Shut Away by Catherine McKercher

Author:Catherine McKercher
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781773101002
Publisher: Goose Lane Editions
Published: 2019-08-05T16:00:00+00:00

Anxiety disorders are teh most common mental health problem in North America, including among people with Down syndrome.7 OCD might explain a lot of things about Bill. But if he did have it, then a set of behaviours everyone else dismissed as harmless though sometimes annoying quirks — “just Bill being Bill,” as one of his counsellors put it — may well have been signs of deep suffering. The fact it took until he was in his mid-thirties for anyone to figure this out is heartbreaking.

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It was pretty clear by the time Bill was an adult that he was not the most likely candidate to flourish on the outside. He did have something many other residents at Smiths Falls lacked, however: he had a family who cared about him, and visited him regularly. Bill’s family — my family — lived in a city with a number of group homes, possible family home placements, and an active local association for people with disabilities. Our family was also well off enough to give Bill whatever extra help he might have needed. If my parents had pushed for him to move to Ottawa, that might have made a difference.

They did not. And it’s hard to understand why they opposed the idea.

Surely it would have been easier for Mom, with or without Dad, to drive a few blocks to see Bill than to make the trek to Smiths Falls, especially after her own health began to decline. If Bill lived in Ottawa, she would have been able to see him more often, make sure he was doing well, spoil him and his housemates now and then with little treats, and maybe even include him in family events. Of course, group homes come with their own problems,8 but Mom and Dad could have been in the background to keep an eye on things. They could have been articulate, knowledgeable advocates on his behalf. I could have helped, too, especially after I moved back to Ottawa in 1987. But I can’t recall a single family discussion about Bill moving to a home in Ottawa.

Mom made her views public in a rare letter to the editor of the Ottawa Citizen in 1992, while the institution was launched on the long, slow process of shutting down. She had been touched by a sentimental photo essay about the adult residents at the institution, people for whom the Rideau Regional Centre was the closest thing they had to a home. Here is her letter, in full:

I commend reporter Wanita Bates for her sensitive May 23 photo-story on Rideau Regional Centre in Smiths Falls. Too often in the past, the Citizen has concentrated only on the negative aspects of the facility. As parents of a long-time resident of Rideau Regional, we have been impressed and grateful for the care given to our son. The projected closing of the centre and the integration into the community of the residents seem senseless — they are already in a community where they are protected and lovingly cared for.

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