Assembly-Line Approach to the Criminal Justice System & Mental Health: Insane & Unjust (Part 8)
Chapter 8
Side-Effects From Taking Medications & The Horrible Pain That Is Taking Place
Later that night after taking just a small dose of Seroquel my tongue had swelled up on the right side especially for some reason. It was really weird though because I was sucking on ice cubes and brushing my teeth and my mouth really good and not too hard, but I figured that I could brush my teeth so I did. Usually the ice I thought would bring the swelling down but it wasn’t going down to a point where I was able to sleep with the pain. That night in there I was feeling a lot of aggravated anxieties of just wanting to leave and was feeling that this hold was just not appropriate for me. I wasn’t a danger to myself and I wasn’t a danger to other people, and I knew that – but, I had a hard time proving it to other people because of what things were said. I talked to the nurse about the pain I was experiencing and he had given me some Tylenol, but it barely helped and eventually I just went to bed and ended up sleeping around 1:00 a.m.
If this was the kinds of care that America was willing to pay for through the state, this made me fear paying taxes ever again – I didn’t think that it was right because my rights are being violated and I don’t feel heard in there to the point where I felt I should have been there at all. It was all as if what was being done is setting me up to look bad and to make everything that I and my mom and others experienced was just a hallucination or a delusion when it wasn’t. Talk about scary! Can I just get someone who was willing to listen to me where I was truly concerned, and not make believe that what I was saying wasn’t true or had any truth to to say at all? I knew in my heart what was right, and I didn’t need their approval for what I knew was right in my heart. To a point, a place like this could help people, but when it came to relaxation and therapy, where I sat felt more like a prison. A prison for the mind and a prison in a way where it makes people think it’s such a wonderful place to put your family in care, but on the inside of that place – it holds no therapeutic value in the fact that it’s sort of traumatizing when you can’t go out and smoke, or do anything that you would normally be doing. Then, on top of all of that, they wanted to add chemicals where they are truly able to push peoples minds and behaviors in a way where I know some people are being inflicted with what they are going through instead of getting help with the drugs they are giving – their drugs to me were more mentally straining people and destroying peoples natural abilities to think for themselves. It got to a point where 9 times out of 10 I began to just see people in just an enormous amount of pain and all over in ways where they too were afraid to speak out. And, that my friend – is scary. Scary as hell! When you’re in your mind and trying to speak something and you can’t. I’ve been there myself, and it’s not an easy place to be.
Neurological issues, anxieties and agendas all clashing in such a way where some people were losing 100% control of their own minds, bodies and their mouths, and in their own ways of wording things, because they felt that no one was willing to listen to them anymore. I personally was paying attention to everything in there that I could hold onto, so that I could pin-point to someone who’ll read my story and determine for themselves whether or not what they are doing in there was wrong or not. Wrong in a way where these people aren’t getting care where they could get better cared for elsewhere. They couldn’t, because they didn’t see how anymore, and you could just see where people had given up and lost hope. One lady was scared everyday to even come out of her room where she would open up the door, and maybe walk about ten feet before turning and just wanting to crawl back into her room. It was fear that she had, and an unscrupulous amount of it. It wasn’t necessary is what I thought over the fact that she probably just needed someone to help comfort her and bring her out. But, that was the definition of institutionalized. She was confounded to her tiny little room and never left it. How sad is that? And still I was left to wonder, is there anyone in this world that cares anymore?
Sometimes I fear the worst for people because of what I was witnessing in there and having conversations with people like Henry where he was hearing voices in a manner that seemed to me that they shouldn’t have to fight, and feeling themselves that they shouldn’t have had to fight. But saying things like, “Did you hear that?” And, I’d say, “No, I didn’t hear anything,” and he’d say, “Oh, never-mind.” Then later coming up to me and saying to me and another patient that he feels like he’s dying, and then crashing into a wall and saying, “I just don’t want to die in here this way.” He also said things to himself, like, “I didn’t just say something did I?” He was all sorts of confused when saying things out of the blue like that and having laughing fits and such. He was diagnosed as a schizophrenic as I was aware that he was one, but the part that was troubling to me was that he felt as though it shouldn’t have been happening to him and that he was confused and his medications seemed to make it worse. I wasn’t sure about the extent of his situation but, I felt as though it wasn’t as if the medications he was taking was going to help him. I was afraid that when he did get medications – these symptoms worsened and didn’t get any better. He was suffering at night-time and was super lonesome in it. It didn’t seem as though he had much of a support system for his sadness and feeling a lack of love. I just did what I could to be there for him and to offer to play games with him or just to talk or finish a puzzle. I let him know that if you just wanted someone to talk with – that I’d be willing to listen. I might not be able to do anything more then that, but I would listen and sometimes I felt that’s all I needed at times, and had a hard time getting someone to listen to me – so I’d offer that to somebody else in a heart-beat. It seemed to me like the right thing to do.
He was hallucinating or seemingly hearing voices that weren’t there even to the point where he thought he was saying things out-loud that were only happening in his head. Before he was taking medications though he told me that he never experienced things like he was.
One of the most painful stories was from Raina where she was scared to be in there. To the point where she told me that she never wants to come back to a place like this and feared that her pace-maker was able to give her thoughts that weren’t natural thoughts, and she seemed like she knew more about what was going on in there then a lot of people did and had an idea at least of what was going on in the world. She said that if there was a way to get rid of her pace-maker that she would and that she’s experienced it before where her heart would slow way down, and thinks that because if there was a God in heaven that her heart would start back up again, if God wanted her to still be here – she had faith that she would still make it through even had she ripped out her pace-maker, but also said that she’s been experiencing such painful things in life that if she didn’t make it and she had died, that she’d know that she would be in a better place then here. What she was saying is that it just wasn’t worth it to be placed in these places and felt as though she couldn’t get her life back ever. She said, that someone had her phone and all her contacts and that it’s been completely hacked. She said she’s had probably had over 500 E-mail accounts just trying to figure things out where she was going through a lot to where if it hadn’t been happening the ways that it did – she was assured that she’d be in a better place in life altogether.
She said, I’d be happy in ways just to die, because this world just carried too much pain and wasn’t as if there care was helping me. She asked me, “Do you think something strange is happening in our world and with people?” I said, “Yeah, I do.” I really think that this world is stranger then fiction sometimes. It’s just too much pain and too much hurt going on that drives a natural person right out of themselves, and right out of their dreams and beings. It’s as if we were never supposed to have a dream at all. And, especially if you are wanting to do more then what this world was willing to do. You want to actually care about people – you’re going to have to face things boy, because this world had been given over to the Devil.
She said, “it’s enough for me to be having to go through all these experiences and I felt like I used to have a good head on my shoulders.” She continued to say that she had a good solid job, and a nice home and a car and had a lot going for her where she was able to help her family and help herself more, and now – she’s feeling taken away from being able to do the things that she would otherwise still be doing or working toward. And, these are all in her own words. It was astonishing to me – because some of what I was going through, I was feeling as though people could possibly be controlled. My mom was not herself and then herself, and over and over it seemed as though she was slipping further and further from the mom that I used to know. But, the scary part was that she wasn’t seeing it. I did. I was seeing a steady decline in both of our health and I was fairly aware of things that were going on I thought, just really feeling pushed in a way where I just wanted to crawl up out of the depths of the painstaking places that I was feeling set into. My biggest issue was that I just needed to be paid correctly, and that I actually got the money that I put in work hours for – I would have been able to do a lot more, and do a lot more in the ways that I felt I wanted to make amends with the world and I wanted to help people in some miraculous way where this world I was feeling was afraid of me and afraid of my true ability beyond their own to care more. And, maybe it should be that way. I wanted to actually help people, and actually be there for people. I didn’t want to feel pushed to the brink anymore like I felt I was being pushed to this point. But, everything had a beginning and an end and I knew that this was temporary. Life according to me wasn’t just this stuff we were going through on earth… I was a firm believer that God had something better in store for people then what people were getting. And, I believed that He did no matter what came of this silly world.
It’s way too much sadness, pain, confusion, frustration and anger taring through these walls that filled up your heart and it was as if you weren’t going to be able to feel good in here, even had you felt that you got heard – I was feeling also that I wasn’t being heard, so it was truly scary to know that these are the kinds of things that can happen when you have an actual real issue going on where your rights should have been protected. In all honesty it felt lawless how I was telling my story and treated as though I was hallucinating and making these things up. Why would I make up bugs and mice as something to be delusional about. I wasn’t making things up. What I experienced was real and not a hallucination which is how I was being treated. It was a most absurd experience to have.
It was a hard place to pray from and an even harder thing to give to God in hopes that something better would come of it. But, I trusted in the Lord as I had no other choice. I knew that with God all things were possible and I just believed and felt in my heart that it was my only way out. I relied on God to get me out of there praying in my mind, “I know you’re bigger then this Lord – you’ve got to be.” And, the next day I felt that He came through for me.