He is a Criminal First, Mentally Ill a Distant Second

I am a little bit in shock. The local community  newspaper decided to do a spread on "Mentally ill treatment in jails." Lo and behold, the man who sexually battered me while I was trying to sleep in my psychiatric room was being interviewed during his jail stay for a second sexually battery on a psychiatric patient. He was being pitied by the interviewer, who felt bad for him because he was in Atascadero Jail, a place for the criminally insane, and not receiving his lithium.

Let's get our facts straight, yellow journalists, he's a criminal first, a mental patient second.

Where in the DSM V manual does it say that "rape" and "sexual battery" are symptoms of bipolar disorder? I did not receive that memo. Why? Because nobody in psychiatry believes that bipolar = rapist. Unless you look in the section for "sociopaths" where lack of empathy, pleasure in others' pain, and violence are all symptoms of NOT PSYCHOSIS but of a SOCIOPATH!!! Triple exclamation point!!!

So, I had to endure reading 2 pages of embellished, pitying, second rate writing by college students and their yellow journalist professor who had all set out to make the world feel sorry for the criminals because they happened to also have bipolar disorder. This infuriates me deeply.

I did not get medication for a long period of years. I never sexually assaulted or physically harmed or threatened to hurt any human, despite my florid delusions. I coped with my fear, agitation, and anger through writing and drawing. The mental facilities turned me away, the outpatient centers said I was not sick enough, and all this until I literally slashed my wrist in the little psych admitting room. They were all busy treating raping, marauding sociopaths blaming their mental illness for their crimes to get out of jail.

I told you readers several times before, sociopaths blame "mental illness" because they prefer coed living situations with Seroquel zombie-fied catatonic depressive females who they can assault and get away with it over the all-male jail cells where they righteously belong.

Screw the criminally insane and their yellow journalist followers. If a law-abiding citizen has no access to medicine, why the hell should they get medicine?!?! I say, if they want to blame their mental illness for the crime, let them suffer their mental illness. Once they stop saying "it was because I have an illness" and start admitting it is really because they are raping perverts who have anger management issues and no empathy for their victims--- then they can have their medicine.

Growl. I am so mad right now. To make things worse, I volunteer for a group that is supposed to promote equality for the mentally ill, yet they are toting this article as a "godsend" which will help the mentally ill. *gasp. Apparently, they are not thinking about myself or the other woman who he apparently managed to rape completely (I managed to escape by kicking a lot, but with bruises).

Growl. What about the millions of people who are mentally ill but who OBEY the law? Now WE cannot come out of the closet because all anybody hears about is how the criminals don't get their psych meds and commit monstrous crimes because of it! I am sickened. Totally sickened.

Sickened. Thank God I am free from that evil mental hospital and I don't have to  put up with any rapists sneaking into my room and attacking me while I am asleep. I have to remind myself that I am safe now. I am sane now. I am a law-abiding citizen with free will who respects other law-abiding citizens. I am safe...I just have to keep saying that...I am safe...I am safe...that criminal is in a jail cell somewhere...and I am safe.

Psychiatric Facilities

I have never instigated any sort of violence. One time, a woman who looked high on hard drugs came up to me on the street and hit me in the chest as I was walking to Starbucks. I had to push her away several times as she continued to attempt to attack me. Eventually, she ran away. I reported her to the police, like a good citizen is supposed to. Other than that, I have never been in any kind of altercation.

I am a former mental patient, but I assure you that I have not and will not use any violence or weapons against a person in my life. In my times at the psychiatric facilities, I have been sexually victimized by other patients, mistreated by the staff who allowed male patients to roam into my room while I was sleeping, received numerous death threats from men, and I  had to resort to making phone calls to my patient's rights advocates and administration to report the ridiculous negligent attitudes of staff. Since I last was hospitalized about 3-4 years ago, the psychiatric facility has since been taken over by a private company, and many of the staff were replaced. Regardless, I have horrible memories of abuse and restraints, and I have no desire to ever be confined to a space where my safety rests in the hands of underpaid, unsympathetic staff.

The hospitals are a breeding ground for neglect. Unlike elderly homes, mental asylums are possibly more vulnerable to hidden abuse because it is expected that patients are delirious and imagining things that are not happening.

The psychological wounds I received from my schizo-affective disorder are nowhere near the sort of emotional injuries I received from the treatment of this illness. These are not hospitals but asylums and the patients are not patients so much as captives.

I usually get told my doctors that I am pretending to be better when in fact I am still too sick to leave the hospital. Of course I am!! Anywhere, ANYWHERE, is better than the hospital. One would expect constant monitoring of patient activity, but that is usually not the case except at medication dispensing time. Staff is fully aware that a 280 pound guy who wants into my room might be resistant to being told no, so they ignore him.

The safest I felt in the psychiatric hospital, to be totally frank, is when the murderers and rapists from the nearby prison were on our ward. Why?? Because the police came with them to make sure they didn't escape. There would be two guards sitting near their beds (which were always in the middle of the main TV room) at all times. During their stays, everybody else behaved, including the visiting criminals. Ironic, right?

A lot of times, some of the patients would be in the hospital because they made murder threats and were put on a "threat to others" hold. Between jail and the mental hospital, the volatile people feigned mental illness to avoid a cell. Other times, the patients would be in the hospital after mixing alcohol with meth or cocaine. These drugs can look like violent psychosis and the cops were just as likely to stick them in the wards with genuine mentally ill people than put them in jail or into rehab.

You know those stories about how prisons are the new mental hospital? I am not sure I believe that. Personality disordered people are quick to figure out who gets cool mind-altering drugs, time in co-ed hospitals versus jail cells, and a quick release. They fake illness. I know there are criminals who are genuinely mentally ill, but trust me, 90% of homeless people are genuinely mentally ill and at least 50% of criminally insane people are faking their insanity. If you really want to see a cluster of mentally ill people go to your local homeless shelter. That's where they are. Not in jail cells. People like John Hinkley are exceptions, not the rule. 

1% of Psychotics Are Violent, I am the 99%

I always hate seeing violence in the news, especially this new massacre in Colorado. Every time there is a random act of violence people start labeling them "psycho," "insane," and lumping all of us law abiding mental cases in with the violent maniacs that take their angst out on innocent people.

It occurred to me that I should quote from a book written by a world renowned criminal profiler. Dr. Hickey has studied serial murderers, mass murderers, sexual deviants, and criminals in general for decades. He has published numerous textbooks on the subjects, including this one, "Serial Murderers and Their Victims," fifth ed., published in 2010. Here is a quote from that textbook:

"...[Souza in 2002] found that although mass murderers will most likely have a history of both childhood trauma and violent behavior, most do not have any significant history of institutionalization (Hickey, p. 59, 2010)."
        ---So, essentially, the bulk of mass murderers have never seen the inside of a psych ward. They appear to be normal, unlike the majority of schizophrenics, who stand out like a sore thumb in society and are constantly admitted into psychiatric facilities for behavioral modification, medication, and confinement.

Later on, the book states, "Henn, Herjanic, and Vanderpearl (1976) examined the psychiatric assessments of nearly 2,000 persons arrested for homicide between 1964 and 1973 and noted that only 1% were considered to be psychotic (Hickey, p. 62, 2010)."

This is not anecdotal stories that I just made up. This is genuine research conducted by PhD's who are at the top of their fields. Maybe this criminal is insane, if so, he is that 1% of mentally ill people who perpetrate crimes. Please do not take your anger out on the law abiding 99%!!

For those of you who do not know this, there is a state mandate that says if you have ever been put on a "5150" hold, meaning that you are judged to be a threat to yourself or to others or you are incapable of caring for yourself, you are prohibited from possessing or purchasing a fire arm for at least five years! The most chronic cases, those of us who are repeat mental patients in psych wards, are fairly likely to NEVER own a hand gun, due to the fact that every couple of years we are hospitalized.

Let us not forget that the bulk of crimes are committed by sociopaths. Sociopathy is a personality disorder, not a neuro-chemical imbalance that is inherited from one's genetics. Sociopaths are cunning, deceitful, sane, and organized (usually organized, there are some that are classified as "disorganized"). Schizophrenics are totally scatterbrained, bewildered, frightened, and busy with their internal worlds of make believe voices and visions.

Just like race, please do not discriminate due to mental disability. We are not gun wielding maniacs. We fear the gun wielding maniacs as much as the next person, even more so, because the after math affects how everyone treats mental patients, which often involves indirect victimization of innocent schizophrenics.

I  urge you to follow the laws set forth by the constitution. I vow to follow the constitution. Please do not violate the constitution.

My sympathies are with the victims of the Colorado massacre. I am glad they apprehended the person responsible. I await his day in court with the rest of the nation.

Thank you for reading. Please have a good day!

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.

An Excellent Book On Schizophrenia by Elyn Saks

I just ordered this book, The Center Cannot Hold by Elyn R. Saks, through amazon dot com and it arrived yesterday. I have read all of 24 pages and I'm hooked. It's the kind of book that gets me so excited I can't sit still. 24 pages into this memoir of psychosis and I had to set it down and take a long walk while listening to industrial techno music. I felt the euphoria of someone who had just found somebody who was like myself.

Yes, 24 pages is all it took to make me endorse a book I barely read. From the opening scene at the Yale Law school library's rooftop to the admission of early drug use to her parents--- that's as far as I got before I realized I was reading a book up there with An Unquiet Mind and Prozac Nation.

I am so excited about this book I felt like promoting it before I even finished it. True, only a few people visit this blog, but to you, the random one person who accidentally stumbled here, I encourage you to purchase this book and give it a read.

Due to the nature of schizophrenia it is difficult to find a writer who can detail her/his illness with clarity and insight, as the illness can rob us sufferers of clarity of thought. Many of the memoirs on schizophrenia are written by the close relatives of people who suffer from the disease. There are some notable exceptions, such as the son of Kurt Vonnegut Jr. who wrote Eden's Express (Mark Vonnegut).

Elyn R. Saks really comes out as a major prose writer, as well as a memoir writer, which makes her writing all the more powerful. At one point, she writes that she felt like an "insect on a pin" while being admitted to a psychiatric facility. This is too true. Sad, but honest and well-written.

Please purchase this book! It is a good way to see that a schizophrenic is just a person with a cognitive disability, someone who can nonetheless achieve goals in life.

Here's a link to the book on amazon dot com.
http://www.amazon.com/Center-Cannot-Hold-Journey-Through

PANOPTICON

Last semester I took a political science course with a self-proclaimed Marxist professor. He was handsome, charming, brilliant, and vehemently against the exploitation of the masses. One day he lectured on what is known as the "panopticon" model of surveillance.

Panopticon refers to an architectural structure of a building that is so high that it can see into the houses below. The houses below are all built with a see-through roof, like a glass ceiling. Every see-through house is placed so that 100% of what goes on inside the house is visible to those in the great tower.

According to my professor, prisons and mental asylums were built on this principle. Though I've never been in prison or committed any felonies which warrant imprisoning, I have served time in psychiatric facilities.

The triage room in the Emergency Room is built Panopticon-style. They place you in a room with no door and no light switch so that you are bathed in light, rendering sleep an impossibility. Over head, a camera captures every second you spend in the room, and you are never allowed outside the room except to use the bathroom. If you use the bathroom for too long a security guard bangs on the door, taser and baton on his belt, and orders you to come outside.

To make matters worse, they force you and the other mental patients into a common blue hospital shirt and pants. This seems to be part of the process of stripping your personality down to its barest bits. I remember taking my hospital issued socks off because I hated what the padded soles represented: institutionalization. A guard, having watched me remove my hospital-issued socks, entered my space and ordered me to put them back on. It seemed like such a trivial detail: socks. However, we both understood the socks to be compliance, to be a part of my shaming costume of the mentally unfit. The socks weren't just socks, they were fuzzy shackles I had to wear, as a ward of the state. I put them back on. Later I removed them again, frustrated and unable to think straight in my manic-induced psychotic state. Again, the guard entered and ordered my socks back on.

After 48 hours of constant, bright fluorescent lights, cameras and security guards watching my every move, and a cocky doctor casually signing my life away on my medical chart, I was restrained on a stretcher and moved to a long-term psych ward. There, patients were allowed to get in my face and threaten me without reproach and the staff were cold, manipulative, and contemptuous. Sometimes, I hated the outside of my room so much that I refused to leave my bed. A doctor told me I was just making it worse for myself, why wouldn't I comply with the program. I insisted I was on strike. He upped my dose of anti-psychotics and anti-depressants. Eventually, spurred on by artificial chemicals, I got out of bed and grudgingly showed up for group and lunch.

This pattern happened more than once, more than thrice, even. Being a poor person who can't afford health insurance, I wound up being hospitalized quite a number of times before the State realized it would be cheaper just to pay for outpatient services than to have to warehouse me in another panopticon institution for the rest of my life.

What's my point? Panopticons exist. They are a form of thought control, of behavioral modification. Yes, I am better for being so humiliated, stripped down, and drugged, but I wonder if there is not a better way to help mental invalids?

If you're in the mental health field, please consider alternatives to this opticon method of treatment. While I am obedient with my mother, the University, and society, a part of me remains that mental patient that rolls of the gray, padded sock and tosses it on the ground. Maybe you should, too. Not all panopticons are as obvious as psychiatric hospitals. Some panopticons exist in the mind.