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<\/a><\/p>\nDiana Capponi, right, with Linda Chamberlain and her sister Pat Capponi at the unveiling of the Linda Chamberlain plaque for the Centre for Addiction and Mental Health. Diana, now deceased, organized the event. (Catherine Porter \/ Toronto Star)<\/h4>\nCatherine Porter<\/h4>\n
Sep 27 2014<\/span><\/p>\n<\/div>\n The new buildings at the Centre for Addiction and Mental Health slumped this week.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n One of their central buttresses had disappeared. Diana Capponi died, a week after being diagnosed with cancer.<\/strong><\/p>\n<\/div>\n She was 61.<\/strong><\/p>\n<\/div>\n Capponi was all things at CAMH. She was a self-described \u201ccrazy\u201d who spent months there as a resident. She had also been a \u201chuman trash can for years\u201d as a heroine addict. And, for the past 11 years, she was staff.<\/strong><\/p>\n<\/div>\n Her job was recruiting other survivors to work there \u2014 not just in Joe jobs, pushing coffee carts or filing paper, but in professional positions as pharmacists, research analysts, psychologists \u2026<\/strong><\/p>\n<\/div>\n She believed passionately that work was medicine for people recovering from mental illnesses and addictions. It provided confidence, purpose, a paycheque. It also cured \u201cnormal\u201d people of nasty misconceptions about survivors, which freed us, too.<\/strong><\/p>\n<\/div>\n It was revolutionary.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n By the time she died, more than 330 hospital staff \u2014 one-10th of the employees \u2014 had come through her \u201cemployment works\u201d program.<\/strong><\/p>\n<\/div>\n \u201cShe helped me see that I could work again, like I had before I got sick, in a big job,\u201d said Helen Hook, executive director of the Consumer\/Survivor Information Resource Centre. \u201cShe helped me be brave.\u201d<\/strong><\/p>\n<\/div>\n Capponi\u2019s accomplishments were even more inspiring when you knew about her horrific childhood. Her father beat her and her siblings for sport. Her sister Pat describes the night their mother hatched an escape plan after he\u2019d nearly drowned her in the toilet bowl. But, at the end of the night, she led them back home to him.<\/strong><\/p>\n<\/div>\n He pulled Diana out of school after Grade 9, not because the family needed money, but because \u201cthere was no sense keeping her there since she was so stupid,\u201d Pat writes in her blinding book, <\/strong> Beyond the Crazy House: Changing the Future of Madness.<\/strong> <\/i><\/p>\n<\/div>\n Somehow, she clawed the self-confidence to apply for college after her last stint in the hospital and years later was given the Premier\u2019s Distinguished Alumni Award.<\/strong><\/p>\n<\/div>\n By then, she had started the Ontario Council of Alternative Businesses, which still operates five survivor-run businesses.<\/strong><\/p>\n<\/div>\n The miracle: She was not pickled with bitterness. Instead, she was fuelled by hope.<\/strong><\/p>\n<\/div>\n \u201cShe liked being a ladder to others,\u201d Hook says. \u201cIt brought her up, too.\u201d<\/strong><\/p>\n<\/div>\n Capponi gave me a tour of the new CAMH campus last year. She was proud of the new buildings but prouder of the internal renovation in the works. It quickly became clear she was the lead architect, building a culture that respected patients.<\/strong><\/p>\n<\/div>\n My favourite example: Four years ago, the hospital went smoke-free and management planned to hire security guards to enforce the rules. Capponi proposed instead they hire former patients as \u201cClean Air Ambassadors\u201d who would not only remind patients to butt out, but also say hello, give directions, mention the cold and how they should probably zip up.<\/strong><\/p>\n<\/div>\n They were so popular, they\u2019ve become a permanent feature.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n \u201cI learned about expectations,\u201d she told me on one of her regular \u201cfresh air\u201d breaks, to smoke off the hospital grounds. \u201cYou live up to them or down to them.\u201d<\/strong><\/p>\n<\/div>\n She was a bridge who spoke truth, with kindness, to power.<\/strong><\/p>\n<\/div>\n I last saw Capponi at a celebration for Linda Chamberlain , another firebrand survivor whom Capponi had championed. The new hospital campus is covered with names, all of powerful companies and moneyed sponsors, and Capponi had successfully campaigned to have Chamberlain\u2019s added.<\/strong><\/p>\n<\/div>\n The Linda Chamberlain nook is the first area named after a survivor. It seemed to me the perfect medicine for patients, sitting in that nook, wondering if they\u2019ll ever get better.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n I asked Capponi if more were coming.<\/strong><\/p>\n<\/div>\n \u201cI\u2019m hopeful there will be more,\u201d she said. It would be a sign that, finally, \u201cwe value lived experience as much as we value bucks.\u201d<\/strong><\/p>\n<\/div>\n I\u2019m starting the campaign for the Diana Capponi floor at CAMH.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n Will you join me?<\/p>\n Credit: Toronto Star<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" CAMH loses a shining light: Diana Capponi \u2018helped me be brave’ Diana Capponi, right, with Linda Chamberlain and her sister Pat Capponi at the unveiling of the Linda Chamberlain plaque for the Centre for Addiction and Mental Health. Diana, now… Continue Reading