Park Square Vigil Calls for Better Mental Illness Services "For the Love of T"By Brittany Polito,
05:03AM / Friday, October 21, 2022 | |
 Near 75 people gathered at Park Square to participate in the vigil. |
 | | Founder and President of Love of T Luke Fitzgerald said he felt there is a glaring lack of adequate mental health and substance abuse care, and he aims to fill those service gaps in honor of his mother.
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PITTSFIELD, Mass. — Around 75 people held candles at Park Square on Thursday to honor those who struggle with mental illness.
The vigil was held by the Love of T, a foundation created in memory of Pittsfield resident Teresa Fitzgerald who died by suicide on May 2, 2021.
Founder and President Luke Fitzgerald said he felt there is a glaring lack of adequate mental health and substance abuse care, and he aims to fill those service gaps in honor of his mother.
He works as an outreach substance abuse counselor at Berkshire County Sherriff's Office.
"The most unfortunate thing that I see every day in my work is that there is not enough help and there are not enough beds for people that need the help," he said.
"So the biggest fight that we will have is to get those beds open. We do plan to start the peer-to-peer suicide prevention mental health team within the next year, and we want to get in the schools, in the community. But ultimately we have that lack of beds so eventually, with the Love of T, we do have the goal of opening an inpatient holistic mental health treatment center."
Fitzgerald noted that it will not be easy but can happen with group effort whether it takes 2 years or 20 years.
The Love of T Foundation has 11 board members. In May, the nonprofit organization held a "Dance the Blues Away" event at Berkshire Hills Country Club that sold out.
Karen Auge said that "for the love of T" we need to start talking about mental illness and suicide.
"Suicide, you never talked about it. It was like a crime if it happened to anybody that you knew," she said.
"And the crime of the matter is that our community doesn't have the resources to help people that are depressed, and it's not until the worst happens that we find out about it. So we are going to keep on talking."
Auge did not know the great deal of pain that Fitzgerald was in and she never imagined that time would run out for her to ask for help.
"I miss her smile. I miss the funny noises she used to make. I miss her infectious laugh and that crazy red hair but you know what? The signs are everywhere. I see her everywhere. It's amazing. And she's with me right now because I wouldn't be able to stand up here and talk to you about her if she wasn't," she said.
"So now I'm going to turn the program back over to Luke, who is the strongest man that I know, and I know it's because Luke has had Theresa at his side every step of the way. He is a true testament of all that is possible when you have the love of T."
Many community members spoke about their experiences with mental illness or addiction, how they found a way out of the darkness, and the importance of community and resources.
Jayme Kurland, who is a clinician at the Counseling Center of the Berkshires, spoke about the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on peoples' emotional well-being.
"I have a number of clients, friends, and family members who lived alone through the pandemic and who went through the most severe depressive episodes I'd ever seen them experience. Even once people started gathering together outdoors, the sense of social connection was just too sporadic for them. They maybe would attend the gathering, but then they would go back to the isolation of their homes," she said.
"I remember one of my clients saying to me that her home turned from a sanctuary to a prison cell and this described what a lot of clients and friends, family members had been saying to me, had been feeling. And it's not only the people who live alone that are struggling, of course, that's just one population."
She pointed out that humans have an infinite capacity for love, care, creativity, compassion, empathy, and awareness of how interconnected people are. This, she said, is what we have amidst the suffering and struggles of the wider world.
Fitzgerald's coworker Lindsay Maynard spoke to the need for better services in the community, explaining that they often feel frustrated when help can't be accessed for clients.
"There are some very, very sick people in our community, and it's very frustrating at times when you try to connect people with resources that are going to help them, and there are waitlists, and there's little availability for immediate needs," she said.
"We see these generational cycles of mental illness, incarceration, substance use, and the work that Luke and I do is important in trying to stop that cycle from continuing to occur."
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