Flashing Point Thing: A big shout out to the good people at ASH! You guys rock!! And some reflection on personal memories and my interactions with mental illness, too (prose).

     The Arizona State Hospital is an enormous facility, with a number of separately operated sections and hundreds and hundreds of employees; and yet, ASH represents only one relatively minute aspect of the much larger Arizona Department of Health Services. It is not too unlike the main office of its cousin, the AZ Dept. of Motor Vehicles. As such, the "blue collar" professionals, which- respectively speaking- include behavioral health technicians and janitorial staff,  are mired down in as classic a form of bureaucracy as might be found in contemporary society. (I just want to say, that across the board, I personally found the housekeepers that I met and basically befriended to be the most down to earth and nonvolatile/threatening group of regular staff at ASH, a profound relief that arose in direct defiance of the evil monger-doctor clinicians and administrators, and I know many other patients feel the same way). And despite the fact that these are the employees who interact most closely with the client-patients, which in certain cases brings out some of the most beautifully talented skill sets that I have ever seen in play, these hard working employees tend to have little more voice in relation to the administrative bodies that control them than the patient-clients do; and in terms of the disproportionate power dynamic that patients deal with 24/7, lower level staff are subject to very similar abuses of power and authority. Everybody there effectively knows this, too, it is a rarely verbalized type of shared knowledge that most definitely exists between these particular subsets of staff and most if not all of the patients.
       I feel that I can attest, as well,  to how deeply frustrating it is for the more ethically inclined and hardest working staff at ASH to function in their jobs as heath care professionals. They are the essential minority, and without a doubt, the embedded majority at ASH control the flow of day to day goings on. This is the only reason that abuse is a staple ingredient to the patient experience at ASH. The good people are anomalies, and the bad eggs run the show with overt support from administration. It is one of the saddest things I have ever witnessed in the context of employment settings, and I have worked in many, many different employment settings (including health care). For the good people at ASH, the need to balance your own personal life needs and interests against the mechanisms of the system must be torturous at times.
       The bottom line in terms of being employed by the state is that the basic employee benefits and relative job security are pretty darn reasonable, all told. But at the same time, in the deeply complex underbelly of the state system, where these sorts of employees have to function day in and day out (in the trenches, as it were), there are a high number of basically depraved individuals who somehow find employment with the state. It is really disturbing to see and experience this reality as client-patient, people who are, in my learned opinion, some of the least "talented" health care professionals in modern society.
        It is indeed, a catch 22 sort of reality, and as I go about taking the wrongdoers at ASH to task, I really feel the need to express my sincere appreciation for the good people at ASH. Because there are some good people at ASH, hands down.


      THE ETHICALLY SOUND EMPLOYEES AT THE ARIZONA STATE HOSPITAL KNOW WHO THEY ARE. THAT SAID: ANYBODY FROM ASH WHO KNEW ME AS AN ALLY AND WHO HAPPENS TO BE READING THIS, PLEASE HEAR ME NOW, AS I TRY TO REACH OUT MY ARMS TO YOU IN THANKFULNESS AND ABSOLUTE FRIENDSHIP. I SIMPLY CANNOT SAY IT ENOUGH:


             HELLO, HELLO, HELLO! HOW ARE YOU! I HOPE YOU ARE WELL. THANK YOU!

         I THINK IT IS FAIR TO SAY, TOO, THAT AT LEAST A FEW OF YOU KNOW EXACTLY WHO YOU ARE, I CERTAINLY HOPE THIS IS THE CASE, BECAUSE I REALLY ENJOYED THE RELIEF OF KNOWING AND INTERACTING WITH YOU, AND I CANNOT SAY ENOUGH HOW CRITICALLY IMPORTANT YOU ARE TO THE SITUATION THERE AT ASH. I SINCERELY HOPE THAT YOU ARE WELL, ALL OF YOU, AND THAT IN THE BIGGER MIX OF THINGS, YOUR JOYS IN LIFE EXTEND FAR BEYOND THE PARAMETERS OF YOUR JOBS THERE AT ASH. 
  
       That said, I see that at least a couple of staff members from The Arizona State Hospital have taken time to vent frustration over their own situation(s) online at ASH Supervisor Cory "crazycorycorner.weebly.com" Nelson's personal website. I feel you! I definitely learned the hard way about the changes in staffing that were being effected by Mr. Nelson and his droogs shortly before my February, 2012, discharge from ASH, and I share the concerns over systematic decreases in security staff in favor of more behavioral professionals there at the Hospital.
       But I have to say, too, that there is lot more to the story than just those, relatively obvious changes. The systematic shifts in standard procedure at ASH are being managed under the direct authority of the highest ranking representatives of the Arizona Department of Health Services, people for whom ASH is almost abstract. That is who you need to be communicating with, ASH staff, because your immediate bosses at ASH are basically talking heads, at best. In terms of your own relative work place safety, you need be proactive, and it does not take much, really. Write a few letters, get in contact with media (I recommend calling JJ Hensely at the AZ Republic, he is trustworthy and most definitely understands the shortcomings at ASH and beyond in the state system). Do it anonymously, from a pay phone or whatever:
              AZ REPUBLIC NEWS DESK: (602) 444-8000, or BY MAIL: 200 E VAN BUREN ST, 85004.
        Give it a shot, you guys. THE PATIENTS NEED YOU AS MUCH AS YOU NEED THEM IN THIS SENSE, AND THERE IS NO JUSTIFICATION FOR ANYBODY- STAFF OR PATIENTS- TO HAVE TO STAND BY AND LET THE SHIT THAT GOES ON AT THE ARIZONA STATE HOSPITAL GO ON, AND ON , AND ON.  BY STANDING UP FOR YOUR OWN RIGHTS, YOU CAN BRING ABOUT THE SORTS OF REFORM THAT YOU KNOW AS WELL AS I DO NEEDS TO COME ABOUT IN THAT ACCURSED FACILITY.

         My sole focus as a writer today is to address the issue of substandard patient care and related abuse at ASH and beyond, and as matter of honesty, I simply gotta say I don't really lose a lot of sleep over the experiences of staff as ASH. I wish I did, but my the target(s) of my efforts are complex enough, as it is. But I do owe a loud degree of sincere and heartfelt thanks to the staff at ASH, those whom I was privileged to have gotten along with really well there, who made very day little more acceptable to me as mentally disabled person stuck in a very, very uncomfortable place in life. There weren't terribly many staff of this sort, and I admit, hands down, that I am not always easy to get along with.... But for what its worth, I hope that (if and) when you all read this blog, you realize that I am not forgetting your roles in my personal history. You are very, very special people, each and eye one of you. Mentally ill persons are, indeed, very vulnerable and at risk individuals, but I know that this fundamental tenet must become cloudy, at times. The conditions at ASH can be rough, all around, but please understand, that in no uncertain terms, you guys made the difference for me, personally, and I know that you do the same for other patients day and day out.
          Hopefully, we can sort of work together today, as we engage in fighting for profound improvements in patient care at ASH (that'd be my central task) and also survive the changes there at ASH at this time. Please, feel free to drop in and say howdy, do so anonymously, take whatever precautions you have to remain unidentified, and please rest assured, I will not ever go against you in terms of your job security, and so. I mean that, attest to it form the bottom of my living heart.


                    Prose


DOPE: Albuquerque '79/Phoenix '11 
      Phoenix mexicanos pulling brush 
       at the local insane asylum...
"The woman sells molded pot"
Larry Jaramillo said excitedly,
as though to say...  
There was one man,
too, a wheel chair bound litigant
of a civil action selling
acid and weed, living 
just down the road.... 
Nothing compares, perhaps,
to Howard, Kawasaki triple
owning dealer man, living on his floor,
oil spreading on the ragged
carpet in a corner. 
       The brush is tree trimmings,
       the point is unclear,
       so we chased dragons
       because we could. 
                                            (summer 2011)


But death goes about the earth also,
    riding a broom
lapping the ground in search of the dead-
death is in the broom,
it is the tongue of death looking for the dead,
the needle of death looking of the thread. 
               (Pablo Neruda, from "Death Alone", Residencia en la Tierra, II 1935)


Little Coz
Try out, run!
Subjective, illusion
time along with death.
Stew cooking, slow
thick, my body....


A small dog is a powerful thing,
I've never known 
so satisfying, so... My lasting heart
will still be there. 
It is as if we knew all along. 
                                               (April 2012)


Angles
Prism life is to shine
what the water on my sidewalk
states to a sky when the open fields
of troubled pasts, views out the back window
of a car traveling through midwestern 
America rain storms, comes over
me, and these aging limbs
seek like heat, missile and flame
of youthful purchases of dream
after dream, like mastery, all things seldom known,
still large on whatever horizon
befits a child's eye, all kin seem to matter
seasons gone, but winter
always seemed to last around here,
outdistancing even the melted snow
and slush, or puddles, it is all the same
to my sidewalk, laying there always for me
and all my visitors, touching, too
my home, my garden, giving shelter
to all of sort of heights, 
as a matter of simply lying there.  

paoloreed@gmail.com