Contrasting Tones of Good v. Evil: Wherein, I try to describe one aspect of the psychological trauma that I experienced while hospitalized at The Arizona State Hospital.

I wound never have imagined that in this day in age, a person in the United States would be subjected to ongoing disrespect and outright verbal abuse in psychological care facility, and I sure didn't expect that when I arrived by ambulance at ASH. But shockingly enough, that is precisely what I got at ASH, pretty much from day one. I am not going to say that everybody would have experienced the far too often negative and abusive staff conduct at ASH the way I did, but I can attest in my own right to the fact that my depression and willingness to remain openminded about suicide were directly stimulate/aggravated by these things, and I know as well that I am not the only who feels that way. I have mentioned my friend Thomas, for example, who was "terrified" of staff, and Audrey P., who has to suffer through her life at ASH in the hands of brutally cold hearted clinical staff that frankly don't care one way or the other about how difficult her life is there at ASH. I cannot count how many times I witnessed gross manipulations of a patients' peace of mind for no other apparent reason than to satisfy one or another staff persons given mood at the time, and mind you, many of the the staff at ASH are far from the the sharpest tools in the tool shed in terms of people skills.
In this sense, my post ASH experiences have been variously marked by outstanding examples of basic human decency, and it has for the most part been nothing short of a profound relief to be free of the perpetually oppressive and degrading times of voice and related body language that ASH staff so readily rely upon in order to maintain their arguably petty status as employees of a broken and corrupt state system.
On Thursday morning (May 17, 2012), however, when as matter of trying to stand up for my fundamental rights as the victim of a violent crime, I had to listen to the bone chilling voices of Joel Rudd, lead mortician at the AZ Attorney Generals Office, who represented the interests of ASH and ADHS, and Donna Noriega, who is the the Chief Operating Officer at The Arizona State Hospital, I immediately felt the same abject terror that often gripped me while a patient at ASH; my blood pressure shy rocketed as soon as I heard Donna Noriega's voice, and for a moment it felt as though I had that suddenly plummeted again into a much darker universe, where ill qualified representatives of Arizona's only long term public metal health care facility victimize the states most at-risk citizens as a matter of tending to their own lotus-eating greed and revoltingly perverted need for self gratification. I had to go for a good long trail run as soon as I got out of the hearing in order to distance myself from the fear that felt when I sensed that those two devils were in striking distance of my relatively peaceful life today, and even now, three days later, I am still shaken up by it all.
My late older brother Reed taught me about love, honesty, and the potential tenderness of any man's heart before I was even12 years old. He used to take me on long hikes in the mountains of New Mexico, and we would always be in discussion about something of merit. He was a great teacher and storyteller, and I clearly remember him telling me stories about our family history, particularly with respect for our father, who died in 1971; as well as tales of his own adventures on the west coast and in the Oregon forests, and as we moved through the cognitive and physical landscapes of these settings, he patiently showed me in each passing moment of our time together what it means to help those unable to help themselves, be they human or nonhuman in form. Reed was about 11 years older than I, and while living in northern California off and on during the late sixties, he became friends with a number of very influential people, including Neil Young (see photo below), after the two of them met at a small folk festival in the Bay area that was being held in order to raise funds for a free kitchen that my brother used to work at in Oakland, circa 1968-1970.
In 1975, Young's song "Cortez the Killer" was banned in Spain because its lyrics offered a beautifully written critical expose' of European colonization in the Americas, in direct defiance of contemporary ideologies about the history to our nation. This is a spirit that I feel comfortable in assigning to myself today, and the nature of it has led me though one hell of a strange arrangement of door ways in recent years, but I am comfortable with it. I am seeing the air and sky itself more clearly than I have since boyhood, and nothing in the last 20 years of my life has made me feel so alive, in fact, as dedicating myself to fighting the substandard mental health care. I don't know if it because I'm helping other patients at ASH, or if its because I am so sickened by the malevolence of ASH staff that I really love telling them that they are no longer going to get away with it
My brother Reed died in late spring, 1974, from complications associated with a drug overdose (heroin), while staying by himself in an unfurnished and unheated apartment in Boonton, New Jersey. He had spent most of the previous winter staying with me and my mother in Albuquerque, but he headed to the east coast in order to hook up with some of his oldest childhood friends. I know very little about the event, beyond these things, and I have no idea if he ever had the chance to hear "Cortez the Killer." He died alone, and far too early in his life. Had Reed lived, I honestly believe I would never have experienced the worst aspects of my childhood, and my mom would have very possibly remained much happier, too.
All of that said, it is apparent to me today that my core ideals with respect to being human, and directly related concepts that I have about how we, as humans, should treat one another, directly contribute to how I interact with the world around me. Humans are, by nature, social animals, and for whatever reason, I am overly effected by the reality that some people treat others like shit. This led to consider suicide for the first time when I was 14 years old, and it also came into play when I revisited suicidal thinking, albeit on a much more severe scale, following the death of my mom, and in relation to the carnage that I experienced through my struggles with alcohol circa the early 21st century. I have, at various times in my life, experienced a host of deeply set inner conflicts, in essence, and many of these conflicts are rooted in very real elements of the social landscape around me.
It was established very late in my treatment at ASH, largely through my own self directed contemplations with respect for my overall state of mind and sense of self awareness, that my earliest acceptance of suicide developed in my mind sometime not long after Reed died in 1974. My mother's relative meltdown and the effects that it had on me coincided almost directly with my coming to realize that if I wanted to, I could always follow my brother Reed to wherever it was that he has gone. I distinctly recall concluding at the time that my brother had not "died," in fact, at least to the extent that I could not agree to anything along the lines of knowledge about what death itself meant. At his funeral, I placed a handwritten letter that I had written to him, and I can only recall today that I asked him to feel free to contact me from the other side of it all, if that were to turn out to be possible. I know that I was was pretty wrapped up in parapsychology at the time, and that I had recently a story read about Bridey McMurphy and other like phenomena. But in essence, I also had nothing but absolute faith in the reality that nobody knows what actually goes on once our physical bodies expire.
Specific to my experiences as a client of the Arizona Department of Health Services/Behavioral Health Services (ADHS/BHS) and patient at The Arizona State Hospital (aka The AZ Center For Criminal Patient Abuse), I will never forget how profoundly I was struck by the humanity of the Family Food Center when I first visited it in mid-March, 2012, this after full 13 months of the cold hearted substandard and abusive conditions at The Arizona State Hospital (ASH). It was amazing, akin to entering a long awaited welcome home party, or finding a long loved lost pet waiting for you at your front door. After all that ongoing abuse and directly related fear, the Center is a virtual heaven on earth. Therein, these contrasts, the trauma of being treated like I didn't count for anything, as though my failure to die was a burden on them, the cruelest of ASH staff; and then, the brightness of the volunteers at the Center, and the friendliness of the diners, and the beauty of the forests, and the land, the sky.
Discompassionate, and therein incapable of sincere warmth or concern for the needs of weaker persons, Donna Noriega and Joel Rudd cooperatively represent the modern medical communities astonishingly reptilian underbelly. I am as certain as I have been about anything in my life that neither of them holds the positions that they hold out of concern for their fellows, and it is no coincidence that they should be the ones most centrally responsible for the utterly amoral and arguably criminal goings on at The Arizona State Hospital. They are, the both of them, as cut out for their respective jobs as is manifestation of representative evil. PLEASE SEE MY APRIL 30, 2012 "RESOURCE IDEAS" ARTICLE, and help bring light back into the lives of the patients at The Arizona State Hospital. Help stop the ongoing abuse and brutally unlawful and substandard mental health care practices there by speaking out today, via the internet or by phone or by snail mail in stalwart defense of the critically threatened dignity acitizens, family, and friends at ASH and beyond.
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I would really love input of any kind from anybody with any interest whatsoever in the issues that I am sharing in this blog. I mean it, anybody, for I will be the first one to admit that I may be inaccurately depicting certain aspects of the conditions
at ASH, and anonymous comments are fine. In any case, I am more than willing to value anybody's feelings about my writing, and I assure you that I will not intentionally exploit or otherwise abuse your right to express yourself as you deem fit. This topic is far, far too important for anything less. Thank you, whoever you are. Peace and Frogs.