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Vicki Cousins: A Survivor's Story by Bryan Kost
She laughs. "What saved me was that I had bad credit," she
says.
Bad credit saved Vicki Cousins life. Not many of us can say that.
But how many of us can say we once took a bag, filled it with every sharp and dangerous object,
every medication within reach, and set off to kill ourselves? How many of us can say that
we one day called all our family, our friends, and offered a cloaked "goodbye" to
them, before we drove to the hotel five miles down the road? How many of us kissed our
spouse, patted our dogs on the head, and walked out the door, planning to be dead by day's
end? How many of us have been so detached from our emotions that on the way to the hotel
to kill ourselves, we stopped to visit a hospitalized colleague, even bringing an apple to
cheer him up?
Not many of us. Not many of us then locked ourselves in the hotel room, and proceeded to
swallow crushed glass, stick knives in electrical outlets, cut ourselves in a bathtub and sit
to watch the blood flow, then gulp every pill we could painfully, to kill ourselves. Not
many of us have felt so unworthy, so driven to eliminate ourselves, so full of ideas yet empty
of feelings. Not many of us have ever felt like Vicki Cousins, who has survived Hodgkin's
Disease, depression and bipolar affective disorder, and just knew "God did not want me to
be here."
Still, maybe we can understand why Vicki laughs about the bad credit saving her life. It
makes as much sense as anything else did that day. For as Vicki went about hurting
herself with her bag of killing supplies, a clerk at the front desk ran her credit card for
verification. Her payment was denied. Soon the hotel staff were at her door.
When she wouldn't come out, police knocked the door down. And Vicki Cousins was pulled
out to begin her walk of recovery from mental illness.
That was 17 years ago. Vicki Cousins now works as Director of South Carolina Department
of Mental Health's Office of Consumer Affairs. She helps consumers across the state learn
to take part in their recovery, stand up for their rights and privileges, and powerfully live
with their illnesses and contribute to their communities. Vicki Cousins helps consumers
serve as self-identifying staff with mental illnesses within SCDMH's facilities, bringing
consumer voices to the ears of DMH decision-makers and the public. She is helping people
seek treatment, stay healthy, and then -- help others do the same.
Vicki Cousins is better now. Even her credit is better! And many players deserve
credit in her recovery story:
After the suicide attempt, Vicki met her friend Jane, a fellow mental health patient in the
hospital. Jane, diagnosed with Depression, was beautiful and strong. Vicki, weak
from chemotherapy for the Hodgkin's, was thin and had no hair. But Jane insisted,
"You’re going to get better." Jane made Vicki take a role in her recovery, and
get a grip on her illness. Jane taught Vicki that one must take the illness head-on,
learn about it, read about other's experiences, and work toward one's recovery.
Later, Jane became Vicki's employer at the National Alliance for the Mentally Ill in
Minnesota.
Years later, working for the Mental Health Association in Minnesota, Vicki worked with Andrea,
who has Dissociative Identify Disorder (formerly called Multiple Personality Disorder.)
Andrea was chair of the board of MHA in Minneapolis. Andrea was a fighter, who would not
back down. "What an inspiration! ... Before meeting Andrea, I never thought
to fight for myself," Vicki said. Andrea, like Jane, helped Vicki identify the
biggest weapon she had: her own story. "Through them, I saw the power of
self-identification, and it's effects on people," Vicki said. When a person publicly
owns the sickness, something begins to happen. Seeds of recovery take root as a person
with mental illness begins to share her story, to understand her disease, and help others start
that process.
At SCDMH, Dr. Joseph Bevilacqua, former State Director, with his deputy Director John Morris,
was leading a group of employees in developing and defining the position of Consumer Affairs
Coordinators (CASs). One of these individuals was Billy Brown. He would become the
agency's first Consumer Affairs Coordinator. CACs are self-identified mental illness
survivors who work for SCDMH as advocates, mentors, movers and shakers in the centers and
hospitals. Bevilacqua, Morris and Brown saw how CACs epitomized the healing process,
indeed serving as healers themselves. They also saw the power of Vicki's story, and her
commitment to helping people with their own stories. They helped bring her into SCDMH as
the statewide director of Consumer Affairs Coordinators.
Vicki gives her mother credit for immersing herself in learning about mental illnesses and how
to treat someone with a mental illness once she got sick. But her mother was searching in
old texts with clinical approaches and definitions. She was scaring herself (and
Vicki). Vicki simply needed love and support. Then her mother found the Journey
of Hope courses offered by NAMI. NAMI's classes are designed for family members of
people with mental illnesses. Vicki always assumed her brother was told about the events
of her life, but had never discussed them herself with her brother. And five years after
her suicide attempt, she surprised him with a comment about it. She couldn't help
wondered if her parents had been too ashamed to tell her brother about it all. Did they
think he couldn't handle the news? Were they worried that something similar might happen
to him?
Finally, some credit for Vicki's recovery should go to "God's little greeting
card." What's that, you ask? Vicki said that lying in the hospital bed one
night after her suicide attempt, "I start to see this amazing, shimmering gold light
floating in the room." She was not asleep and not on medication. And she was
certainly not alone in that room. There was a presence, a force, a spirit ... a
friend. "I call it God's little greeting card," she said. Vicki knew then
she had a lot more living to do and God wanted her here, after all.
Those who know Vicki would say she's staying with a vengeance. Every decision she makes
and every program she implements at SCDMH starts with the questions, "How will this affect
mental health consumers? How can this empower people to move forward in their
recovery?"
Empowering others empowers her. "Before I began working in this field, I was in
commission-based sales, chasing after a buck every day. Now I'm zeroing in on helping
people," she said. "I feel blessed that I have a job where I can
help." She works at a job she loves, and she's surrounded by people she admires,
"smart folks, driven to help people." A graduate of Bowdoin College, a
part-time graduate student in USC's Rehabilitation Counseling program and a 10-year veteran of
advertising sales, Vicki says that working in the mental health field is the best way for her
to monitor her own walk with mental illness.
And she still has down days along with her up days, but she's never been as low as she was that
day at the hotel. Never even close. Her illness may still occasionally flash a
symptom, but Vicki knows she's made life choices that will keep it in check. She knows
that 17 years ago she was in an environment that contributed to her illness: an unhappy
marriage, her own family hundreds of miles away, a competitive job as a sales executive in the
big city, drinking and partying, ... and mostly, smack in the middle of aggressive
chemotherapy. Cancer treatments that stunts reproduction of diseased tissue, can also
depress the spirit – this added to her vulnerability. All things considered, Vicki can
see how she landed in that hotel room.
But that landing led to a takeoff. A takeoff that on June 2, 1994 put Vicki in the
director's chair of the Office of Consumer Affairs. "Now after nine years, I am
still reeling," Vicki said, describing the accomplishments of consumer involvement in the
mental health system. "We've proven that we need a consumer-run Office of Consumer
Affairs ... I'm very proud and almost surprised at the way my role has been accepted by this
agency," she added. Vicki's also proud that there are quantitative, measurable
outcomes pointing to the success of the program.
Since 1994, Vicki has helped put a Consumer Affairs Coordinator in each center of SCDMH, and
played a role in guiding South Carolina's former Governor to name a consumer to the
department's state commission. Vicki hopes a self-identified consumer may someday serve
as director of the South Carolina Department of Mental Health.
Vicki sees the future of mental health treatment including more and more consumer-led
initiatives. Medicaid-billable peer support services, peer-run learning centers, all
operated by consumers, could serve to help people before it gets too bad for them to help
themselves. A program where a recovering person lives with an individual or family, could
be run by consumers. Consumer retreats and trainings, focusing on recovery, would go a
long way toward meeting SCDMH's new Mission Statement: To support the recovery of people
with mental illnesses.
Vicki Cousins continues to dream of improving the lives of others, as well as her own. A
woman who once tried to take her own life, now gives hope to others. "I'm so
lucky," she said, "to work at a job I love." She's lucky for the people in
her life. She's lucky for her own strength. And she's especially lucky for her own
bad credit.
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