To Be Or Not To Be, That Is The Question

     I live in Supported Housing.  This building, High Park Villa (HPV henceforth), is one of ten rooming houses for people with mood disorders. I moved here in January, 2009.  The buildings belong to a numbered company. 
     The numbered company buys two buildings at a time.  Both are gutted & re-furbished.  One building becomes part of the not-for-profit lineup.  The other is a rental or flipped (sold for a profit).
     Habitat Housing, a Not-For-Profit, handles intake, monitoring, advocacy, care, feeding and oversight of (approximately) 500 individuals in these homes around Toronto. HPV is considered the "Cadillac" of the ten locations.  I'm always amused by the "Cadillac" reference - Do they mean the others are bumper-cars on the highway of life? Or, Haven't they heard of General Motor's troubles?
     Habitat workers set up various activities - coffee outings, Mickey D's for ice-cream, Bingo and movies.  Last Wednesday's (the 17th of March) special treat was a St. Paddy's Day dance.  All the ready, willing and able residents congregated at The 519 Church Street Community Centre. There were pizzas, fresh fruit for after, soft drinks, little green Derbys and plastic favors, and so on.  One of the loons was DJ-ing and there were door prizes.  The male-female ratio was something like 8-9 men to every female.  From what I've seen in the past 15 months, this disparity is reflected in the residents of most of the locations.
The 519 is where I've been volunteering for the last three years, with the LGBTQ (Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgendered, Queer) Seniors' Monday Afternoon Drop-In.  This program is the only one of its kind in North America and I'm very fortunate to be included in their roster of volunteers.

     The attendees were a conglomeration of every mood disorder known to mankind and science.  The dancers - there was a giant leprechaun, a Santa Clause gone wrong, in a green t-shirt as far as his sternum, a giant belly and shiny, tiny shorts.  Upon his chrome-dome was a wee green fedora.  The memorable parts of the leprechaun was the previously mentioned belly and a beard like Gandalf Lord Of The Rings. There was a woman running around doing "The Bump", creating mayhem with her left hip.  There were yet others who were totally unselfconscious, dancing alone and doing their own thing/s. Watching them was hilarious & enlightening due to my split perception.
     One of my facets is the healthy, balanced person with enough control and self-awareness to venture out alone, go to school, start a new career, etc. Keeping that healthy individual in mind, there have been times when I've asked myself what I'm doing here in Supported Housing when, evidently (evident to me at least), I don't belong here.
     Another facet needs lots of quiet time, daily naps and solitude. This Sa'ad only ventures as far as the dining room (one floor down) twice or thrice a day.   There are times when I look at what I'm saying, thinking or doing and and tell myself it's a good thing I live here.  If I lived anyplace else, men in white coats would come after me with elephant tranquilizers and a super-sized butterfly net!
     The things I gained from watching the attendees, people who were oblivious to the onlookers, dancing for love of movement, the music, the freedom to just get out there and do what THEY pleased, without fear or favor.  I envied them their lack of self-awareness, if that was what I was seeing.  A woman alone on the dance-floor, moving in time to the pounding beat, her eyes closed, a beatific expression on her face. "The Bump" lady, doing her hip-thing, clearly enjoying what she was up to, ignoring the dismayed faces of her "victims" and rushing off to go accost somebody else. The giant leprechaun, unashamed of his equally giant belly, greeted everyone.  I wondered about their back-stories, diagnoses, prognoses and their understanding of themselves, of their self-images.
     So, here's the $64,000 question.... When Sa'ad is mentally and/or emotionally unwell, does he know he's unwell?  And, joking aside, when he's scrubbing the bathroom floor with a toothbrush, does he realize this activity stems from his Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder?  Or, does he say it's the right way to clean a bathroom floor and leave off the questioning?
     One of the symptoms of depression is to neglect one's personal hygiene, another is neglect of one's surroundings.  It's strange to be cleaning something and to have to ask myself,
    * Am I cleaning this to prove I'm NOT depressed?
    * Am I cleaning this because I've OCD?
    * Am I cleaning this because it NEEDS to be cleaned?
    * ALL of the above?
    * NONE of the above?