Hi everyone, today is Aug 17. I am starting a “PHP” outpatient program at the mental hospital that I just finished staying at for two weeks. It was a rough time but something they did worked and my condition did get better in some ways. But I also am experiencing new spells of paranoia that I think are from the emotional abuse I have been experiencing at my apartment and then at the hospital itself. Some of it is hidden behind a power play dynamic meant to keep control of patients and clients. It is a system where the staff will do things that you obviously don’t want, and delay things like medicine or opening doors, no matter how simple, just random things turned into a process that makes you feel bad and helpless.
It reminds me of a fun card game I played in college called “Mao-master,” where as you play certain cards, your friends make up rules for each card, and people have to do random stuff like run around the table or say something stupid. It is a really fun game, but one time with a different group of friends than usual, I suggested playing it and this guy named Michael said no, because it was named after Mao, who was a dictator that killed hundreds of millions of people in China a long time ago.
It is kind of chilling, but that is what is happening in some mental hospitals and now in my mental health housing. It is impossible to be a “good client,” and you can’t earn peace and safety just by obeying the rules and doing your resonspibilities. Instead, the rules change exactly as you go about each requirement, so nothing is good enough, and nothing you do is right. It is constant power plays from staff, who obviously have had training, so people could be warned instead. It is meant to be used instead of physical restraints, but it is worse and they know it.
I do think there is a risk of this way of doing things to sweep across more contexts and overtake “rule by law.” I recognize that as something I have heard on TV, but that is what is missing in the hospitals, is a dignity where there are rules posted and if you do what you are supposed to then you aren’t abused. Instead now, it is about who has power and making sure they subjugate the people. I see a similar trend in government, and it is probably not a coincidence.
The hospitalization was disturbing in other ways too but obviously I am going back for the outpatient phase of treatment so I still have some trust.
However I do disagree with these “psychological restraints” that supposedly allow for perceived freedom. I think especially with autistic people who already suffer socially, this will be torturesome for a long time and a lot of people.
Just to give some examples, a guy in the hospital asks my name. I say “Sarah,” which is an easy name. Then he says “What?” and makes me repeat it. I say “Sarah,” and he makes me repeat it again. He is trying to establish power where I can’t get what I want from doing anything, even and especially for what I am supposed to. That is the whole idea. It is the same with asking for two sugars for coffee. They hand me a pink sweet and low, which everyone knows Is not sugar. Then “Oh, you mean white sugar?” Total dishonesty and disrespect. Multiply those experiences times about 400-500 times over a few days, and it becomes rather torturesome.
When I was repeating my name, I finally said “What?” and made the guy repeat himself. So then he says, “Let me see your wristband.” I show him my hospital bracelet in clear view and he grabs my wrist un-necessarily as a threat of severe escalation and violation. That is how it works. They can escalate these power plays until you are strapped to a stretcher with an injection and sent to jail. Two days later, the hall attendants lapse their job on purpose so another patient starts coming in my room. Then, what do you know, the medicine people at the nurse’s station “don’t have the Trileptal yet,” so I have to wait until a nurse brings it to my room. And it could be the guy who grabbed my wrist as a dominating threat of who knows what, just let your paranoid mind take a guess. This is not an anomaly, it is not just a bad hospital, it is the new mental health care, and it closely resembles some of the other mindfulness tendencies in therapy, which have roots in Buddhism. Why throw Buddhism into the mix, really that stuff can help people heal, these “present moment” strategies can offer some relief, but I have to say that societally, I know where this is headed, and it is not good.
Do I think that patients could be safe with a more respectful dignity system where they know what they are supposed to do and there are only consequences if they don’t? Yes, I do, and in the south it was more like that. Not perfect, but more of a straightforward honesty and kindness system.
Think of someone playing with a baby and taking away a rattle, then handing it back, then giving it and handing it back. The old game similar to peek-a-boo. How degrading to start doing that to depressed adults. And then to throw threats of captivity and sexual abuse in the mix.
I do lose respect for whole professions from these experiences, I do find the ethics questionable or non-existent. It is not a joke, I go to the hospital and with devastation see how the one-in-forty autism rate plus our leadership problems in this nation could swiftly result in whole generations of disabled people being put to death. Don’t think that leftist racism won’t also rise to Nazi levels. It is something to guard against. I will probably not be able to say much more about it that is reliable because these experiences are making my mental status further decline and I have new spells of paranoia now, which used to not be part of my illness. I can’t get help for it and prevent the mistreatment. I am going to have to flee back to the south where there simply is no mental health care in some places. There is no housing, there are no programs, people just felt that ignoring the problems was better than intervention, and compared to the controlling abusers taking over in nyc, they might have been right.
