Viktoria Modesta's Prototype & My 1st Cannabis Arrest

I am inserting a hyperlink to Viktoria Modesta's new music video, Protoype. The words that appear at the beginning are "forget what you know about disability." Startling, moving, transcendent, victorious, those are adjectives that describe this music video and the meaning behind it.

I am not physically disabled, just cognitively disabled, but this music video really resonated with me. It made me think of my own schizo-affective disorder and how I am perceived as broken, incomplete, genetically defective, or worse. How I question the System for the way myself and my kind are treated, both how humanely we are treated and also how our illnesses are treated in terms of medicines.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jA8inmHhx8c
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On My New Cannabis Charge

I still struggle with paranoia, but I am turning it into something that is not based in fear. My paranoia has begun to turn into a hyper-awareness of my status in society. Would you not be paranoid for yourself if you wrote a blog describing cover-ups of sexual and physical abuse in the psych facilities throughout the past decade, that you personally experienced? Would you not be afraid that county police are monitoring your statements online? I don't change my IP address, so it is pretty easy for authorities to track me down (which might explain why my pc internet connection is so slow on the only computer I use to access this blog). I am no longer paranoid about being killed. I am paranoid about my constitutional rights being continuously stripped away until there is nothing left, just a detainment center they refer to as a 'hospice' for mental patients.

Matters do not help that motorcycle officers keep pulling me over for infractions these past two months (2 fix-it tickets, 1 speeding ticket, and I am currently under investigation for driving while having cannabis and prozac in my system). Yes, I did get a DUI, my first ever. I feel like a criminal for taking my effing medications. I live in California where it IS legal for me drive so long as I had not smoked and then immediately driven away (I played pool for a long time, ate, etc...cop didn't care that I had an ear infection that messed up my balance, said it was cannabis and prozac from the several hours before--8 hours for the Prozac, actually). If this sounds like bunk, it is likely because my city has decided that marijuana is a Latino gang thing that must be eradicated, and to hell with all the medical patients standing in their way. The local newspaper had an article entitled "Sheriff !@&# declares war on pot." This is my home town. I have nowhere else to go until I get some money saved up and my Master's diploma. There is a whole lot more to the pot arrest, but I will save that for the NORML laywer I contacted. Just to be safe, though, if you are a mental patient, be leery of telling police officers what the medicines are actually used to treat. I don't know about the legality of this situation (HIPPA laws v. police) but I do know that once I said the words "mood stabilizer" my chances of him letting me go where all but nil. On the plus side, he did not shoot me over a dozen times like with that poor bipolar suburban teenage girl in the news recently.

Well, if anything goes worse from here, at least you, the reader, will know that for my first 31 years of my life I never was charged or accused of any crimes. The past two months have been pretty harsh, to be honest.

Well, no matter, what, they cannot take what I already achieved away from me. And, if worse comes to worse, there's always a one way trip to Venezuela.

All of us just prototypes for something better, no?

Skizzie Lizzie Applies For Graduation

I was released from the psych ward in 2009. Since then, I have been through "outpatient services" which are a quaint euphemism for total behavioral modification group therapy sessions with an emphasis on potent, Western psychotropic medications (don't get me wrong, I believe in these medicines. I take these medicines. I advocate for others to take their medicines, but man, these drugs have major side effects. Can you, Eli Lilly, stop counting your billions of dollars and please spend a little on some chemists to work on more advanced medicine that does not cause massive weight gain, zombification, diabetes, tremors....and other maladies caused specifically by the drugs?).

I regained a semblance of normalcy back in 2010, when I learned from the sociopaths in group therapy that it was not a requirement to be honest with others in society (again, don't get me wrong. I don't approve of sociopaths, but to be fair, when they were not preying on me and the other deteriorated mental patients, they told good stories). I remember in particular one doctor's visit to an outpatient clinic. The clinic was for felons. Why I went there I have no idea, I assume somebody was funneling money to themselves by adding me to the little circus. No, I am not a felon, nor have I been convicted of a crime, ever. Still, this is how your mental health system is, America, you sent me to a mental health rehabilitation facility for ex-felons with mental health disorders (ranging from bipolar to violent, sociopathic behavior), me, a 160 pound 26 year old woman. AND IT MADE ME STRONGER AND A BETTER LIAR SO THANK YOU!

Let me explain.

Before, if people asked why I missed class, or why I took a pill, I would squirm and feel conflicted about how to tell the truth. Enter the sociopath from the rehabilitation center which I will refer to as T.P. This guy, "Sam," was my age and when we talked about employment experiences in group therapy he said he could never get a job because every time he went in the boss would ask him to explain his felony. His answer? "Which one?" Possibly not the most ideal role model for societal behavior but you'd be surprised what I learned from him. He kindly explained to me while waiting in the doctor's office, that I should just lie my ass off because I can pass.

"How are they gonna treat you, anyways? You like the way they treat you?"

"It's discrimination and I hate it," I told him, honestly.

"Then stop telling 'em. Don't worry, just lie."

Later I learned he went back to jail for punching his girlfriend in the face. That was just my life back then, it didn't seem abnormal or frightening at all. I just felt lucky that I wasn't his girlfriend and I hoped his girlfriend was okay, but the commonality of violence at T.P. was so rampant that I became jaded (and I still am, sadly).

I mulled. Did I really want to take the advice of a woman-punching scumbag? I turned on the television. Some crap about creating a database of mental patients that could be accessed by anyone (this story is from around 2011). I tilted my head and stared at the tv. Is this what I am to them? A violent thing, not a human? So be it. If you treat a human like an animal long enough, they'll start to bark. I swear to god, they bark. And after my neglect, sexual assaults, abuse, and other unethical practices inside the psychiatric facilities all throughout my twenties, I was all "ruff ruff."

So, I quit telling the truth.

In 2011 I transferred to a 4 year university, having secretly applied without telling anybody. I entered and graduated a year later with my Bachelors. Everyone at T.P. was so amazed. I was such a success story! I was an incredible inspiration to all! Truth? The sociopath taught me how to lie and that is apparently what is required to be treated like a human being with full civil rights when one is bipolar or schizophrenic. You want to know how to avoid cognitive bigotry (my new term for someone who hates and persecutes people with a cognitive/neurochemical disorder)? Just don't tell them the truth. And when they blurt out their prejudices, take the time to inform them of scientific fact, from an outsider's perspective. Teach them humanity, but never, never forget that they do not recognize your own humanity if you have a diagnosis.

In 2012 I graduated and entered graduate school.

In 2015 I belatedly applied for graduation. I will have my Master's degree from a University (no, it's not one of those bogus online campuses, either).

Now that I am preparing to graduate in May, I realize that this blog is actually important to me and maybe even to one of you out there. I have tried to avoid this blog because it reminds me of where I came from, who I am, what I live with, and what you think of me. I miss this blog, though. So much so, I came back.

With good news. I am graduating. Skizzie Lizzie is graduating in May with her Master's degree.