Captain's Log #9 - Compassionate for whom?
6/3/17
I bought the fixings for Norwegian meatballs for this week’s
potluck. I even found geitost, lingonberry jam and Norwegian flatbread at my
neighborhood grocery. Didn’t find the pickled herring but I’ll look elsewhere.
I’ll let you know how the party goes.
I don’t think I’m in any danger of being fired, yet. I’m
working primarily as an assistant to another employee. There’s a story or two I
could share about her but some other time. She’s someone who makes me convinced
we all are somewhere on The Crazy Spectrum. She is just this side of
institutionalization, IMHO. I did have the opportunity to scan with the other
OTs and participate in their chatter. One is my age with a couple of
grandchildren, another is younger with a 24 year old daughter, another is
younger still with a 3 month old baby, then there’s a single man in his early
20s still living at home. He holds his own among all these women, and they look
out for him, like the mothers they are. “Have you spoken with Human Resources
about your health insurance, yet?” “No, not yet, I’ll call them now.”
I’m still on the lookout for my next job: in the State
system (at Fish & Wildlife?) or Sonoma County (with the Land Trust?) or the
Sonoma Valley Groundwater Sustainability Agency (GSA)? I’m giving a 3-minute
speech at the formation of the new GSA this week to succinctly summarize the
problem and solutions, a fun exercise in 3-minutes.
I’ve just enrolled in an online conservation class taught by
Jane Goodall through MasterClass.com. I have no idea what to expect but I’m hoping
it will help me stay focused and engaged in local conservation efforts.
Spoiler Alert, or something like that. This next topic is
not light and frothy so you may want to stop right here.
Voices…
I mentioned that the SDC has a 5-bed crisis unit for people
who are between long-term facilities and off their meds. It’s supposed to be a
place for them to “stabilize.” I mentioned the violent young man we had here
who, on arriving in San Jose for his court appointment, punched one of the
caregivers in the face, took off running and was carted off by the police on a
code 51-50. I had the opportunity to scan his record for digital posterity and
got another look at what’s up with him: cerebral palsy (damage to the brain
before birth), epilepsy, intellectual disability (a 19 year old with very
limited mental abilities), autism and more, with a history of bipolar disorder
in the family. He hears voices that tell him to kill himself and hurt others.
The notes left in his chart – written in a very objective 3rd person
by multiple staff members - recount all the times he tried to kill himself and
hurt others while here. Our facility has a protocol for suicidal activity,
there’s a particular form to be filled out with a long list of things to
observe. His chart had a lot of those forms. What’s going to happen to this
guy? Our ‘treatment’ is to pump him full of drugs to quiet the voices. I’m told
clients don’t like the drugs because it makes them dopey, it takes away their
personal uniqueness. Ok. Aren’t we doing harm by keeping him ‘imprisoned’ in a
drugged body? Are the doctors just using these him and other people like him
for drug trials? On the one hand, I do believe there’s a sincere desire by some
people to help others; on the other, is there not a Machiavellian interest in
manipulate someone who can’t say no? What kind of a life is he having going
from one lock-down “treatment facility” to another? He complained that his
living space was too spartan (my word), well, it’s because he threw everything
he could get his hands on at the staff or put it in his mouth. A favorite
activity was to inhale food and drink or batteries. How would he have been
treated in the past? He wanders away from (or is thrown out of) his home, kills
others or himself, gets himself killed by the law, I imagine. And we are
spending hundreds of thousands of dollars – because of our compassion – keeping
someone who is “a threat to themselves or others” alive? Remind me what’s
compassionate about this confinement and enforced drugged stupor? Compassionate
for whom? I think it allows us to go our merry way and not deal with the
problem. Unfortunately, I think the end of the road for him is prison. Yikes,
what a nightmare. This is not living. Isn’t it perhaps more compassionate to
let him kill himself? The problem is he wants to jump off the Golden Gate
Bridge. So sorry, buddy, we can’t let you do that.
Getting back to my point, he hears voices. I have two
interior qualities. I’m interested to know about yours. J I have a sort of mute impulse that gets me into expensive
creative hobbies - and career changes - due to a sense of “How hard can it be?”
And off I blindly go and create award-winning paintings and somewhat-elaborate
historical costumes; where am I going to wear this 17th Century
Scottish skirt, bodice, boned corset, etc.? Painting on silk, watercolors,
pastels on sandpaper. I wanted a pair of wool socks which you can buy for 20
bucks, but no, several hundreds of dollars later, two spinning wheels, 5 fleeces,
every knitting needle you can imagine, etc., etc.
I do have a lot of fun with this impulse but it’s kind of
flighty: now it wants to do this, tomorrow something else. Fifteen years
ago gardening was important; now? not at all. Then I have a particular voice
that dictates these emails; it flogs me. “You ‘should’ pay the bills, clean the
kitchen, finish that painting, not buy beautiful Japanese jackets” (for
$20!) Robert Louis Stevenson writes a bit about this internal voice, he
describes being very sick and wandering the hills of Monterey, laying down and
hearing the vast emptiness of the Universe. That internal voice is silent when
you’re sick. Once I heard an internal voice that was not my own. I don’t
remember the specific circumstances, it might have been due to a change in
antihistamine, a new brand of coffee or an antibiotic (I haven’t been using
illegal recreational drugs for decades, never heard voices then) and all of a
sudden there was somebody else in my head, another voice, like I had been hacked.
Scary. Oh-oh. Control, alt, delete; reboot as fast as possible. Joan of Arc
heard voices… saints and angels, she said; they told her to go to church and
lead an army. Hearing voices is not unlike my only ghost experience, but that’s
a story for another time.
Many blessings,
Karla, k.j. and mom
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