So re: the last post - we’re not moving. People offering
endowed chairs should probably check their rulebooks first so they don’t have
to rescind their offer after the fact. Because it’s really unprofessional when
you have to do that. And also shitty.
So back to focusing on the positive about where we’re at and
trying to maintain relationships with friends in the 10 minutes they have each
year when they’re not parenting.
But that’s not why I’m posting today.
On Thursday, I was looking for an old document on my
computer and happened upon an email from an old friend of mine I lived with in
a residential step-down psychiatric program in California back in 2003 &
2004. She and I were both borderlines (though mine had a dash of narcissism
while hers had a sprinkling of schizoaffective). Nonetheless, and despite both
being rather impossible people, we had that common language that you only find
in people who share your diagnosis: that, “hey you can actually follow my train
of thought!” Through mostly thick and occasionally thin, we had each other’s
backs. I got in trouble for saying the things she wanted to say and vice versa.
We’d stayed in touch via Facebook since I moved back east but that was about
it. I should Google her, I thought - see what she’s up to these
days.
Her name popped up immediately.
As a commenter on a news story.
About the residential program we used to live at.
About a police shooting there on Christmas night.
About a client who was shot.
A client was delusional and wielding a butter knife.
A client who died from his wounds.
As I read through the comments, I encountered the usual
pro-police, anti-police debate. I saw the arguments for and (mostly against)
having such a facility in a residential area. I read that some people in the
neighborhood didn’t mind having neighbors who were in recovery – recognizing
that there are families everywhere dealing with the same issues. Others felt
very threatened and mentioned distances to local schools and parks. I read that
a man had set himself on fire in the backyard about 10 years ago – a fact I
hadn’t known but now realize my psychiatrist had vaguely alluded to at one
point.
I saw the clients called “inmates” and “parolees.” And who
knows… perhaps they are. I myself arrived there on bail, after having been
arrested a month earlier, my court case still pending. 18 months later, police
escorted me from the house one night when I was in a particularly bad place and
needed someone with a little more authority to make sure that I was safe. I
remember the police coming and going every couple of weeks. They clearly didn’t
like coming to the house just as much as we didn’t like seeing them. But
usually, when they were called, we were grateful they’d come. But I doubt
anyone ever saw THIS coming.
- - -
I’ve been working with yet another new therapist this fall (long
story) and a lot of the work we’ve been doing has been on how surprisingly
traumatized I’ve been by my experiences in the mental health system. I mean, I
know… I shouldn’t really be surprised, but when you become suicidal at age 8 in
a dysfunctional family, you just tend to assume that most of your issues are
family-of-origin-related. But it’s led me to think a lot lately about is the
feedback loop that is the life of the seriously mentally ill. You get sick for
one reason or another (often environmental), and then the treatment environment
itself is as equally traumatizing. It’s hard to pull apart what part is YOUR
reaction to your environment and what part is your environment’s reaction to YOU.
I have a good friend who’s become very active in the blacklivesmatter movement
this year and it’s hard not to see parallels when police arrive on scene and 19
seconds later someone’s dead.
I’ve just finished the graduate program I embarked upon in
the spring of ’14 when the whole surrogacy situation went belly-up. And so I’ve
been thinking a lot about the newfound time I’ll have on my hands (and of
course it’s New Years when one tends to think about priorities). And I keep
thinking about how my life feels like it’s missing some pretty big requirements
these days: peers, creativity, physical health.
But this latest fatality was a bit of a wake up call. I want
to find a way to get back into mental health advocacy. As my husband and
finally achieve some measure of increasing security, I believe it’s incumbent
upon me to speak for those who don’t. I don’t have answers. I don’t know any
model that works. All I know is that doing nothing isn’t saving any lives.
