Fountain House is safe haven when the storms of mental illness hit

This is the second article in a four-part series on bipolar disorder

Guitar riffs drift over the wall and blend with voices in the garden of Fountain House, one of two community-based rehabilitation centres run by Cape Mental Health. In the shade of a tree at their Observatory house in Cape Town, two groups talk about their psychosocial disabilities and how to cope with the demands on them.

Addiction, anxiety, bipolar disorder, depression, personality disorders and schizophrenia are among the conditions they tackle together, and anxiety is associated with many of them. People are referred into the Fountain House day programmes after being discharged from hospital.

“Many of them do not know each other’s diagnoses,” says Santie Terreblanche, deputy executive officer of Cape Mental Health, whose motto is ‘All About Ability’. “We focus on how to develop people’s strong points.”

“It offers individuals an innovative psychosocial rehabilitation programme which gives back dignity and focuses on self-determination, opportunity, inclusion and acceptance.”

Fountain House Observatory is part of Clubhouse International, a movement for people with psychosocial disabilities which they run themselves. Started in New York, there are now 320 clubhouses in 30 countries globally.

“The clubhouse is a safe haven and a space to be yourself, where you can belong,” Terreblanche says of the centres in Observatory and Mitchells Plain. “The programme gives people a reason to get up in the morning.”

The double-storey house looks welcoming, though masks are still worn indoors since many members have comorbidities. Terreblanche says their two centres were the only clubhouses in Africa, but Uganda and Ghana have since joined.

“A clubhouse is a community which offers hope,” says Dr Ingrid Danies, CEO at Cape Mental Health of the empowering space, set up with the support of professional staff.

“It offers individuals an innovative psychosocial rehabilitation programme which gives back dignity and focuses on self-determination, opportunity, inclusion and acceptance.”

In the back garden, where vegetables are being planted, a counsellor initiates the discussions about what people have learnt from their illnesses. One man has discovered he must stay on medication to suppress hallucinations; another talks about his past drug addiction; a third shares how his suicide attempt took a toll on his family.

'If I was feeling fine, I would leave the medication and I had numerous (manic) episodes,' says Faizel, whose life stabilised with treatment and therapy. (Sulize Terreblanche)

Stigma is a topic that soon arises, as a man with honey-coloured eyes — whose father was a volunteer for Cape Mental Health 15 years ago — talks about starting a new job. “Must I tell them I have a psychosocial disability?” he asks, sparking conversation about the pros and cons of disclosure.

A well-groomed woman, one of 11 people that morning, listens intently. When the discussion is over, several of them give an impromptu dance performance to their rendition of a New York State of Mind.

Cape Mental Health spokesperson Barbara Meyer says: “The programme gives people a voice, a chance to rediscover their true selves. When people join, they are so uncertain. It is amazing how self-confident and assured they become during their time with us.”

During lockdown the programme moved on to a virtual platform and now is a hybrid model allowing people to participate from home. “Isolation was one of the worst fallouts of Covid-19,” says Terreblanche, “and we tried to help people stay part of a community.”

The centre has interest groups, for example cooking, and 12 trained peer supporters, employing two. It offers myriad benefits such as education, psychological support, life skills and job skills — including training in administration, catering, crafts and communications — to prepare people to re-enter the job market.

The programme gives people a voice, a chance to rediscover their true selves.
— Barbara Meyer, Cape Mental Health

Mental illnesses can ruin people’s careers, as forensic scientist Faizel* experienced while working at the police mortuary.

In 2008, he was diagnosed with bipolar mood disorder after he almost had a breakdown while going through a divorce.

“I was manic, not sleeping, not eating and got loans [he had a clean credit record at the time]. I have no memory of what the money was used for,” says Faizel, who found it hard to concentrate at work.

“A colleague picked up that something was not right,” he says, and he was taken to hospital not knowing what was wrong.

He was given medication and sent home, and got worse, until a psychiatrist saw him and admitted him to an institution. “If I was feeling fine, I would leave the medication, and I had numerous [manic] episodes,” says Faizel, who in 2011 resigned from his job.

“I realised by myself that if I want to help myself, I must be taking the medication,” says Faizel, who had exhausted his private medical aid and has had to depend on the public health system. Cape Mental Health has been a support, he says.

Mogamad Nackerdien, who talked openly on the Voice of the Cape about having bipolar mood disorder, is a volunteer for the SA Depression & Anxiety Group and says he would like to start an online counselling centre.

Cape Mental Health has two small residential homes, one for independent living and another for people with intellectual disabilities, and both are part of the communities about them.

Faizel is now living with his older sister, a nurse with some understanding of bipolar, but many of his family do “not know how to act or to talk to me”, he says.

He says: “I do not say anybody knows what we are going through unless you have the same condition.”

*Cape Mental Health, subsidised by the department of health, offer services in greater Cape Town but non-governmental organisations, like the SA Depression and Anxiety Group and Lifeline, offer services countrywide. For information call: