Connor's Crusade: Once a patient, now he brings gifts to kids at Western Psych

Dec. 26--Connor Buzzelli knows how lonely it is in there.

In February 2014 he spent two weeks at Western Psychiatric Institute and Clinic, where he was diagnosed with and treated for bipolar depression and anxiety.

It was horrible, he said. He was just a teen, still in high school. He wanted only to go home.

But when doctors finally discharged him, Buzzelli thought not of himself, but the kids left behind.

"It was me and my mom in the car," said Buzzelli, 20, of Peters in Washington County. "And I was just thinking to myself: You're not allowed to leave until a doctor says you can leave. If you're in there during Thanksgiving or Christmas or Easter, you're not allowed to go home to see your family. So ... what are they going to do if they're in there on Christmas?

"They should have something so they're not feeling left out, feeling 100 times worse than just sitting in there on a regular day."

So he turned to his mom and said: "We should do something about that."

That Christmas, he and his mom bought four bags of toys and marched them through the front doors of Western Psych.

In 2015, he sought donations and was pleasantly surprised when 50 people came through.

This year, he started a GoFundMe site , collected $1,200 in donations, and brought more bags of gifts than the first two years.

He even gave his cause a name: Connor's Crusade, which aims to bring light to a world that can be dark and lonely.

Buzzelli knows that firsthand.

"That feeling of being in there, alone, wondering what's wrong with me," he said. "It had a big impact on me. You feel extremely lonely, confused and sad. You feel different in the wrong way."

The gifts, which Buzzelli and his mom delivered Dec. 22, went to programs designed for kids. Melissa Nossal, senior program director of the Child and Adolescent Inpatient Unit at Western Psych, was there to receive them.

"Being alone, during the Holidays, in a psychiatric facility -- that can be really hard," Nossal said. "A lot of families are not close or not involved. Knowing that someone cares enough to provide you with gifts when you cannot have a normal Christmas, it means so much."

For children younger than 10, the gifts officially come from Santa, Nossal said.

For the older patients, staff members tell them all about the gift giver -- that he was once a patient there, too.

That he got treatment and is doing well.

That he has a job and is studying psychology at Wheeling Jesuit University.

That he is just like them.

"They see this former patient and it gives them hope," Nossal said. "They know that's someone who has been here and is now on the other side and doing well."

Buzzelli never thought of it that way.

He thought the gifts alone brought hope.

Told that his story also inspires, he doesn't know how to respond.

"I never thought about that," he said. "But, yeah ... That would have been a great motivating factor to keep going. They might think, 'Wow, he was here, I'm here -- maybe I can do something cool like that when I get out.'

"Huh. I never thought of it like that."

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