After a year and a half on AOT, Renee is successfully regaining the independence she lost when she experienced an increase in her mental health symptoms. She is working towards obtaining her own apartment in the community and she has hopes of becoming a certified peer counselor so that she can help others like her succeed.
Renee, a RISE AOT Care Management client, has been utilizing Assisted Outpatient Treatment (AOT) Case Management services for the past year and a half. She has made fantastic progress and within six months from now, she could be off AOT for good.
AOT is court ordered mental health treatment for individuals with severe mental health conditions that ensures they receive all the services they might need to successfully live in the community. AOT orders are typically issued for a one-year period, but they can be extended for additional one-year periods as recommended by the individual’s service providers. RISE Care Management is the only agency in Saratoga County that offers AOT Care Management Services.
Renee, currently 53 years old, was diagnosed with a mental health condition when she was 15. For the majority of her life, she managed her mental health and lived a stable lifestyle. She had a job, a home, and she was happily raising her now 10-year-old son. However, in 2020, due to COVID she lost her job and at the same time other circumstances in her life changed causing her to become very stressed and extremely manic – one of the symptoms of her mental health condition. In her manic state, she stopped her mental health treatment, which worsened her condition to the point that she lost everything including her savings, her home, and most devastating of all, custody of her son.
Homeless, living in the streets, and no longer in treatment, Renee’s mental health conditions exacerbated causing her multiple stays in the local hospital’s mental health unit. Eventually an AOT order was issued, and Renee was mandated into outpatient treatment. At first, Renee was very resistant to AOT Services, but once she accepted the fact that the court order was in place to assist her, she began to fully cooperate with , her AOT Care Manager, Heather, and she turned her life around.
Today, after a year and a half on AOT, Renee lives in the RISE Progressive Steps Apartment Program (PSAP) and is successfully regaining her independence. She is in the process of obtaining Social Security benefits and she has applied for a Section 8 housing voucher so she can move into her own apartment in the community. She is currently a part of the Universal Preservation Hall (UPH) Ambassador Program, where she and other RISE Residents are employed part time to be present at UPH Shows to help people cross streets safely, open doors, and give general directions. Renee has hopes of becoming a certified peer counselor so that she can help others like her succeed.
“Renee is the biggest success I’ve ever seen!” exclaims Heather Ball, AOT Care Manager. “AOT has completely changed her life. She went from being homeless and extremely symptomatic to being stable and successfully living in a PSAP apartment. She is no longer symptomatic at all. And the fact that she wants to be a peer counselor is so amazing!”
Renee shares her story:
“I worked for Macy’s as a makeup consultant for almost 20 years. Unfortunately, due to circumstances beyond my control, my job come to an end. I was giving a severance package that helped me get by while I looked for work. I moved around a bit and ended up in the Washington DC area where I met my son’s father. I was working as a makeup consultant again and I was doing well. But, when my son was two, because of a domestic violence situation with his father, I moved back to Saratoga Springs to be close to my family.
I went to work for Macy’s again and then later for Boscov’s. I was very successful in my job as a specialist for the Laura Geller makeup line. Then COVID hit. Like most retail stores during the pandemic, Boscov’s closed and I had to go on unemployment. At the same time, my mom got cancer. The stress from being unemployed, taking care of my mom, and raising and homeschooling my son during COVID, overtook me. It was just too much.
My mom’s health got worse, so we sold our house. She went into assisted living, but I had nowhere to go. I lost all the money I had in savings from the sale of our house and my bank account got hacked, so I started living on the streets. Because I was homeless and very symptomatic, my son was taken from me and sent out of state to live with his father. That ruined me.
During my manic episodes, my family wasn’t supportive. My dad, whom I had a close relationship with, refused to see me. I was devastated and I was trying to cope with it all on my own. Because I stopped taking my medications and was no longer seeing a therapist, I ended up in the mental health unit multiple times. Eventually an AOT order was issued, and I was mandated into outpatient treatment.
After everything that I went through, it was hard for me to trust anybody. I didn’t know that AOT was there to help me. When the RISE low barrier Adelphi Street shelter opened last summer, I had a place to stay and was able to get off the streets. But I avoided meeting with Heather or if I did meet with her, all I did was yell at her in confusion and frustration. Thankfully, Heather did not give up. She was very kind in her outreach to me, not blaming at all. After a while I began to trust her, listen to what she was saying, and realized that she really was there to help me.
With Heather’s help, I started complying with the AOT order. I started taking medication again, started going to therapy and engaging in healthy activities like going for walks, watching movies, doing art, meditating, and learning to stay calm. Heather continued to check up on me each week to make sure I was complying with my AOT orders and remaining stable. With her help I got into a PSAP Apartment and now that my mental health has improved and I am no longer symptomatic, I reconnected with my family, including my dad, and have had phone visits with my son. This summer I get to visit him in person, which makes me so happy.
Now that I am healthy, stable, and rebuilding my life, I hope I can inspire other people to be healthy and help guide them in maintaining good mental health. I plan on going through the peer counseling program at Healthy Capital District to help others like me succeed.”