And suddenly nothing worked anymore: a personal event threw Christian Reiß off track. At the age of 32, he became so severely ill with schizophrenia that he had to move into an inpatient facility run by Bethel.regional. "It all started in 2012, when I became mentally ill," explains the 42-year-old from Dortmund. "I first lost my job and then my family due to my illness. I fell into a deep hole." He had help from a therapist, but that wasn't enough. "I could no longer live alone in my flat, I couldn't see a way out. When you have an illness like that, you need support."
Christian Reiß initially received support in outpatient form. He was also assigned a legal guardian. "A social worker then showed me several inpatient residential facilities for people with mental illnesses when I couldn't manage on my own. I particularly liked Bethel.regional's Echeloh home in Dortmund. I thought it might be a good fit," recalls Christian Reiß. The trained "technical information assistant" has no recollection of his early days at Haus Echeloh, except that the staff were very friendly and communicated with him as equals. "I felt safe, but I had a lack of prospects and a lot of anxiety."