NEWS: Oregon mental health activist spotlighted

Thu Dec 22 14:28:43 CST 2005

BELOW is a news article about
changing the Oregon mental health
system that spotlights long-time
mental health consumer activist
David Romprey. Please forward.

~~~~~~~~~

Face of experience pushes
state mental-health reform

David Romprey has been a
crusader, patient

by ALAN GUSTAFSON

_Statesman Journal_, Salem, Oregon,USA

December 21, 2005

David Romprey brings a singular voice
to a task force that's developing
plans to fix Oregon's ailing
mental-health system.

He's the one whose first night as a
patient at the Oregon State Hospital
was seared into his brain by the
suicide of his roommate.

He's the one who was driven to
activism because his father,
depressed and cast adrift, died
broken-hearted in a mental hospital
in Mexico.

He's the one who blasts psychiatric
drugs, saying that they work like
chemical straitjackets -- shackling
creative thinking, impeding speech,
zapping sexual desire.

Romprey, 40, is an award-winning
crusader for the rights of
mental-health consumers. That's the
label he uses to refer to millions of
Americans who tap into treatment as
they deal with mental illness.

The Salem man dislikes traditional
psychiatric labels -- schizophrenic,
manic-depressive, criminally insane
and so on -- because he thinks those
words reinforce difficult-to-crack
stereotypes. He wants to demolish
enduring stigmas attached to mental
illness.

"We're your neighbors. We're your
sons and daughters," he said. "Sure,
some of us have the more caricatured
features of overmedication that show
up in the way we talk or look or
dress. But some of us could be
beating you in racquetball or dating
your sister, and you wouldn't know
that we used to be mental patients,
to use a kind of pejorative term."

Romprey is hopeful that positive
change is coming to Oregon's
mental-health system. The Phase 2
Master Plan Task Force on which he
serves is working with consultants to
devise systemwide reforms.

"The funny thing is, I am hopeful,"
he said. "There's a partnership going
on between mental-health consumers and
the administration that is very, very
good."

Robert Nikkel, the leader of the
state Department of Human Services'
mental-health and addictions office,
picked Romprey to participate in the
master-planning effort.

"He's one of the more articulate,
creative guys you could find," Nikkel
said. "I think he has a good grasp for
the issues, and he's been there. I
think any person who has actually
received services has a unique view
of how it is to be in a facility."

Hopeful for state hospital

A report due in February is expected
to spell out plans for replacing or
remodeling the 122-year-old Oregon
State Hospital, as well as provide a
blueprint for upgrading the entire
mental-health system.

Romprey is no fan of the West Coast's
oldest mental institution, which is
plagued by decaying facilities,
crowded treatment wards and chronic
understaffing. Nevertheless, he
thinks the state hospital can play a
valuable role in the revamped
mental-health system, assuming that
fundamental changes are made.

"What we want is something that works
and provides not just treatment but a
chance for people to keep their place
in life," he said. "They need to keep
their skills and education, be able
to use the Internet, be able to take
college courses."

Romprey envisions the emergence of a
benevolent kind of state hospital.

"I do not think at all that they're
going to do away with the state
hospital," he said. "I think they're
just looking at making it a more
recovery-oriented facility."

Retracing his own path to recovery,
Romprey said he was diagnosed with
bipolar disorder, formerly known as
manic-depressive illness, when he was
in the Army.

The events that turned him into an
activist began about 15 years ago,
starting with his harrowing stint at
the state hospital.

Romprey vividly remembers being
admitted to a crumbling section of
the state hospital along Center
Street NE, known as the J Building.

The new patient was sent out to a
fenced recreation yard, where he
mingled with fellow patients. After a
lengthy wait, staff escorted patients
back indoors, where they learned
disturbing news.

"What happened was my roommate on
that first night had hung himself,"
Romprey said. "So they were cleaning
everything up and dealing with that."

Inspired by the positive

Romprey was released from the
psychiatric hospital in 1991. Shortly
thereafter, his activist fire was
ignited when he attended a conference
at the University of Oregon.

Romprey was enthralled when he heard
people talking about a growing
civil-rights movement, a battle led
by mental-health consumers like
himself.

They wanted more control of their own
treatment, more community-based
services, more social acceptance.

As they saw it, their quest was akin
to an earlier movement that waged a
successful fight to break down
barriers confronting people with
physical disabilities.

For Romprey, the conference was a
transforming experience.

"It was at that point that I really
began to feel that I didn't have to
live in a group home all my life,
that I could regain my place in the
world as a human being, as a man," he
said. "Instead of being medicalized
and marginalized, it just came down
to hope."

Inspired by the negative

Five years after getting out of the
state hospital, Romprey earned his
Bachelor of Science degree in
management and communication from
Western Baptist College, now Corban
College, in 1996.

That same year, a family tragedy --
his father's death -- added fuel to
his drive for activism.

Jerold Romprey long served as a
respected minister. But he lost his
way amid bouts with mental illness.
When symptoms caused by his bipolar
disorder flared out of control, he
was shunned by his church, deepening
his distress.

"He became seriously depressed about
not having a job," Romprey said. "He
had no place in life, no respect."

After moving to Oregon from Colorado,
Jerold Romprey was hospitalized at the
Dammasch State Hospital in
Wilsonville, a crowded, state-run
institution that later would be
closed.

In 1996, his illness flared again
while he was traveling in Mexico.

"He was just totally tripping out and
talking to the locals; he thought it
was the end times," Romprey said.

Hospitalized in Mexico, Jerold
Romprey died at the psychiatric
facility. He was 54.

It was a defining event for his son,
crystallizing his life's purpose.

"I guess it's why I'm in this work,"
Romprey said. "It showed me that the
mental-health systems of supports
were not comprehensive enough to help
people recover. It didn't work for my
dad, and it didn't work for me."

Formerly employed by the Oregon
Health and Sciences University in
Portland and the Marion County
mental-health department in Salem,
Romprey now devotes most of his time
to volunteer advocacy efforts.

In addition to working on the master
plan, he serves on a panel that
reviews cases in which state hospital
patients undergo a controversial
control technique known as seclusion
and restraint.

Romprey, the single father of a
9-year-old son, pays his bills with a
monthly disability stipend stemming
from his military service.

Recognition for efforts

When he's not attending his busy
slate of meetings, Romprey peppers
friends, officials and fellow
activists with e-mails. His e-mails
come with a slogan that speaks to his
reform-minded philosophy: "For a
renaissance of what it means to have
and to treat what is popularly known
as mental illness."

Kudos for his activism include a 2005
mental-health award of excellence,
jointly bestowed by mental-health
groups and the state Department of
Human Services.

Romprey was extolled as "a
passionately effective conduit
between mental-health consumers and
decision-makers with an extraordinary
ability to communicate with both."

The honor was gratifying, he said,
affirming the value of his work.

"I agreed with the wording of the
award because it said I've helped be
a bridge between mental-health
providers and administrators and
people who use the system," Romprey
said. "I've worked really hard to do
a good job of that, so I feel that I
deserve the award.

"It was cool to have my son there. I
brought him up on the stage. Now, he
knows why I spend so much time at the
computer."

agustafs at StatesmanJournal.com or
(503) 399-6709

For web version with photo, go to:

http://www.statesmanjournal.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20051221/ 
STATE/512210325/1042

[or use this smaller URL:]

http://tinyurl.com/82xb8

____________________

- end of article -

To contact David Romprey
e-mail to: davidromprey at aol.com

Please forward.

Forwarded by MindFreedom International
http://www.MindFreedom.org
Unite to Win Human Rights in Mental Health.