After drug addiction, homelessness, suicide attempts, Windsor woman helps others find purpose in life

As executive director of Advocacy Unlimited, Michaela Fissel spends her days helping people who have experienced trauma and addiction, offering them holistic alternatives to traditional, medication-based mental health care.

She knows the subject well. Less than two decades ago, Fissel herself was suicidal, homeless and abusing drugs and alcohol to dull the pain of her abusive childhood.

“Sexual trauma is one of my earliest memories. I was 2, 3, 4 years old, then I had similar experiences when I was 8 and 9 years old. It really distorted my perception of my own value as a person,” Fissel said.

“I didn’t have any space to share what was happening to me so I stuffed it deep down inside while still presenting as if I was normal,” she said. “I gave up hope that there was something more to this life than being subjugated to that type of treatment.”

Today, Fissel can give her personal perspective to her Advocacy Unlimited clientele. She is devoted to the organization’s mission and throws herself into her job with enthusiasm.

Advocacy Unlimited, based at 114 West Main St. in New Britain and at Toivo Center, at 1477 Park St. in Hartford, works with about 300 clients a month. “We meet people just where they are at. We’re not asking people to be anything more than who they are,” Fissel said.

The nonprofit differs from traditional mental health resources in that all treatment is peer-based. All employees have undergone some sort of trauma or substance abuse. Some sought help from mainstream practitioners and found the treatment to be flawed or insufficient.

Like all her coworkers, Fissel can bring her own memories to her alternative wellness methods. During her turbulent youth, she took advantage of both traditional mental health offerings and holistic mental health therapies. This was after years of upheaval and trauma in her personal life, all pointing back to her abusive childhood.

As a teen in Windsor, Fissel turned to marijuana, alcohol and crack cocaine to drown out her memories.

“I just didn’t want to be in my body. I used anything that I could use to take that edge off,” she said.

Her mother threw her out, because she was a negative presence in a home with younger children. She was homeless from age 17 to 19. “I lived on the streets between Hartford, Manchester and bounced through shelters,” she said. She attempted suicide.

Fissel’s life turnaround started when she woke up in a hospital after her last suicide attempt. When she opened her eyes, she was angry at the world because she survived and she didn’t want to.

“Then a voice rose up within me. It said, there was a purpose, that I was here for a reason,” said Fissel. “I listened because I was sick of trying to kill myself. I said fine, I’ll give life one more try.”

Her mother took her back. Her life has been on a forward track ever since. Today, Fissel, who is 35, is off drugs and embraces life. She has three kids and a college degree. She is in graduate school. She served six years on Windsor’s school board. She teaches yoga and meditation. She gardens and hikes.

Best of all, she heads an organization offering the sort of services that changed the course of her life. She started at Advocacy Unlimited in 2014 and has risen through the ranks to now lead the organization.

“Unfortunately, in the mental health space, recovery is more dependent on clinical treatment for the duration of a person’s life,” Fissel said. “There are alternatives that are complementary to these approaches, that provide a person with an opportunity to regain a life of self-defined purpose. Recovery can take on a much bigger significance in a person’s life.”

Advocacy Unlimited offers a variety of programs for both clients and for trauma survivors who want to help others get past their troubles. Its Bridger program works with adults who are in the mental health system or the court system, or are at risk.

Join Rise Be, a program created by Fissel, is a similar program, geared toward youths. “It’s the only program for young people and by young people in the state,” she said.

Through Hartford-based Toivo, Advocacy Unlimited offers supportive groups focusing on yoga, qigong, meditation, fitness, emotional support, stress management, creative writing, nutrition, drum circles, dance, book clubs and other opportunities to gather in groups to take strength from each others’ stories or merely each others’ presences.

Some groups focus on women, LGBT clients and people who have considered suicide. Programs are funded by the state Department of Mental Health and Addiction Services, foundational and corporate grants and private donations.

One offering close to Fissel’s heart is the CT Hearing Voices Network, a group of people who hear voices, see visions or have other unexplainable sensory experiences. Again, Fissel can personally relate to these people. “At one point I heard external voices. At this point in my life, I do not any more,” she said.

Fissel said traditional methods for people who hear voices are not ideal. “The only thing we have currently available … for the treatment of people who hear voices is medication. But medication can have debilitating side effects and often doesn’t resolve the voices,” she said.

Fissel recently returned from a 50-mile hike in the Adirondacks. The hike was a fundraiser to bring the Maastrict approach to Advocacy Unlimited. The Maastricht approach encourages mental health professionals to incorporate input from people who hear voices into their understanding of the phenomena. The approach, founded in the Netherlands about 20 years ago, is well established in Europe.

“People who go through this Maastricht interview change their relationship with their voices. They come to a resolution. Their whole lives change. Even sometimes the voices will disappear entirely,” Fissel said. “We’re not trying to take away what is already available. It’s just something that may work for you.”

Before her 50-mile hike, Fissel set a fundraising goal of $50,000. She raised $2,000. Those who want to donate to her project can do so at advocacyunlimited.org.

Despite not meeting her financial goal, Fissel said her five-day hike was a therapeutic experience, as other hikes in the past have been. “I find tremendous healing in the wilderness. I come back to myself. I lose that internal dialogue, that inner critic, that keeps you up late at night. In the wilderness, that voice disappears,” she said.

She said her hikes even give her a reason to be grateful for her period of living on the streets.

“In the two years of homelessness I experienced, I learned what I needed to learn in order to survive for five days in the wilderness,” she said. “It is remarkable, the synchronicities. I learned what I was capable of when I was homeless applied in a wilderness setting.”

Susan Dunne can be reached at sdunne@courant.com.

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