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"Mental illness is not just a matter of health. It is a matter of humanity, in which we all have value." 
         Jason Deshaw. August 10. 2016

Even if I don't make it out of this, myself affected in my own right by serious mental illness, and the associated struggles that I personally deal with on a day to day basis, my work to date has always been about compelling others to "do the right thing." Has never in that sense been about me, this project, outside of my own trials and tribulations as a patient in Arizona's sole long term public mental health care facility, and the relationship that I have even todeay with the ones still hospitalized there (and any newcomers there, as well). One way or the other, again- even if I don't make it out of this- I will continue in whatever way I can to call on anyone of reasonable conscience to take a long moment and consider the need, the very real need, for American society in general to work its ass off in terms of diminishing the abject discrimination(s) that have historically futhered the presence of grossly unjust and substandard health care pratices so graphically illustrated by very recent history at The Arizona State Hospital. 

For in fact, I believe that I will will within 24 hours either pass to the other side, a transition that I very familiar with in terms of thinking and sentiment, or be returned to a state hospital or other like facility (and you are goddamn right it will not be the Arizona State Hospital) via legally mandated standards of care. 

I have, in fact, been re-hospitalized on no less then two occasions since my February, 2012, discharge from ASH. I have never determined whether my time at ASH has much of- or one hell of a lot of- direct relationship with my ongoing struggles with anxiety (which only arose after I become an ASH patient) and enhanced post traumatic stress disorder (where in the past my issues with PTSD were limited to the abuse I suffered as a child, I today have dreams far too often about the fear I dealt with when engaged in doing the right thing as an ASH patient, and the related retaliative efforts of ASH administrators and their counter parts in clinical services to shut me up, fear as a matter of plain fact of being murdered or otherwise brutally harmed). No matter, however. My life is mine to deal with, and just as I have always tried, I will to the best of my ability hold no unjusitifed vehemenence towards anyone not as evil as the ones running ASH.

Because they have long had it coming. To willfully engage in furthering the sickening mistreatment of persons highly at risk of abuse, negligence, and societally embedded discrimination is indeed a crime against humanity itself. This applies not only to the seriously mentally ill population currently residing coast to coast in America's public mental hostpitals, but also to at-risk children, and the elderly across the board.  

And today, as it appears that I may be on the road to more inpatient mental health treatment, this on the basis of good faith concerns of mental health professionals familiar with my state of mind and emotion at this time, I only wish that my work has in fact made a difference. 

Yes, many have to date assured me that my efforts have been central to thus far applied "reform" at ASH (for lack of a better word), but I know that there is far more to do, regardless of whatever I have brought to the table over the last four+ years. My idea of making a difference cannot be quantified in any capacity. So long as I know that I doing the right thing on a day in day out basis, I am doing something right. 

Much of this hardly matters to me at times like now, though, for I am in relative psychiatric crisis, as it stands with respect for diagnosis of major depressive disorder and associated suicidal ideation, so I therein have other things on my mind right now. I will as always roll with it to the best of my given strengths and ability. One way or the other, my spirit in the basic sense of symbolic representation of human interests will always remain. As it has with respect for other similarly dedicated human rights activists.  

  

And, in context, with direct respect for the fact that I have spent at least some time in mental hospitals other then ASH, I feel it is of note that to date, I have not been compelled to become a voice of dissent in relation to such facilities. ASH is almost but not quite unique, a particuarly monstorous example of human society's most graphics shortfalls when it comes to public health care across the board. Deeply disturbing depravity that forced me in no uncertain terms to initiate and follow through with my decision to bring scandal to light, as a requisite means to see that the issues most at stake are addressed and abolished once and for all. And while I may have done okay, all of us can as well, and likely do far more... If that is, one has what it takes. 

I wish- not so much hope- but wish that my work will continue. As in, that I come out of this in better condition that I am today, as I write this. 

Big thanks, as always, and one way or the other, to each and every person associated with the effort to bring Arizona's sole long term public mental hospital up to par with established medical standards. You are down to the last of remarakble character and beauty.

And you know who you are.

paoloreed@gmail.com