NY Proposed Database of Mentally Ill

I do not approve of scapegoating the mentally ill for recent mass murders. If people want to terrorize millions of genuinely sick and innocent Americans by putting us all up on databases and recording our private thoughts (gee, who is being paranoid NOW?)--- while scrapping everyone's constitutional rights, do it knowing that you are violating the constitution and its amendments and that those of us who are sane will eventually sue your pants off.

Here is an article from Yahoo saying that New York is about to pass a law saying that all private thoughts (thoughts, not actions, without intent, without warrant) must be reported to Homeland and to the feds. How is that going to work?

http://health.yahoo.net/news/s/ap/experts-proposed-ny-gun-law-might-hinder-therapy

ONE: Every mass murderer took the time to plan their attack, days, even months before they enacted their heinous atrocities. They obviously fooled everyone around them. A REALLY insane person would be incapable of plotting because they would be too disorganized and out of touch with reality to know what was happening. So, how insane were these organized, prepared, methodical killers really?
TWO: Plotting requires hiding their intentions. These violent predators are hellbent on hiding their intentions already, what chance do you think some doc has of correctly assessing the situation after the usual 5 to 10 minute psychiatric consultation? Seriously---five to ten minutes!
THREE: For every one actual, guilty person you catch, you will frame thousands of genuinely sick people who have no plan to commit harm, and send thousands more running away from care! If you tell a paranoid skitz that the government is going to record his thoughts and carry him off to an undisclosed location---don't expect to be seeing them around any government or health care professionals. I'm totally harmless and the thought of being Databased makes me sick to my stomach and I want to distance myself from all treatment centers! If you threaten us enough, we'll just start to leave the country. You can keep the community for yourselves, with all the gang violence, drug violence, domestic violence, murder-for-hires, serial killers, and random acts of violence. Those crimes are done by totally sane people, by the way.
FOUR: There are ALREADY laws in place to protect people from the rare criminally insane! First, 5150's get their guns rights taken away for years! If the psychiatrist is at the point where s/he would send their patient's name up the food chain, they ALREADY have the right to commit said person for up to 48 hours for assessment. After that, it's to a facility for 2 weeks, where said would-be threat can be committed and re-committed, for a very long time with a simple police code: 5250. I met a guy who was serving a 2 month sentence in a crappy psych ward for trying to escape.
FIVE: It takes only one unscrupulous therapist to ruin a person's life forever. I've had mental health techs write statements in my medical records I never said. If they "believe" you are a threat, they write that, even if you're saying "suicide" they might write down "homicide" just for fun, or to meet quotas, or for some other unknown motive. If you think this is an exaggeration, you are truly naive. A lot of the mental health technicians do not like or feel empathy for the mentally ill. In fact, most of them hate us because they are just like the rest of society---quick to stereotype, quick to condemn, quick to lie, and quick to sabotage. Who will act as the check and balance against the mental health professionals?

The real predators are the Hitlers and Stalins, not the guy at the street corner who talks to the trash can.

There's my little rant. Don't believe me, believe me, whatever. I already told one social worker if they start putting us on databases or sending C.I.!. assassins I am leaving the country and moving to Sweden. I like Sweden.

Society's Lowest Caste: the Mentally Ill

The following is a true story, one of many, about how the mental health care system ignores, rejects, and hates the mentally ill. I am schizo-affective, a member of the lowest caste in society; the Untouchable. The following story takes place in a city in California about 4 years ago. I have no criminal record. I don't even have a speeding ticket. And no, I would never hurt anyone who isn't physically in the process of beating me up or assaulting me. I am well-behaved. I am schizo-affective. I am an Untouchable of this society.

4 years ago------

"I need medicine," I told the woman behind the plate glass barrier.

"Talk to your doctor," she said, turning away.

"I missed my last doctor's appointment and they used that excuse to kick me out of the county program."

"Talk to your case worker," she said.

"I have no case worker. I have no doctor. I have no money because nobody will hire me. I am too manic to work, been manic for a while, no sleep the whole week. Please let me in, this is the only way I can get medicine," I pleaded.

"There's no room," she said.

Mind you, she is behind a plate glass barrier in a psychiatric triage room. I am on the Outside, two feet away from the door to a barren world that despises me and makes me feel that my persecution delusions are not delusions at all but reality. 

Behind her, a male nurse shook his head. 

"I know her. She just needs her doctor. She's fine," he said. Turning to me he said, "GO TAKE YOUR MEDS."

"What meds? I haven't had meds in months. They won't see me, they won't give me treatment and the pharmacy won't give me the pills either because I have no insurance and doctors always prescribe the 700 dollars a month anti-psychotics," I told him. I then began to jabber on about what the voices were telling me. I told them all the horrible names they called me, the fact that I believed I was going to be renditioned, tortured, killed, brought back to life, tortured, killed, my whole family would be tortured and killed, the entire constitution had been overwritten, there was a mass conspiracy to psychically drive me into committing hara kiri....I told them that I was going to kill myself by slitting my wrist with a knife I bought for the purpose of slitting my wrist.

"Jesus Christ just TALK TO YOUR DOCTOR," the male nurse shouted. I walked out into the World, unmedicated, floridly psychotic, suicidal, and abandoned by the medical system and by doctors and nurses who vowed to uphold the Hippocratic oath. 

Later that week, I was still psychotic. I went to the outpatient treatment center that had previously been treating me. They sent me to a county mental health crisis center. The mental health crisis center was humorously located behind a "WALK INS ONLY" sign. I walked in. 

"We don't take walk ins."

"How do you get an appointment," I asked, apparently an idiot, as the women behind the counter were rolling their eyes.

"You walk in," she said. I was starting to feel like I was in backwards land.

"Okay. I'm a walk-in. I need to see a doctor."

"We can't take walk ins now." I was biting my lip. I was dealing with voices, visual hallucinations, thugs on the streets who were very aware that I was vulnerable and probably wouldn't be believed by cops if they robbed or assaulted me....here I was, I could see that jerk doctor in his room, shuffling papers, his Rx pad only feet away....these women were part of the Evil System. I began to realize that the only people getting treatment were the ones who walked outside naked to get their coffee from the corner store. Seeing as how I preferred to get my coffee fully clothed, I chose the next best option. I went back to the outpatient center.

At the outpatient center they attempted to turn me away, again. I decided to die. In fact, while I was killing myself, why not do it like that Buddhist monk who set himself ablaze in front of cameras as a form of protest to an unjust system?

"I am going to kill myself if you do not put me on anti-psychotics right now," I said. The woman grimaced, shut the little window, reopened the little window, and said, "You have to go through the county crisis center."

"Okay, I just wanted you to know that I am going to be slitting my wrist right here now." I was in an empty waiting room. The nurses were all behind glass barricades and doors with alarms. I didn't want to hurt anybody except myself because I was tired of the Catch-22 that is the Evil System. So I started to slit my wrist. My intent was to get to the bone and be done with this life, with this hateful Evil System...with everything. I just wanted the staff (SAFE behind the barricades, mind you) to remember the day they turned away that schizo patient who then lopped off her hand right in front of them and died a terrible death. It would be my hara kiri. My way of setting myself ablaze. I had actually thought of self-immolation but I was afraid the fire might get out of control and damage the building. So, I opted for wrist slitting.

They watched. They finally called an ambulance once the blood started to appear. I put the little cutting utensil through the slot below the window and watched it slide into the staff's side. Most times, a pen or a paper is slipped below the window. Today  it was my life.

The ambulance guys then came, tied me up to the gurney, and complained that REAL sick people had to go to the hospital and that all I needed was to see the DOCTOR who was right in that same building. They looked at me with scorn, derision, and barely concealed hatred. Whatever, I thought. I am Untouchable. I am a disgrace. I am a sore on society. So be it. As they drove me to the psychiatric facility, still talking about what a waste of an ambulance trip it had been, I started giggling. They shook their heads with unspeakable disgust.

"WHAT?"

"You wouldn't understand," I said, trying really hard not to laugh hysterically. To this day, I will not say what made me laugh. 

Believe me, reader, if I could go to the moon and start a colony with my schizophrenic and bipolar brethren, I would. I do not like being an unnecessary burden to you or the rest of society. I did not go into my own DNA strand as a fetus and make my own DNA defective, nor did I commit any felonies. I was just born with DNA that causes my brain to perceive what is not there for the rest of you.

I suggest that society either make jobs for the nutcases so they can afford their pills or craft a gigantic spaceship to send us all into outerspace so we can start a planet of our own, because obviously affordable health care will never be a reality, at least not in the next 75 years. No, euthanasia is not an option.

******************************************************************

4 years after the previous story:

I get medicine

I get therapy

I complete my Bachelor's degree

I volunteer places

I get a little book of erotica published

I get a boyfriend

I get a 3.6 my first semester in my Master's program

I get ready to move to Sweden as an emigre if worse comes to worse. Why Sweden? They seem sensible, which ironically, the current state does not appear to be.

I get a little blog up and running where I can leave my cyber footprint for everyone to see. This is my biography. This is my graffiti markings. This is my ultimate retribution---I can be disgraced but my soul is intact. Plus, I have a plasma TV. That is more than a lot of people have. I earned my plasma TV by studying so hard I was honored with merit-based financial aid. 

Now if you will excuse me, I will now watch PBS on my Plasma TV and devise strategies to make a living and donate half my earnings to NAMI. Tata.

At Times Obtuse At Times Hypersensitive

Like the title says, I am at times obtuse and at other times hypersensitive. Being schizophrenic is a cognitive disorder and it affects my social awareness. It is one of the embarrassing aspects of the disease, this social clumsiness I experience. There is fear, constant fear. There is panic on occasion. There is confusion a lot of the times, but often one part of my disease is inconsistant. My social awareness is skewed in one direction or the other, sometimes shifting in a single day.

At times I miss cues from other people signaling discomfort, annoyance, or even affection. At other times, I perceive emotions, be it hatred or attraction, that are not really there. I have learned to bite down on my instincts thanks to instances where I've had my first impression proved wrong. For example, I once thought my art professor hated me deeply. I avoided eye contact and any social interaction as I felt an imaginary loathing emanating from her. Instead, I poured my anxiety into my artwork. I desperately wanted my art professor's approval but I felt that she wanted me to drop her class and disappear from the face of the planet. One night, she passed my drawing of a flower and put a hand to her heart. I thought she was going to say it looked like a very evil flower. Instead she said, "That is incredible! Absolutely beautiful. It touches me." Stunned, I realized that she felt the exact opposite of what I thought she felt. The entire semester I thought she felt my artwork was an extension of myself---thus, she would naturally hate it. After that, I questioned my perceptions entirely. Shortly thereafter, I began to spiral downwards, believing that people thought I was an evil person, that they were going to frame me for horrible crimes, and I was brought to the ER psych unit by my worried mother. I was then diagnosed with schizo-affective disorder and the series of faulty perceptions made sense; my perceptions were skewed.

Rather than slip into a deep haze of self-hatred as some schizophrenics do (as society can abhor a schizophrenic), I began to study the disease by reading everything from the library. I learned to see it not in terms of bad luck but an unfortunate triggering of certain genetically inherited properties. It was not a curse from some cruel God, but a disease of science that is still in the process of being understood by scientists.

I learned about the dopamine hypothesis that states schizophrenia is a disease that results from an excess of the neurotransmitter dopamine. What causes this excess may be genetic, or a combination of genetics and environment, but whatever it is, it is not the result of a wicked heart. Often, schizophrenics are misunderstood.

Just today I got an email from an ex-lover who said that he moved out because his roommate (who happened to be schizophrenic) got drunk, high, and threatened him with a knife. My ex-lover blamed this violent threat on the person's schizophrenia. I think this is ridiculous, as drunk and high people who are not schizophrenic often act out violently. Should I therefore assume that every alcoholic is on the verge of murdering me in cold blood because of his state of intoxication? Despite the fact that drunken rages of violence are super common, I would not. Why, then, would my ex-lover believe that violence is common among schizophrenics? It is this ignorance that is detrimental to all of us in the States. Ignorance means that there is a reluctance to admit to mental illness and this can leave a person incapacitated due to their untreated mental illness.

On one last note, all people are equal with equal rights and opportunities. Remember that next time you encounter somebody who admits to (or exhibits) a mental illness. It is an unfortunate truth that the majority of people who have been through treatment for mental illness have faced blatant discrimination, fear, hatred, blame, and the cruelty that can come from the very people who are employed to look after their well being; mental health practitioners.

I took a psychology of criminal behavior class at my University and the professor said something that resonated deeply with me: "There are two work places that attract highly controlling and domineering personality types seeking employment: prisons and mental hospitals." This was coming from a man who used to work in an asylum for the criminally insane!

In conclusion, please be kind and don't pour salt onto the psychic wounds of the mentally ill. We are all fighting our internal hell in order to smile or say hello. At some point, your life will hit an obstacle, perhaps due to a death in the family, and you will feel the same struggle we can feel on a daily basis.

Confessions of a Closet Schizophrenic

I'm a returning University student, a senior with just 1 and a half semesters left to achieve a B.A. I made the dean's list last semester and I also got straight A's taking 13 units during the summer. I'm well-dressed, well-groomed, well-read, and well, crazy.

I'm a decent person with a clean legal record. Unless you count my 5150's where the police came to the house to capture the girl who was cowering in a corner, afraid of assassins barging in at 3 in the morning. Even then, in the midst of my mental illness, I wasn't a threat to other people. Myself, perhaps, but not you, not my family, not anybody else. Like a parasite, the schizophrenia preys on its host until its host is but a shell of her former self.

But that was 2 years ago. I've been in recovery through medication and cognitive behavioral therapy for about that long and I haven't had an episode since. I have a long-term care provider, a counselor at a state disability program, and good grades despite recent deaths in the family. I'm what a professional would call "stable."

But in the long run, what chances do I have of living a successful life? Can I expect real employment after I graduate, or will my future be an endless series of single job interviews with unsympathetic employers wearily eying their health insurance packets? This problem isn't mine, it's yours. If I can't find work I'll go seek state disability. That's tax payer money. I'd RATHER work. I CAN work. I CAN critically think. I CAN be productive. I CAN maintain high levels of stress with appropriate coping skills. Does this really matter as soon as I drop the S-word (schizo-affective disorder) with somebody?

According to the Americans with Disabilities Act, I am guaranteed equality under the federal government and in all aspects of employment, education, and social treatment. But this area is an area where a lot of people break the law and get away with it. Many people discriminate against persons with a mental diagnosis. They fear them. They hate them. They mock them. They ostracize them. I'm not talking about the thug at the end of the block. I'm talking about people in high positions. Employers, CEO's, supervisors, professors, publishers, agents, and many, many corporations.

To a corporation the mental diagnosed are just unnecessary burdens. We "drain" their health care resources. We "slow down" their productivity. We "can't get along" with other coworkers.

They apparently never got the news that Pulitzer Prize winner Sylvia Plath was mad, or that Nobel Prize winner John Nash was a schizophrenic. Indeed, many talented people can have a diagnosis while being productive.

But back to the title of this post: I'm a closet schizophrenic. I tried one semester of partially disclosing my medical needs to my professors. I am under the Students with Disabilities Services program and as part of it, we may choose to hand out letters requesting specific accommodations. Mine was infrequent absences due to doctor's appointments. I got 2 letters out to 2 different professors. They were both kind. However, when it came to handing the letters out to my major's professors, I chickened out. I couldn't face them knowing they knew there was something behind my shy demeanor.

I had turned in a scholarship application and applied as a disabled student. I submitted physician's proof of this. I wrote honestly about having an average GPA because a lot of my college time coincided with periods where I couldn't get treatment, be it because the county refused to treat me or because I was in denial of my illness. I was clear, honest, sincere. I was then soundly rejected. I didn't even receive a hundred dollar scholarship. Nothing. I had a sufficient GPA to transfer to a major University despite being chronically disabled, but I wasn't deemed worthy of a hundred dollar scholarship. Maybe I'm being bitter, but why would they ask if you're disabled if they are not going to take that fact into consideration?

This time around, when I apply for grad school, I might not disclose that I'm mentally disabled. I might pretend to just be a lazy pothead who didn't take school seriously the first couple of years. Maybe they'd be more sympathetic if I just sugar-coated my entire existence.

When friends ask why I'm going to the doctor, even close friends I trust dearly, I still say, "check-up." Maybe I should start saying I have a chronic heart condition. Maybe then I'd be accepted as "an acceptable disabled person" and not a "risk" or an unwanted type of person.

I'm perfectly willing to work my ass off at a job with high stress. I'm willing to continue my treatment program. I'm willing to be open to criticism and new ideas. The question is: are the rest of you willing to accept me as a disabled worker?