How I Spent My Summer Vacation

Looking back, I don't remember a lot of details about how I ended up in the Plains Regional Medical Center E.R. on Saturday September 6th, an unfortunate choice on my part that would set in motion a series of events leading to my involuntarily "detention" for four days... that would lead to my civil rights being repeatedly violated over several day; violated in a way I thought I would never experience in these United States of America.

I do recall having a long fun phone conversation that morning with my daughter Jocelyn, who had just moved to the California Bay Area (where I was born and raised). I also remember having a long fun conversation with Phyllis, my ex-sister-in-law, also in the Bay Area, that morning. It was great fun getting caught up on what many of my dear friends have been up to. It was nice to hear that they frequently ask about me. It was not such great fun to hear all about my ex-family, the activities of Phyllis's siblings - my ex-husband and his wife and children in particular.

I do remember feeling increasingly blue throughout the day.... missing my circle of friends of many years, missing California, missing Berkeley, missing Jocelyn and my son-in-law Francisco, and missing my grandchildren, Rafael (nickname: Toots) and Paloma (nickname: Momashi). I think these phone conversations that I had are called "triggers" in this murky land of mood swings where I seem to have taken up residence several years ago. I do remember that for some reason * cough trigger cough *, I was feeling increasingly disappointed in how my life has turned out.

They don't pop up very often, these pesky triggers; I don't indulge in regret on a regular basis because I love my life. It just kind of happens sometimes. Anyway, I eventually reached a point of feeling as though I needed some help because I was wishing there was some way I could just magically disappear from this life without devastating my family... without leaving a trail of sorrow behind me. I found myself wondering if my meds might need some fine-tuning. However, I never contemplated suicide. I never have and I never will.

I could have and should have called my sister, who lives three minutes away from me. But see... there's this fantasy I indulge in. I imagine that I can "put on a happy face" so that she and her husband don't regret having talked me into moving to New Mexico to be near them. I mean who wants to listen to someone snivel and cry about the past? So I try to pretend that everything is fine all the time... la la laaaaaa, life is good, I'm a happy happy girl. So I didn't call her. I was ashamed of being so sad. I couldn't stop crying. And who wants to pick up the phone and have to listen to someone sniffling and dribbling and making weird choked squeaking noises?

I was totally out there, I couldn't stop sobbing and I ended up going to the Plains Regional Medical Center emergency room, explaining to the intake nurse that I "didn't feel safe being alone". She asked if I felt like I wanted to harm myself or someone else. I explained that now and then I have thoughts of ending it all because it's just too much work living with depression; needing to be the observed and the observer; always monitoring my own behavior; watching for signs of increased depression.

But, I made it quite clear to her that I have never thought about ways to commit suicide. I would never commit suicide - never ever ever - because I couldn't imagine sentencing my family to the lifelong pain that such an action could and would cause. I made that very clear. However, I guess that my symptoms qualified as "suicidal" because that's what she must have written down.

After admitting me to the E.R., they took my vitals, drew blood, asked for a urine sample and gave me an EKG. Then they left me hanging for about 2 hours, alone in an exam room. I spoke with a doctor but don't remember much about that conversation. I was visited only a couple of times by the nurses. I knew that speaking with a psychiatrist was something that probably wouldn't be happening in a small town hospital. (There's only one psychiatrist at my mental health clinic and last time I checked - once she had returned from maternity leave - she had a very long waiting list for appointments, so I can't imagine that she was also on call at the hospital.)

Turns out that I waited alone in the exam room long enough to calm down and I decided that I was doing ok and it could all wait until Monday. I went out to tell the nurses who were clustered together behind the desk, just hanging out, talking, laughing, just hanging out, chillin'. I found myself wondering why one or the other of them hadn't been regularly checking on me. Isn't that what you do if you think someone is suicidal? I wondered why they were ignoring the "suicidal patient" who was standing at their counter. I wasn't successful in catching their attention so after a few minutes I went back to my room. Feeling a bit frustrated, yes, but not "suicidal".

Apparently, at some point during the hours that I was "hanging out" in my exam room, I guess that the doctor (not a psychiatrist) came to the conclusion that I was a "danger to myself or others" so when a nurse finally came in to check on me and I told her that I was feeling much better, that my back was hurting and that I wanted to go home, she first said that they would prefer that I stay and be evaluated by a psychiatrist. Further into the conversation, she informed me that I wouldn't be allowed to leave because I was considered an involuntary admission. I don't remember the exact sequence of events but for some reason, a red flag didn't go up for me at hearing this. And I thought seeing a psychiatrist sounded like an ok idea, so I agreed to stay.

Interesting. I must have signed some stuff without reading it. I probably thought it was just the typical stuff you sign if you go to the E.R.; releases, insurance stuff, whatever. I must have signed something that gave them permission to do what they were doing. I must have signed something agreeing to some kind of "involuntary" status. So agreeing to stay after hearing this is kind of funny in a macabre sort of way.

The nurse came in again and told me that "an officer" was going to be coming to take me into protective custody and in the morning, I would be transported to Roswell for evaluation. Color me utterly and totally naive, but I didn't know what kind of officer was coming, I didn't know what "protective custody" meant, I didn't know who would be transporting me in the morning. I mistakenly assumed that she was talking about medical staff. Yeah, I know, kind of dense of me. I asked the nurse if I was going to have somewhere to sleep that night because I have back problems and she said "oh yes, you'll have a comfortable place to sleep". (remember this)

Of course the officer turned out to be a Curry County Police Officer. He was a sweetheart, very young and very sympathetic. He apologetically handcuffed me and put me in the back of his cruiser and drove me to the Curry County Detention Center (jail) here in Clovis. They checked us through the security door, frisked me and sat me down for more paper signing. Any intelligent being would, at this point, decide that reading before signing might be a good habit to get into, starting now. But no, I just kept signing anything that was put in front of me. You could say I was kinda dazed. A very young female officer asked me "what did they get you on?". Say wha....? I answered "Threatening suicide I guess, although I never threatened suicide". She shrugged and began attempting to write down "suicide", asking her fellow officers more than once how to spell it. Each time I tried to explain to them what was going on, I was interrupted so I finally stopped talking.

The female officer took me into the unisex bathroom; didn't bother to lock the door, didn't even bother to latch it all the way so that others would know not to open it without knocking first because it might be occupied. She made me strip down completely, then gave me this really bizarre padded velcro sleeveless tunic to wear that covered my torso down to my knees. No sleeves. She brought me back out to a chorus of hoots and hollers and hand gestures from the guys in the drunk tank... I'm a grandmother for cripes sake.... why is this happening to me?

She led me across the big open room in front of all the inmates and all the male officers. I felt like I was in an SNL Project Runway skit. She opened up the door to a concrete cell. Nothing but concrete, no chair, no bench, no bed, no nuthin', just concrete. I said "Is this it? This is where I'm spending the night? I was told that I would have somewhere to lie down." She shrugged. I asked for a blanket and she said she'd bring me one. Then the door closed and locked... ca-chunk... the kind of door you see on cop shows, with the inch thick little glass window at the top and a slot for food at the bottom.

There I am with a very bad back in a freezing cold 12 by 12 concrete box.

Welcome to Clovis, New Mexico.

I had to sleep on this "thing" they gave me to wear. I tried once again to ask for a blanket but when you knock on the window and wave your hands around they ignore you so eventually, you have no choice but to start banging and yelling, just like on the teevee. Eventually they responded and I was told that I could not have a blanket.

I have a whole new level of respect and compassion for people who are arrested. They're already being punished before they've even been tried and found guilty of anything at all. btw, since when has mental illness been considered a crime? I felt like I was in an historical docudrama about the state of care for the mentally ill at the turn of the century - no, not 1999-2000... I'm talking about 1899-1900!

Anyway, I took off the "thing" and slept naked on it all night. I was freezing. In the morning they gave me cream of wheat to eat and then gave me my clothes back. Here's the really cool part. They shackled me with the infamous heavy chain around my waist - not so easy on the back. The handcuffs were locked to it, and chained-together cuffs were placed around my ankles.

The County Sheriff shuffled me out to his cruiser and drove me to Roswell. The entire time he was saying to me that this whole procedure is totally inhumane and has gotta be totally illegal and they all hate it and I should "sue the hell out of 'em." His words... the sheriff. He brought his wife along for the ride and she passed the time reading anti-Obama email propaganda off of the cruiser laptop to him and playing christian rock. I'm an Obama supporter and a Unitarian. Cruel and Unusual!!!!! Somebody please wake me up!!!!!!!!

If you've ever been in the back of a cop car (in shackles), you know that it's impossible to lie down, so I continued to be in pretty awesome pain from my back. But at this point, I had decided that I was just going to accept that I was simply having a very interesting experience so I found myself pretending that I was watching myself being featured in a bizarre low budget documentary about the state of healthcare in 2008 lol.

So we finally get to the "Sunrise Mental Health Unit" in Roswell - I called it the Snapcase Motel just for "fun". They shuffled me into the hospital in shackles which at this point I was finding to be a pretty "interesting" experience based on the looks I was getting. Humiliating? Dehumanizing? Nah, not in the least.

There were four other people there from Clovis (and more arriving all the time) and they all received the same treatment except that the other female got an orange jumpsuit instead of the padded "tunic" thing (pout) and she also got a room with a cot in it (double pout). But otherwise we were all shackled etc.....

Being put up in the Snapcase Motel meant having a 2 minute daily interview with one of the three doctors (one woman and two men who incidentally, were cousins) on the unit. The woman doctor was wonderful but was off for the rest of the week after the first day I got there, and the two cousins who attended to me for the rest of my stay were very authoritarian and frankly mean-spirited gentlemen. On the first day, my pain meds were dc'd cold turkey. On the second day, my Prozac was dc'd cold turkey. I was started on an uber-expensive antidepressant and an even uberer-expensive new mood-stabilizer.

We were required to attend all groups (and when I say required, I mean it... refusing to attend the entire group could get another day added to your sentence). A psych tech led the daily "occupational therapy" group - which means that they sat us down and supplied us with arts and crafts materials suitable for 5 year olds. Social Workers led the self improvement groups, ie. talking about the importance of leisure time, leading us through some guided imagery etc... all of which would be nice if one wasn't in excruciating pain. Pain. Pain. Pain.

Bad enough to be in pain, but to have someone treating you like a naughty child and frowning every time you left the room for 90 seconds to walk up and down the hallway a couple times to stretch out your back... excrutiating and insulting. And watching them getting out their attendance sheet as a warning that they just might mark you down as missing/absent/awol if you didn't return to your seat asap? Please.

There was a lot, and I mean a lot of talking down to us like we were a kindergarten class.We had to sit and watch Lifetime Channel life-lesson-style Hallmark movies. I alternated between showing signs of saccharine-poisoning and signs of fear as I tried to hide from the patient who was going around yelling in every one's face that he wanted to kill somebody or rape some women. This particular patient should not have been in there. He required one on one supervision and was frequently shackled to a bed and pumped full of tranquilizers when he would "go off" completely and start punching the walls and getting very physical. Is this a therapeutic environment?

I seriously wanted to strangle him and every one of the staff, every one of them. See? That must have been why I was being imprisoned there... that pesky intention to harm others. They knew they could eventually bring it to the surface and then "help me to own it". What can you do but lol?

Anyway, "group" meant sitting in a chair for 1 - 1 1/2 hours which is, like I've mentioned before, very hard on my back. There were five or six other people in there with back injuries - far worse off than me. And I probably got at least a day added to my "sentence" for advocating quite forcefully for some sort of rudimentary medical attention for them. No luck. Just ibuprofen.

I became friendly with some of the staff (I was requested to never repeat their names or positions) while I was there and first of all, they agreed that the doctors were moody, inconsistent and frankly, rather power-crazed. They also advised me that, when talking to the doctors, I should be wary of the fact that they might try to provoke me. An example of this technique was related to me by a young patient from Oklahoma:

This young man was there for drug abuse and some psychotic behaviors, I think, not sure. He couldn't have been more than 19. He had lost his wife 6 months earlier in an auto accident. She was three months pregnant. One of the two doctor cousins said to him "you know that accident was your fault don't you?" Now, ok, that might be true - it happened as a result of a drug-deal-gone-wrong. But..... is that the kind of thing you say to someone who is there trying to heal from the experiences that have sent him into a psychological tailspin? Was the doctor simply trying to provoke the kid to see if he had any violent tendencies? Was this tough love? Doesn't matter why he said it... it should never have been said.

I was also advised that I MUST respond to the doctor cousins' questions like this (for example):

How did you sleep? I had the best sleep that I've had in months.

truth: I had a terrible sleep, I barely slept at all because I was in excrutiating pain and also because I was so furious about being thrown into jail and then thrown into this travesty of a treatment center simply because I asked for a little help.

How are you feeling? I'm feeling so much better than when I got here (instructions from the staff: stroke their egos, both of them) and I've been able to finally own my depression and my suicide attempt (lies, lies, lies, I never attempted suicide). Also, everything you've said to me about my behavior and diagnosis has been so very very true. I've been in denial and I didn't really understand it until now. Thank you so much for helping me.

truth: I'm incensed.

How are the new medications working for you? I can't believe that I've been taking all of the wrong medications for so long. Thank you so much for refining my meds for me.

truth: You have no right to deprive me of any of the medicines that have been prescribed by my primary care physician, particularly my pain medication.

What are your goals while you're here? (NEVER EVER say that you'd like to go home - automatic double sentence. I made that mistake the first day and based on that, the doctor decided that not only was I not going home any time soon, I also would not be allowed outside for walks because... he couldn't trust me because... I would probably try to run away because... I said I wanted to go home.... are we all following the logic of this? I'm dressed in blue paper pajamas and socks and I'm going to try to run home to Clovis from Roswell - at least 100 miles away.)

Correct answer: I would like to stay for as long as it takes to resolve my issues and take ownership of my depression and my attempted suicide (even though I NEVER threatened or attempted suicide)

truth: I want to go home

Has your stay here helped you? Yes, I feel very fortunate that circumstances led to my being admitted to Sunrise. I've learned so much about my behaviors. And you are the best psychiatrist I have ever seen (again, in the staff's words... stroke his ego)... and everything you have said to me about my condition and diagnosis and behaviors is so true. I want to thank you for helping me.

truth: My stay? My stay? I've been involuntarily imprisoned here... what "stay? And no, my stay has made me worse and I'm scared to death about what all these med changes are going to do to me over the next week or two.

Do you still intend to commit suicide and/or murder? No, I don't have any more urges or intentions to harm myself or others.

truth: I never did. blah blah blah.... you get the idea.If you stray from this script, expect a longer sentence. Being an "involuntary" patient with a bad back was like being in Guantanamo and being tortured until I told them exactly what they wanted to hear.


First thing in the morning, the doctor (which ever one of the cousins was on rounds that day) inspects all rooms. If they are messy or if your bed isn't made, you'll be staying. When he interviews you (for a total of 2 minutes a day) you need to make sure that your hair is wet (per my staff coaches) so that he believes you when you say you've showered and attended to your personal hygiene. Otherwise, you'll be staying. If you don't attend all groups and attend them cheerfully and cooperatively and compliantly, no matter how excruciating the pain becomes, you'll be staying.

Can you imagine what it was like for someone who was taught to always tell the truth to your doctor to have to lie through my clenched teeth? I'm not accustomed to adapting my behavior to suit anyone if it means I'm lying and pretending to be compliant....I wanted to say dudes, you're running this place like it's a script for Melvin and Kumar Escape From The Snapcase Motel. I'm not crazy, you are! And why is your cousin here? What the hell is up with that? And why are you confiscating pain medication when you release the patients here?

It all came back to the hospital designating me an "involuntary patient". I never once refused to do what they asked me to do. What symptoms was I exhibiting when I went to the E.R.? I was distraught. Is that a crime? Is that dangerous? My only frame of reference was the mental health care I received in California and Maine. I expected the same care here. Little did I know what rural New Mexico's idea of "help" is. It's a majorly messed up situation and I think that some of my spare time is going to be devoted to contacting any and every organization that is in the position to demand reform.

I was finally released after a very long, very painful, very infuriating three and a half day "stay" at the Snapcase Motel.

Any words of wisdom from me after this experience? Just this: Cherish Your Freedom. You never know when your civil rights might be taken away from you... by a hospital, by a police department, by a sheriff, by a mental health unit.



Addendum:

1) When one of the cousins sent me out the door with a seven-day rx for the new meds he put me on, I was expected to make an appt with my own psychiatrist so she could take over supervising the rx's. That's easier said than done. The earliest I can see her is the 26th. That will leave me w/o my new meds for over a week. Not a good thing. I tried requesting that he call in another week's worth to my pharmacy but have so far been given the runaround. I ran out yesterday. Not good.

2) I saw my therapist yesterday and found out a number of interesting things:

a) He seems to think that I've been misdiagnosed all this time and that I'm actually bipolar 2, a milder form of bipolar. Sounds possible.

b) He told me that I never unknowingly signed anything changing my status from voluntary to involuntary at the hospital. I guess they simply labeled me "involuntary" as soon as I voluntarily came through the door and was obviously there because of mental illness. That's just how they do it at Plains Regional Medical Center, presumably for legal reasons. It makes sense for someone who is suicidal or homicidal but not for someone who is simply distraught.

c) When my hospital remodeled, they built three "protective custody rooms" at the E.R. I assume these are more comfortable and less traumatic than a concrete jail cell. However, the staff refuses to "babysit mental cases" so they don't use them, preferring instead to banish mental patients to the county jail. Not a therapeutic approach imho, nor does it sound legal. To put someone who is actually suicidal in a concrete box with terrifying graffiti all over the walls is simply condemning them to a very dangerous situation. (examples of the graffiti - I paraphrase: "dawg, they don't care about you, just kill yourself" "dude, just go ahead and slit your wrists" "end it all now" etc) Oh yeah, forgot to mention that there was evidence of several different colored bodily fluids having been splattered/smeared on the walls. blech. At least the floor had been mopped in the recent past.

d) When the therapists in Clovis meet once a month, this very topic is one of the most often discussed. They commiserate with each other over the fact that their patients who actually are suicidal or homicidal are subjected to such stressful treatment, they are probably going to get worse not better, and they are also very unlikely to go to the E.R. the next time they need help.

Conclusions:

1) If I had been truly disturbed and a danger to myself, I would have been pushed right over the edge by this "treatment plan" that the hospital set in motion.

2) You can rest assured that I will never go to the E.R. again if I find myself needing help. For anything. The only way I will pass through those E.R. doors is if I'm unconscious.