Franco Basaglia he will be very happy with what he has done in life and he will be very happy with me, for what I have done and for what I am doing in my life. Yesterday, it was March 8th, Women’s Day, and in the morning I went to the Maddalena Mental Health Center (one of the four in Trieste, ndr) to have the injection which, due to my mental disorder, I have to do monthly. I entered through an open door, I stayed there for a while and then I left through that same door, which for me and for many other “crazy people” like me is always open. I was lucky to have experienced my “madness” accompanied today on a journey of recovery ed empowerment for thirty years already, through care and kind attention towards me by the mental health services of Trieste.
I enter the CSM Maddalena, an operator kindly greets me. Having had a strong worry that distressed me, I spoke about it to an operator who I found at the reception, who kindly and with the utmost attention listened to me and gave me the necessary support. Pass Pietro next to me, the director of the CSM, sees that I am talking to the operator, brings his hand closer to mine, greeting me and shakes it slightly, a sign of a certain equality and complicity. For me this is all Franco Basaglia who lives and manifests himself here in Trieste, in my reference CSM.
After giving the injection I happily walk out that door and go down to the city. Outside there is my full life waiting for me: there is my house, my husband and my son, work, cinema and theatre, the organization of cultural initiatives in the city to promote Slovenian culture, in the summer there ‘is the Barcola seafront, where I go to swim and tan, which awaits me peacefully, in winter and autumn long walks on my beloved shores. This is a full life for me and for this I am infinitely grateful to Franco Basaglia and to all those, operators, who follow the Basaglia approachhumane, kind and respectful of the dignity of “crazy people”, because we “crazy people” too are citizens and citizens with rights like everyone else.
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Top photo by Damjan Balbi