Taking back her life

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Editor’s Note: Health and other services to low-income people in Maine are threatened by Gov. Angus King’s proposed Medicaid cuts to balance the state’s budget. This three-part series focuses on individuals who benefit from one or more of the threatened programs.

Last of three stories

Mental illness crept up on an unsuspecting Maureen Fortin.

In 1999, Fortin could no longer cope with the realities of her life in South Carolina. So she boarded a bus north, intending to drop by Castine, a place associated with warm memories of a visit there earlier in life.

But Fortin’s bus ride to escape her growing depression ended in Bangor because there was no connecting bus to Castine. The mother of two was considering suicide. She wrote letters to her two children to say goodbye. But she stopped short, and sought help and counseling.

For years she’d been struggling with manic depression.

Now, nearly two years later, the 40-year-old Fortin lives in a cozy apartment on Bangor’s east side and has achieved a markedly improved outlook on life. She holds jobs when she can and volunteers for the city’s public works department.

But she’s worried that Gov. Angus King’s proposed budget cuts to Medicaid could undermine her progress in dealing with illness. She said her counseling, transportation assistance and special funds for loans, which help her buy items made essential by her condition, are at risk.

Fortin feels so strongly about the proposals that she went to Augusta recently to testify before legislators about the potential impact of the cuts that are part of King’s plan to plug a multimillion-dollar shortfall. She said it was one of the most difficult things she’s done. But she gained courage from the dozens of people who testified before her.

Fortin thinks King lives in an ivory tower.

“If I could talk with the governor I’d challenge him to follow [a community-based mental health counselor] around for a day,” Fortin said. That would show him how essential the kind of counseling she receives is, she said.

Sitting on some secondhand couches that she got through a loan program that faces possible cuts, Fortin politely answers a reporter’s questions in her apartment on a recent morning. Michelle Bailey, a Community Health and Counseling Services counselor who works with her, looks on.

Fortin seems at ease, even as she articulately describes the dark family experiences that she thinks contributed to her problems. She describes having been abused and having had problems with alcohol.

Still, she never knew before her first crisis in Bangor that some of her problems stemmed from an undiagnosed mental illness. Without that understanding, she never sought help earlier – she just tried to live through it.

“I’ve always coped, because I had to cope,” she said.

She said there was some abuse in her past. Ultimately, things got so dark that she quit her job working in human resources for a factory in South Carolina.

“I never thought I’d be in this particular situation,” she said.

When she reached Bangor in Sept. 1999, she turned to CHCS, which got her into St. Joseph Hospital and subsequently into a temporary apartment.

When her condition stabilized and she needed to move, her options were slim. She checked into a homeless shelter. Once self-sufficient with a $30,000 a year income, she was fearful over the turn of events.

“‘Why was I at this point in my life? I shouldn’t be here, I’m better than this,’ that’s what I was telling myself,” she said.

Fortin said counseling has helped her identify the challenges she faces. As she progressed, her counselor helped her navigate the mental health system. She got an apartment, got the couches.

Then, when severe eczema struck her hands, she got a loan for a dishwasher that her dermatologist considered a necessity.

Financial help like that could be reduced under the proposed cuts.

One of Fortin’s biggest challenges is getting around Bangor without much income. Because she has so many medical appointments, she qualifies for some transportation passes for bus rides from Medicaid. But that would end as well.

One of the symptoms of Fortin’s mental illness is that she has a need to be early to appointments. She leaves early to catch the bus.

But, she said, it’s a struggle. She has had hip and knee problems and her ability to walk is limited. She remembers that after knee surgery, when she lived on the other side of town, she was forced to navigate a slick, steep hill on crutches every day.

“I did it,” she said.

In all these travels, Fortin has become an encyclopedia of Bangor transportation information. She can easily recite the complicated details of various buses she relies on to get around.

But navigating the health care system while struggling with mental illness isn’t as easy. Fortin said Bailey understands how to help her with the system by explaining forms and making referrals to appropriate agencies. Without that help, she said, she doesn’t know what she’d do.