Monday, December 30, 2013

My Outpatient Stay at a Mental Hospital



frances farmer arrest



For 3 weeks, I was an outpatient at the rehab and mental health facility Las Encinas.  In some ways, I’d always assumed I would end up here.  I remember me and my mom going to visit a family friend there once when I was a kid, and my mom half-joking about wishing her Medi-Cal benefits were accepted there.  She wasn't interested in sobriety at that time and wasn't in the middle of one of her existential breakdowns, so I believe she really wanted to be there like being on vacation; the grounds were beautiful and you got 3 square meals a day and were surrounded by interesting fuck ups.  We visited her friend.  He was detoxing from crack and seemed fragile but also fortified by the crisp eucalyptus-smelling air there and relieved to be taken care of by professionals.  

I had heart surgery when I was in my early twenties, and dumped by a live-in boyfriend shortly afterwards.  I was single and very ready to mingle so I instantly jumped back into a routine of bar-hopping and partying, breaking in my new heart, self-defeatingly hoping to break it for good. I hardly slept on work nights, and usually slept all day on the weekends.  I lived in a basement apartment with a beautiful view but the landlord who lived upstairs was mentally and physically ill; he spied on me, passing judgments and regularly overstepping his bounds tremendously, like deciding my mail would go in the same mailbox as his, and having his boyfriend sneak into my bedroom one morning when it was assumed I would be asleep, to steal a press photo from a Munchkin scene of the Wizard of Oz – the last living Munchkin was signing autographs at an antiques fair that day and I’d ignored all the landlord's voicemails about it the day before, so, obviously, breaking and entering was the next logical step.  I was not going crazy, but I was so depressed it hurt. It hurts so  bad.  I left my office one morning and hid in my car, finally going into hysterics over the phone with my therapist until she arranged for Las Encinas to take me in.



I went to Las Encinas every morning at 7 AM, for 3 weeks, insurance-paid, thank god.  I’d stopped caring to feed myself, so all the breakfast food there was a comfort.  After everyone arrived, there were group therapy sessions everyone broke into.  Like one of my recurring dreams where I’m back in high school and I can’t figure out what classes to go to next, I seemed to be the only person who’d never gotten a schedule of what therapy sessions I was to go to, so I went where the wind took me.



A girl named Angela from this outpatient group had recently committed suicide, and several group members cried about it throughout the day.  She’d been a young woman. 



I was the highest functioning person in the group, and honestly, I feel like I wasn’t given enough attention because of this.  It’s true, I wasn’t actively contemplating suicide like some of my mentally wounded colleagues, but on the other hand, I’ve been somewhat considering and contemplating suicide since I was 12, so while it wasn’t a situation of immediacy, it is a thought I'd have liked some professional to have unearthed and coaxed me out of.



I loved the meals at the cafeteria.  Sometimes someone would freak out though and it would set everyone else off, a domino effect of the shakes and screaming and paranoid fears.



There was a woman who was convinced that people she used to work for in Las

Vegas had followed her to L.A. and were following her constantly.  Objectively this seems unrealistic, but to hear it from her, it sounded feasible.



Tom Sizemore was there, a big famous asshole whose bragging voice drowned out all others.



Everyone there was diagnose with Bipolar II, a California trend at the time, I believe.  When I moved to Philly later and told psychiatrists, “I have Bipolar II and am treated with a drug called Lamictal,” nobody knew what the fuck I was talking about.  I think Las Encinas is sort of a dishonest place and perhaps got some kickback from Lamictal, seemingly the only drug used to treat Bipolar II.



The saddest thing about this experience was the fear that I could never go back to normalcy again.  I thought I’d have to make people  treat me with kid gloves and that I’d never have sex or feel sexy or have fun.  I’d have to speak in funereal tones about my moods.  Luckily, that never happened.



My last day there, a boy who resembled Icabod Crane in height and prominent adam’s apple decided to go for it and ask for my telephone number.  He was nice in a way but also a drag.  I hung out with him maybe 4 times, and only as a friend, as I always reiterated.  His house was beautiful, in South Pasadena, owned by his Greek great grandpa who was on vacation.  This boy took me to fancy restaurants, bought me gelato before the one movie we went to see (sadly ironically a story about the guy who improbably gets the girl of his dreams, even though she’s great and he kind of sucks to be around).  We watched a dvd or two at his home and he made gourmet grilled cheeses using a special sandwich press, like a panini maker that left an imprint of Hello Kitty on the bread.  In some ways, he would have been a good boyfriend for someone, and in fact, I’d learned that before trying to date me, he’d had a little fling with a judge’s daughter from our group, who received several sessions of electric shock therapy which left her open-mouthed, drooling and sedate for the rest of the day.  I finally extricated myself from this sad boy’s clutches when I showed up with a hickey from a man who today is my husband.



Later on, Las Encinas was never named in the whole "Celebrity Rehab Reality TV is exploitive" controversy, but Dr Drew Pinsky’s little reality shows took place in a high-end Pasadena rehab place that looked just like Las Encinas, and he was also listed on their page as a staff member, so it was pretty safe to assume that these celebrity rehab shows were filmed here.  People he’s treated have often died afterwards, after the season was over and they probably felt abandoned by their watchers.



This makes one wonder about the ethics of a place like Las Encinas.  My feeling is that you can’t trust any place that doles out the same diagnosis and pills to everyone who walks through the door and that, in general, nobody cares enough about a sad person who has lost the will to live.  I saw many examples, while there, of people not listened to enough or paid enough attention to.  Psychiatry is a pseudoscience.  The doctors often start out by giving someone too high a dosage, then go “oops” when the person flips out, and figure out by trial and error what the patient can tolerate.  My own psychiatrist, just a few weeks ago, was reading from the wrong chart when he was speaking to me and it took a loooong time and me correcting him before he realized his error.  Sometimes I think that the people who are charged with helping people are the same people who could not give less of a fuck about a wounded soul.  When I consider my off-experiences at this hospital and with mental healthcare professionals, I often think of my favorite Kimye Dawson song, which sums it all up perfectly, the lack of empathy from people who are supposed to help:

Hold My Hand (Kimye Dawson)


once i knew a little girl who refused to eat
she just banged her head against the floor and didn't sleep for a week
both of her parents were mentally delayed and they
lived in constant fear that their daughter would be taken away
so instead of getting help they just pretended
that everything was okay
so i called the social worker and said "something is wrong"
she said "you know how she turns into a brat
when she doesn't get what she wants
i'll call ya later when i'm done playing with my dogs"

sometimes the world is dark and cold
and no matter what i'm told
i'm scared and i'm alone and i'm five years old
will you hold my hand?

once i knew a little guy runny nose and bruises on his thighs
and i said "hey, what happened here?"
he looked at me and said "well my dad he hates me"
so i called the social worker confidentially and she called his mom
and said "guess who thinks your husband is beating up your son?"
next thing i knew that family packed up and they were gone

back pressed flat against the wall
and they hit me with a ball
pretend it didn't hurt at all
will you hold my hand?

maybe i'll call oprah there must be something she can do
i'll say "i'm fat and i'm black and i'm sick of seeing little kids feel blue"
and me and oprah we will fix c.p.s.
and make sure the people working with kids have bigger hearts than the rest
and if you wanna have a baby you'll hafta pass a test

it sucks when for a little kid living means lying
and the only place you feel safe is pretending your flying
and you'd rather be caught dead than be caught crying
will you hold my hand?

abuse and neglect are highly contagious so
i called that social worker up and i said "hey lady you're outrageous"
she said "smarty-pants, you want a gold star?" i said
"no i wanna bash your head in with a crowbar, but
the cycle of violence has to end somewhere"

come and take a swim with me
we'll wait underwater patiently
for the output of endorphins as we're swallowed by the sea
will you hold my hand?
will you hold my hand?
will you hold my hand?



Las Encinas

Thursday, December 5, 2013

Scam Emails Continued

here is some more of my interesting conversation with the millionaires in the Behin Republic.  They were getting a little cheeky today.

From: Dhl Courier
To: robin crane
Sent: Thursday, December 5, 2013 4:18 AM
Subject: ATTENTION



ATTENTION to you.


This is to bring to your notice that i have read your email and i want
to let you know that this ATM CARD is only for you and no body esle, i
want you to understand that we will not delivered this ATM CARD to you
without you sending the $195 been the security keeping fee so i will
advice you to send the $195 through western union with the below
information so that it will enable us to delivered your ATM CARD to
you immediately without any further delay,

PAYMENT INFORMATION (WESTERN UNION MONEY TRANSFER).

Receiver Name:INNOCENT ONUORAH.
City: Cotonou
Country: Benin Republic
Text Question: In God
Answer: We Trust
Amount: $195usd
MTCN Number..


DR.CHRIS MICHAEL
(FOREIGN DELIVERY DEPARTMENT DHL BENIN)
DHL COURIER COMPANY LTD


****
 
From: robin crane 
To: Dhl Courier
Sent: Thursday, December 5, 2013 9:05 AM
Subject: Re: ATTENTION

I don't think I like your tone of voice -- I'm not an imbecile -- I understand that the $195 is required before I will have this ATM card sent to me.  I work 3 jobs, working an overnight shift at a mortuary, and I take care of my 6 kids and mother-in-law and am a single mother with only 3 fingers on my right hand, the hand I do all embalmings with, so it is hard for me to find the time to wire the money.
 
****
 
Dhl Courier
Today at 5:39 PM
To:  robin crane
ATTENTION to you.

That means you don't want to receive your Atm Card , if you really
want to receive your Atm Card kindly bring out time and go straight to
any Western Union office and send the fee with the below information
so that your Atm Card will be delivered to you immediately and you
will start withdrawing your money and stop all those work that you are
doing.

PAYMENT INFORMATION (WESTERN UNION MONEY TRANSFER).

Receiver Name:INNOCENT ONUORAH.
Country: Benin Republic
City: Cotonou
Text Question: In God
Answer: We Trust
Amount: $195usd
MTCN Number.....
Sendername.........

get back to us with the payment information.


- Hide quoted text -

DR.CHRIS MICHAEL
(FOREIGN DELIVERY DEPARTMENT DHL BENIN)
DHL COURIER COMPANY LTD
 
 

Wednesday, December 4, 2013

Junk Mail AKA Amazing Opportunities!






The part of my brain that is art is not there today so instead I am providing you with a few of my recent correspondences with email scammers.

#1 - Ms. Monica Williams


From: Mrs. Monica Williams.
To:
Sent: Wednesday, December 4, 2013 2:58 PM
Subject: We have finally arranged to Transfer your Fund worth $9.500,000.00 USD

Attention my Dear.

We have finally arranged to Transfer your Fund worth $9.500,000.00 USD
through BANK OF AMERICA. We were able to accomplish this through the
help of
IMF director John Andy and every necessary arrangement has been made
successfully with the Director of BANK OF AMERICA Mr. Ben M. Bernanke.

Contact person: Mr. Ben M. Bernanke
Telephone:+17205556711
Email:  goodservices100@gmail.com
Contact the Director of BANK OF AMERICA Mr. Ben M. Bernanke with your Bank
information such as: Bank Name, Bank Account Number, your phone number,
Valid
ID Card.

Sincerely,
Mrs. Monica Williams.
United Nation Organization


**** 
robin crane 
Today at 9:10 PM
To:  goodservices100@gmail.com
Wow! Ben Bernanke, former chairman of the Federal Reserve, is handling this transaction himself?  how exciting.  i hate to be a nuisance, but could i get his autograph?  or else, could her write me the email abt completing this transaction?  then i'll be able to give all my bank info and personal info.

___________________________________________________________________________________

#2 - Mrs. Grace Johnson

Today at 7:35 AM
To: robin crane
ATTENTION Beneficiary.
 
The Management of this Department, DHL Courier Company, wish to notify
the receipt of your ATM CARD Package being registered under the care
of this Company by Secretary Mrs. Grace Johnson, to be delivery to you
.
Remember that our delivery fee has been paid by your depositor
Secretary Mrs. Grace Johnson, so you are oblige to send the amount of
$195 been the cost of the Security keeping charge of your package with
this Dhl Courier Company,

Meanwhile, remember to reconfirm to us your full delivery details were
to deliver your package because that is the only thing delaying us to
start delivery to your address .be advice to send the fee with this
below information

Below is the information you will use to make the payment via Western
Union in other to meet its urgency,

PAYMENT INFORMATION (WESTERN UNION MONEY TRANSFER).

Receiver Name:INNOCENT ONUORAH.
City: Cotonou
Country: Benin Republic
Text Question: In God
Answer: We Trust
Amount: $195usd
MTCN Number..

CONFIDENTIALITY NOTE

The information contained in this message is confidential. This
message is intended to be read only by the person named above. The
unauthorized use, disclosure, copying or alteration of this message is
strictly prohibited.This mail was sent on behalf of your package
delivery in DHL delivery code of Conduct.
Registered Trademark

DR.CHRIS MICHAEL
(FOREIGN DELIVERY DEPARTMENT DHL BENIN)
DHL COURIER COMPANY LTD

***
 robin crane 
Today at 9:40 AM
To:  Dhl Courier
Mrs. Grace Johnson has been so helpful, I feel bad only paying her $195.  I have a private (untraceable, of course, so please do not mention it to any co-hort you may have at the IRS)account in the Camin Islands -- perhaps i should make a withdrawal so that I may put more funds into this ATM CARD Package.  is there any monetary advantage in that?

__________________________________________________________________________________

#3 - Mrs. Grace Johnson Repeats Herself

From: Dhl Courier
To: robin crane
Sent: Wednesday, December 4, 2013 7:31 AM
Subject: ATTENTION Beneficiary.

ATTENTION Beneficiary.


The Management of this Department, DHL Courier Company, wish to notify
the receipt of your ATM CARD Package being registered under the care
of this Company by Secretary Mrs. Grace Johnson, to be delivery to you
.

Remember that our delivery fee has been paid by your depositor
Secretary Mrs. Grace Johnson, so you are oblige to send the amount of
$195 been the cost of the Security keeping charge of your package with
this Dhl Courier Company,

Meanwhile, remember to reconfirm to us your full delivery details were
to deliver your package because that is the only thing delaying us to
start delivery to your address .be advice to send the fee with this
below information

Below is the information you will use to make the payment via Western
Union in other to meet its urgency,

PAYMENT INFORMATION (WESTERN UNION MONEY TRANSFER).

Receiver Name:INNOCENT ONUORAH.
City: Cotonou
Country: Benin Republic
Text Question: In God
Answer: We Trust
Amount: $195usd
MTCN Number..

CONFIDENTIALITY NOTE

The information contained in this message is confidential. This
message is intended to be read only by the person named above. The
unauthorized use, disclosure, copying or alteration of this message is
strictly prohibited.This mail was sent on behalf of your package
delivery in DHL delivery code of Conduct.
Registered Trademark

DR.CHRIS MICHAEL
(FOREIGN DELIVERY DEPARTMENT DHL BENIN)
DHL COURIER COMPANY LTD

***
Today at 9:41 AM
To:  Dhl Courier
P.S. you seemed to have sent this email to me in duplicate.  Am i not the only person benefitting from this ATM CARD package?  i will feel very upset to learn that Mrs. Grace Johnson has been promising this package to others.

Friday, November 15, 2013

Short Story: Persecution

When I was 15 years old, I awoke one morning to the vision of a tall, horned, upright creature, with huge talons, a huge erect penis, and sharp teeth dripping black saliva.  This, I knew, was what some people imagined a demon to look like.  I was so tired I didn’t care what happened to me as long as I didn’t have fully awaken, so I turned to face the wall, like que sera sera, and I just went back to sleep.   There were no unexplained wounds on my body when I woke up later that morning, and I didn’t feel any differently than I had the day before – I didn’t feel haunted or hunted or sick, so while I never forgot the visitation, I reconciled the experience to an upsetting experience that made me feel sorry for myself and scared of dying young.  Something else weird happened later that same year.  I was playing Ouija Board with two of my friends during one of our gin-and-Pepsi slumber parties.  I was not scared of the Ouija Board, because it was a mass-marketed toy.  What happened when we asked our first question, though, which was “Is there a spirit in this room?,” is truly unexplainable through fact or objectivity.  Without waiting for us to put any of the pressure of our fingertips all the way on the plastic tool that’s supposed to laboriously creep towards the letters printed on the board, the device scooted quickly with the revolting, mysterious insistence of a Mexican Jumping Bean, and we read as the spirit in the room communicated the sentence, “Yes, Sandy.”  That’s my name, Sandy.  “Ask it why it only spoke to me,” I uncomfortably insisted.  I didn’t put my fingers anywhere near the plastic pointer this time, and the other two girls just barely did.  “Why did you say Sandy’s name?” they asked aloud, and then we watched the pointer spell out, “Hell,” and then it circled around the entire board before spelling “Hell,” again, and then “Pussy.”  I knew my friends, who were both sweet and rather unimaginative girls, weren’t playing a trick on me because I saw it with my own eyes, I saw that they barely touched that little plastic device, and why would one of them, Chris, have started crying and said “You guys, we shouldn’t do this anymore,” if she’d been playing a trick on me? 

When I think about it, which I do sometimes, usually after watching a horror movie or overhearing a conversation between Christians, I can’t believe that I go on living a normal life, considering the vision I had of the demon and the foul-mouthed spirit who singled me out on the Ouija Board.  Why “Pussy?”  Why would the spirit spell out “hell, hell, pussy?”  As I type it out like this, I see how funny it seems, but in truth it’s the irreverence of this curse that most disturbs me.  I’ve read about astral projections a little bit, and there’s a theory that people who are able to control their ability to project their spirits out of their bodies play tricks on those who play with Ouija Boards, using the board as a conduit to spook people who could physically be as far away from an astral projector as, as across the world, across the country.  This is one explanation.

The thing that bothers me the most about these little interludes of evil is something I learned in a course I took during my Master’s program, about the power of myth.  We read a lot about the power of suggestion, and I was particularly interested in some of the compelling proof some people have that Near Death Experiences (NDE’S) are real.  Sometimes a person whose heart has momentarily stopped beating while on the operating table describes the experience of floating over their body, and in great detail, they can often describe the medical procedures the surgeon is performing on them, with surprising accuracy for a person who has no medical training.  As proof of a genuine NDE, these descriptions of the medical procedures their floating souls witness aren’t altogether successful, because there are so many graphic medical dramas on tv these days.  A person can watch a show that takes place in a hospital and see a fairly realistic portrayal of excess fluid being suctioned from a lung or the suture of a torn aorta, so a patient who feels they are experiencing a NDE could in fact simply be recollecting a scene from tv when they return to consciousness and think they have returned from an out of body experience.  There have been tests done, however, to test the veracity of NDE’s, thought up by scientists who supposedly have no belief in the supernatural, only the objective curiosity to understand an experience they don’t believe in.  There have been certain surgery rooms, for instance, where patterns have been painted on the floor that a patient is unable to see when they are being wheeled into the room on a gurney, often already under anesthesia.  In a case where a patient nearly didn’t survive her surgery, losing her heartbeat for a full two minutes, she claimed to have floated above her body, and, compellingly, she described in perfect detail the patterns she saw painted on the floor when she was floating above her own surgery.
It was interesting to read how similarly these NDE’s were described; the patient felt a comforting warmth radiate from an unearthly beautiful white light.  In more than one interview with a person who felt they’d had a genuine NDE, they explained that they hadn’t been religious before the experience, and that, as peaceful as they have felt since basking in that beautiful light, they have not taken the experience as a sign of the existence of God; instead, the  beauty and happiness they felt while temporarily dead was a reassurance that the need for religion is unnecessary.   Just being alive, without placing life in any narrative or moral framework, is enough.  That is what I liked most in the reading we did in this course. 

However, there was also something I read that I don’t like to remember.  In some cases, a person, a person with no sign of unkindness or belief in heaven or hell, would die for a few moments on the operating table and feel that they’d transcended their bodies, but instead of the warmth and the comfort, they were bombarded with terror and visions of viciousness more perverse than these victims thought they could ever dream up.  For these poor few, they would feel an unending uneasiness afterwards.  


I wonder why this would happen to some people.  Why would one person be treated to a transformative vision of peace, and another person be singled out for a first-hand knowledge of true ugliness?  I think there is a bottomless pit of horror.  I don’t know why this would be, and who, if not a god, would possess such an omnipotent disgust with humanity.  We are just flesh and blood, like a steak or a cat who dies under the tire of an SUV.  We swim like fish, unaware of how expansive is the ocean, how heavy the weight of the water.  I just walk and breathe and work and love my family and sleep and sometimes cry or go out somewhere new.  
Why me?  

Wednesday, November 6, 2013

We Could Be Heroes

Here is a vastly incomplete list of a few of my fictional heroes.

Housekeeping
I love and try to dress like Auntie Sylvie and her niece Ruthie, from the film Housekeeping (1983), based on the 1980 Marilynne Robinson novel of the same name.  The novel should be on the reading list of every woman prone to a desire for secrets and the urge to run away.  I love the book but there's something singularly comforting about the film, mostly just seeing how great the actresses are who play these two great characters, and seeing how haphazard their clothing is -- a pretty old nineteen forties dress and big boots, and wild unruly curly hair.  these two amuse each other and themselves and would be completely happy among the friendly mice, stray cats, and pretty knicknacks of their house, content to read fantastic human interest stories from the newspapers they stockpile out loud to each other,sometimes sneaking peeks through their neighbor's windows to see what's on tv that night.  they are wild and dignified and shy of the outside world all at the same time.  i admire the poise of these two and their refusal to change themselves to please of the church ladies who harp on them to tame Ruthie's curls and make Sylvie start bossing her niece around.  i love everything about these two.
Sylvie

Ruthie













The two woman on an all night row boat ride in a sinking, stolen boat, singing "Good Night Irene"


Really Rosie

Rosie is one of Maurice Sendak's character.  In 1975 there was a film made with her character as the star, incorporating many of Sendak's Nutshell Kids books, as musical numbers in the musical the tough New Yorker Rosie is coaxing her friends to make with her.  She's bossy and dresses like the boa-decorated, huge-hat wearing queen of everything.  i think she is supposed to be 12, with some younger friends, including a little alligator in a suit and propeller beanie.  the plot always made me feel sad at the end because Rosie is obviously very lonely and doesn't want to go back upstairs to her mom's cabbage dinner and a quiet night in their depressing tenement, so she draws out this time with her friends on the sidewalk as long as possible, doing everything in her power to keep them interested in putting on a play with her.  but they aren't visionaries like her.  when everyone's mothers call out the window for their kids to come home, she keeps her hopes bolstered, with a whole 'tomorrow will be better' shrug, doubtful that it really will be.  her walk back home is a stolid, stoic and melancholy thing but I just know she really is going to be that star she wants to be someday!




Monday, October 28, 2013