interests and the abilities that the social and health team deems fit to enhance in you. In his case, that of plants or that of picking are his favorites.
The residence has 49 furnished and private places. To provide individualized care to each user, a total of 15 educators, a psychologist, an occupational therapist and the center management work. In turn, all residents are assigned a member of the professional team as a reference person with whom they have even closer contact and to whom they can turn if necessary.
It is important that they have someone they trust from the start, because the most complex thing about a new admission is “the lack of knowledge of the person’s vital situation, because ultimately we know very little about things about the protocol that the Ministry of Health Center sent us Mental. We have this uncertainty about their baseline state, their life situation, their history,” explains Lucía Durán, occupational therapist at the center.
It is also difficult for users to change accommodation for a center that, although equipped in the most user-friendly way possible and having all the comforts, they had never imagined as a ideal scenario. Eva María remembers feeling “very bad” when she arrived at what has now become her home. “I insulted people, I threw a table, I hit an educator, a classmate… Now, I’m almost done with all that,” he explains. From a clinical perspective, Durán maintains that upon arrival, new tenants “have a lot of doubts about what it means to live here because they don’t know what a mental health residence is. They arrive after a generally traumatic hospitalization,” he adds.
Go “from zero to 100” with the necessary support
José Luis Murillo is another resident whose life has been completely transformed by this resource. He had lived alone for many years after losing his closest relatives very suddenly. He spent a lot of time at home where tobacco was his only business. His situation even pushed him to attempt suicide. It was then that after several hospitalizations, he arrived at the Grupo 5 residence in Cobeña, where he was practically reborn. “My life changed dramatically, going from zero to 100,” he says.
He also remembers his arrival at the center as a difficult moment. At the same table in the management office where two years later he tells us about his daily life, he sat next to his cousins and Susana García-Arias, director of this center, to formalize his entry. “They themselves have many prejudices. There are those who come to tell me that people are going to be very crazy», explains the director of the center. This is why it is essential to make them understand, both from the professional team and from those who will be their colleagues, what exactly the center is and why it is the best option for them. “Proximity, individualization. The entire team knows someone is coming when they arrive, as do the rest of the residents. So everyone is already ready to welcome them,” he explains.
These prejudices also often obscure the perception they have of themselves and their illness. “They have been made to understand all their lives that their identity is reduced to their pathology, that they are only sick, and that is not the case,” emphasizes García-Arias. “People with mental illness can live and develop in a community with support, and what we are trying to do here is precisely that, that their identity is not canceled by the illness and that they can resume control of their lives,” he maintains. “It’s a very broad and very complex issue, but it is very important that in these centers we make sure that the person feels visible, capable and can gradually make decisions about themselves,” he notes. .
Eva María, José Luis and many other residents of these centers have found in this resource the support and tools they need to know themselves better, understand their own needs and promote their qualities and abilities without leaving others behind. aspects of their lives like these. as your family, your leisure activities or your hobbies. They also benefit from the accommodation and care of a specialized team with whom they have established a family bond and the rest of the people with whom they live and who are experiencing the same situation as them. They have found something as simple and at the same time as complex as the home they deserve and need to lead a full life.
