Identifying Key Factors #Two: Wherein research concerning critical problems in Arizona's administrative system lends itself to understanding the need for serious and deep reform in the state's behavioral health care system and its affiliated agencies. 


"The startled mind is a dangerous thing when not given room to stretch one's legs." 
                                                                                         (Salvador Dali, La Morca Dias Prieta)

       Following my recent years in the Arizona behavioral health care system, I have come to the undeniable conclusion that Arizona can be a really frightening place to exist. This applies to any number citizen groups in this state, but it is perhaps no more intense than in the case of mentally ill people, for many of us are simply not able to meaningful stand up for ourselves; this might be due to the distinct complications of our given disorder, or perhaps, to our limited legal status (in terms of cognitive competence and/or related guardianship), but in any case, the graphic marginalization of mentally ill adults manifests most deeply in the underbelly of the state system itself, rather than in our homes or on the streets, in fact. State facilities of any kind are in no way safe havens for such individuals, and The Arizona State Hospital is no exception to this fact. But as matter of seeking some level of understanding about the atrocious conditions at ASH, I am always looking at related aspects of the Arizona system because it is obvious that the fundamental wrongdoing at ASH and beyond is all connected.
      With this line of inquiry in mind, I will mention that there was an interesting story in today's Arizona Republic newspaper (May 25, 2012) concerning the arguably brutal conditions at the Maricopa County jail (Phoenix), which is run by longtime county Sheriff Joe Arpaio (see image above). Now, this man Joe Arpaio, of course, is currently being sued- again- by the Department of Justice Office for Civil Rights, this time in relation to extensively documented racial discrimination in his office; and as might be expected, this latest article about constitutionally banned mismanagement at the county jail also relates information with respect for the impacts of the conditions there on mentally ill adults who far too often find themselves mired down in the local legal system.
      Almost every patient at ASH that I came to know well had some degree of experience in jail somewhere. In fact, behaviorally and emotionally unstable adults so commonly have conflicts with law enforcement authorities, that jail time and mental illness are often synonymous, this despite the reality that nine times out of ten, the actual incident requiring police response stemmed from some nature of psychotic break or other like crisis; but regardless of whether or not the individual was legitimately guilty of  any sort of crime at the time of their arrest, it often takes days into weeks, weeks into months, and sometimes even years for many of these mentally ill individuals to come into direct contact with psychiatric resources of any kind.
       It is notable, too, that the Arizona county jails essentially represent that same point in the system where incarcerated mentally ill African Americans so clearly fall between the cracks, and very disproportionately find themselves sent to prison, rather than being granted access to long term psychiatric services through the state's behavioral health care system. As I noted in a recent article of my own (see May 11, 2012: "On Racial Discrimination...."), non-African American adults receive treatment at The Arizona State Hospital at approximately twelve (12) times the frequency that African Americans do.
       The article (see below) that I mentioned from today's Arizona Republic newspaper was written by crack reporter JJ Hensley, who with my assistance previously reported Jesus Murietta's escape from ASH and April Mott's brutal murder [see AZ Republic "Victim's Family Questions Why Man Was Free" September 28, 2011]), and it reveals disturbing new data about one of the most critically mismanaged aspects of the Arizona legal system, this with specific respect for mentally ill adults who find themselves incarcerated by place and subsequently in the hands of jail workers and Arizona prosecutors.


Note: While the below article does acknowledge certain improvements in conditions at the Maricopa County jail, the findings also clarify ongoing discrimination against the rights and needs of any mentally ill adult who might happen to wind up there, which further verifies my concerns about Arizona's failure to meets its fundamental obligations as per its own (state) constitution, which is in violation of the public trust. There is no justification to allow for mentally ill adults being treated like common criminals simply because the state's legal and medical administrations aren't capable of managing these matters in a humane way, but as the article makes clear, the mentally ill individuals passing through the county jail are still being abused at this time.


Judge: MCSO jail conditions better. 
Sheriff's Office's improvements end court-ordered oversight
                     JJ Hensley - May. 24, 2012 The Republic | azcentral.com

     A pair of court-appointed experts visited the jails in April. While they noted the increased staffing levels and reduced mortality rates in the jails, the experts still had serious concerns about inmates' access to mental-health care and the ability of detention officers, nurses, doctors and psychiatrists to communicate with each other.

      One expert also reviewed the case of Ernest "Marty" Atencio, who died in December after Phoenix police and Maricopa County detention officers had an altercation with Atencio at the Fourth Avenue Jail and deployed a Taser. Atencio's case highlights the need for more training, particularly when patients with potential mental illness or those going through drug or alcohol withdrawal come into the system.

       Some of those issues will be addressed when the county installs an electronic health-record system, the report notes, and others are the result of inherent flaws in the way mentally ill inmates are treated.

      But officials will have to work within those restrictions to improve access to medical and mental-health care if they want to emerge from under that portion of Wake's judgment, said an attorney with the American Civil Liberties Union's National Prison Project, which represents the inmates.

      "The sheriff, like the county, as defendants, are required to comply with the medical and mental-health provisions of the judgment. As of now, neither the sheriff nor the county are in compliance with those," said Gabe Eber. "The court has treated them both as co-defendants. There are clearly areas the sheriff needs to be involved in. ... There are going to be areas of access to care where the sheriff needs to cooperate with CHS and make changes."

     "(Correctional Health Services) has investigated many options/opportunities to secure more timely access to psychiatric hospitalization but have been stymied by the bounds of Arizona's civil commitment laws, local court interpretation, criminal court processes, defense attorney strategy and frankly, the larger political decision of the courts/counties to use the jail rather than a psychiatric hospital for competency assessment and restoration," wrote Kathryn Burns, a court-appointed expert.

                  Read more: http://www.azcentral.com/arizonarepublic/local/articles/2012/05/18/20120518judge-mcso-jail-conditions-better.html#ixzz1vtgqKSuB      END.


          IN CLOSING: The "inherent flaws in how mentally ill inmates are treated" (cited above) at the jail falls nothing short of blatant discrimination against these citizens on the basis of their disability, for as seriously mentally ill persons, they are to be protected and served in full accordance of federal and state laws applicable to them as vulnerable/at-risk adults. These fundamental standards of care also apply in any public facility, including ASH, but my experience has proven that patients at ASH are actually more at risk there in the Hospital itself than they are out in the "real world", because there is no meaningful oversight or related accountability within the structure of ASH' administrative system of authority, while on the outside one can at least rely upon immediate access to phone lines to the police, as well as rely upon other resources in the community who are able and willing to provide care and safety   related issues.    
         The manner in which patients at  Arizona State Hospital are treated, which is clearly something that needs to be resolved, because the citizens of Arizona deserve to know that ASH is a safe haven for its client-patients, and not the opposite. But as described in my May 11, 2012, article concerning the graphic racial disparity and clearly racial discrimination at The Arizona State Hospital, the issues of patient abuse at ASH extends far beyond the realm of abuse that I either witnessed or was personally subjected to while hospitalized in that specific facility between January, 2011, and February, 2012. The state of Arizona's entire system of administrative authority is clearly broken in terms of services specific to the needs and rights of mentally ill adults, and I firmly believe that only federal intervention will bring about serious reform in relation these matters as a whole. 


Please do everything you can today to come to the aid of Arizona's deeply at risk mentally ill patients at the Arizona state Hospital. Please see my April 08, 2012 "Resource Ideas" article, and figure out a way to get involved now. Patient abuse at ASH is inhumane and ongoing. Let's put a stop to it once and for all.


paoloreed@gmail.com 

RERUN: Identifying Key Factors #One: Wherein research concerning critical problems in the system lends itself to understanding the need for serious and deep reform in Arizona's behavioral health care system and its affiliated agencies.

The following article was originally published in this blog in May, 2012, approximately four months after my discharge from The Arizona State Hospital. The content is designed to illustrate the fact that administrative staff at ASH, as well as well up into the supervisory offices of ADHS/BHS, are willfully engaged in failing to abide by very specific laws that apply to any Arizona citizens right to due process, as per state and federal law and policy. More specifically, I can attest to the fact that the ADHS/BHS Office of Grievances and Appeals willfully ignored clearly stated time-line requirements that apply to civil procedure, as dictated in the Arizona Administrative Code, and other like edicts of law and policy. I contend that each and every state employee identified in the following material were complicit in allowing for this area of unlawful misconduct to occur, and further, that this data as it applied to my experiences in the context are far from unique. For I know for a fact that there are a number of ASH patients who at this time (2014) are being subject to the same issues illustrated herein. Substandard practices across the board, and they are all getting away with it.    

DATELINE MAY 2011:

I am in the process of trying to get the Arizona Department of Health Services Office of Grievances and Appeals (ADHS OGA) to comply with various Arizona statutes, as well as applicable provisions of the Arizona Administrative Code, specific to the long overdue scheduling of three (3) of my current grievance reports for hearing in the AZ Office of Administrative Hearings in Phoenix. As noted already, I just presented one body of allegations about clinical and administrative abuse at The Arizona State Hospital in my first hearing in this context last Thursday, May 17, 2012; but these other three (3) matters are of equal importance to the current substandard conditions at ASH, and the willingness of ADHS OGA to stall the legal process in this manner is 100% consistent with my concerns about deeply ingrained misconduct in the entire structure of the Arizona behavioral health care system, including but not limited to the substandard medical-mental care practices at ASH.

BELOW IS MY MAY 25, 2012 MOTION (AND THE RELATED ACKNOWLEDGEMENT OF RECEIPT) TO THE DIRECTOR OF THE ARIZONA OFFICE OF ADMINISTRATIVE HEARINGS, WHEREIN I REQUEST A PROMPT SCHEDULING OF ALL THREE OF THESE OVERDUE GRIEVANCE REPORTS FOR JUDICIAL REVIEW IN THAT OFFICE. I ALSO FORWARDED A COPY OF THIS DOCUMENT TO THE MANAGER OF THE LEGAL OFFICE IN THE ARIZONA DEPARTMENT OF HEALTH SERVICES IN THE HOPE THAT THEY RESPOND IN KIND AND GET THESE MATTERS SCHEDULED AS THEY ARE REQUIRED TO DO. I CANNOT BE SURE THAT THIS MOTION WILL DO THE TRICK, BUT AS ALWAYS, I AM WILLING TO ENGAGE IN GOOD FAITH COMMUNICATION WITH THESE VARIOUS AUTHORITIES AS MATTER OF TRYING TO GET THEM ALL TO FOLLOW THEIR OWN RULES AND MEET THIEU RELATED OBLIGATIONS TO ME AS AN INDIVIDUAL AS WELL AS EVERY OTHER MEMBER OF ARIZONA'S BEHAVIORAL HEALTH CARE CLIENTELE COLLECTIVELY SPEAKING.

OAH Electronic Motion Submission System oahmotion@azoah.com
to me

This is a message from the Arizona Office of Administrative Hearings to inform you that a motion has been submitted for Pending scheduling. The details are as follows:

Docket number: Pending scheduling
Hearing date: Pending
Filed by: (PJ Reed paoloreed@gmail.com)
Filed on: 5/25/2012
Sent to: Director
Copies e-mailed to: Thomas Salow, ADHS Managing Counsel salowt@azadhs.gov
Filing party will also notify:
(none specified)

--------------------------

Hi. I am writing you to inquire about the scheduling of three (3) OAH hearings, each one relating to unlawful staff conduct as The Arizona State Hospital and related ADHS/OGA grievance reports that occurred up to one full year ago. I received formal word from ADHS many months ago confiriming that each of these three matters would be scheduled for hearing/OAH judicial review, but have not to date heard anything more. The absence of timeliness in the context of each of these separate is in violation of AAC provisions, and flies on the face of federal standards relating to due process and equal protection, and I am requesting your assistance in seeing that three (3) hearings be promptly scheduled, to whatever extent your office can help me, of course. These are the docket numbers for the oldest two (2) of the pending cases:
1) ADHS/OGA #H090611S0009 (regarding a sequence of incidents that occurred beginning on May 25, 2011)
2) ADHS/OGA #H120511S0012 (regarding a sequence of events that occurred beginning Sept. 06, 2011)

I do not have the docket number for the third of these grievance reports, but the related sequence of incidents began on September 30, 2011, when a patient named Melissa A. attacked and injured me with a metal chair while AzSH staff looked on.

Any information that you can provide me with concerning the status of these yet to be scheduled OAH hearings will be greatly appreciated.

--------------------------

The following file was submitted with the motion: NONE.

If a file was submitted with the motion, it should be attached to this e-mail. In the event that a file seems to be missing, please contact the Office of Administrative Hearings.

Thank you for using the OAH Electronic Motion Submission System.       END

       IN CLOSING: As per this most recent court proceeding (May 17, 2012), I will be presenting my allegations in each of these yet to be scheduled hearings (presuming they are ever scheduled, in fact) in contest with the Arizona Attorney Generals Office (most likely the same hollow cheeked man, Joel Rudd, who represented The Arizona State Hospital last Thursday). As such, the grossly disproportionate power dynamo ic is already in effect, this in the sense that the state is delaying the scheduling of these hearings depute that being in violation of their own rules, and there is little that I alone can do about it at this time. My resources are very, very, limited, and I have next to no experience in these sorts of affairs.

PLEASE HELP ME WITH MY CAUSE: It is never too late for somebody else to get involved in this ongoing effort to defend the rights of Arizona's mentally ill adults, with particular respect for the patients at the Arizona State Hospital. Please see my Resource Ideas article from April 08, 2012, and do what you can to demand meaningful oversight and investigation of all of my feel founded and good faith allegations about patient abuse at ASH and behind in the state behavioral health care system. I strongly desire getting the United States Department of Justice Office of Civil Rights involved in this specific context (investigations), for example, and simple 2-3 paragraph letters to them about these matters can make a huge difference.  

UPDATE 2014: As I stated above, I am aware via direct contact with several Arizona State Hospital patients, patient' family members, Arizona based citizen advocates, and other like sources of hard data, that there is an insidious presence today of grossly unlawful violations specific to well established civil procedural law, as it applies at state and federal levels of  crucially enacted law and policy. One such person recently identified ASH's legal counsel Joel "the mortician" Rudd as a "prince of darkness", this as per their interactions with this particular Rat Bastard, and  as per such persons asking me to further the process to the best of my ability, I will say again: Rat Bastards Beware. You know who you are, and that that the walls are closing in. Why not do the right thing now, before it is too late in terms of career and reputation? I will immediately support any one you willing to help turn the tide once and for all, but do realize that I intend to take no prisoners, either, in terms of bringing full accountability upon each and every Rat Bastard responsible for furthering the underlying details of this issue- Arizona's dirtiest secret- The Arizona State Hospital, which has been operating in utter defiance of established health care law and policy as a matter of standard practice.

paoloreed@gmail.com

Cory D. Nelson's Disconnect: Former South Dakota Corrections Employee Finagles His Way Into Mental Health Care Despite Having No Proven Calling For The Job.


      In 2010, Arizona State Hospital superintendent Cory Nelson came to Arizona from South Dakota as one of several candidates for the position, this after the previous superintendent, John Cooper, left ASH in order to take another like job at a private health care facility in California. As most Americans know, South Dakota is among the poorest states in the nation today. The per capita income is dirt poor, and even  a fundamental awareness of American history allows for the understanding that really poor states often offer safe haven for corruption and low quality state services. South Dakota is also the location of appallingly third world conditions on several well known American Indian reservations in that state, such as Pine Ridge and Rosebud (Lakota Sioux), conditions that are commonly known to at least some people in all corners of the world. More personally, my own background relating to American Indian issues taught me a long, long time ago about deep running corruption and directly related racism in South Dakota's relatively recent state agencies (with former governor Bill Janklow standing at the head of that particularly disturbing class), and with the economics of the state in mind, I can only imagine how marginalized South Dakotas mentally ill population must be. Ergo, it is only apropos that Cory Nelson earned his stripes, as it were, in  place like South Dakota before becoming an employee of Arizona's mismanaged behavioral health care system.
      

As the following 2010 article in a prominent South Dakota newspaper reveals, Cory Nelson is not only lacking the fundamental heartfelt qualities of a person sincerely dedicated to the well being of mentally ill (or otherwise hospitalized, at risk) patient-clients, he is also willing to participate in covertly sanctioned administrative activities that go against the expressed wishes of the citizens whom he is supposed to serve as a state employee, as follows:

HSC Pay Raise Sparks Questions

Administrator Receives $10,000 Pay Increase

By Nathan Johnson
nathan.johnson@yankton.net

Published: Wednesday, July 7, 2010 1:17 PM CDT

     In a year when the South Dakota opted not to give state employees a salary bump, the decision to give a local official a pay increase has some people raising their eyebrows.                                                                                         

     In an effort to retain South Dakota Human Services Center (HSC) Administrator Cory Nelson, a state Department of Human Services (DHS) official said Nelson was given a $10,000 boost in April.

     Nelson was appointed as interim director of the HSC in November 2001. He was the former supervisor of the State Training School in Plankinton and had spent nine years in the South Dakota corrections system. However, at the time of his hiring at the HSC, Nelson was not qualified to be the administrator of the facility because state law required that the individual have five years of experience in a mental health institution. After arguments that the state law needed to be changed to allow a wider pool of applicants, the Legislature changed it in 2002. The new law said the administrator needed a college degree in administration and have administrative experience in a mental-health setting.

     Democratic Rep. Bernie Hunhoff of Yankton said he didn’t want to comment on any specific state official’s salary, but he believes everyone should be treated equally during what has been a difficult two years of balancing the state budget.

    “The sense of many lawmakers last session was quite the opposite of what is happening,” he said. “Some of us thought that if any salary dollars were available, they should be directed at those workers on the lower end of the wage spectrum — those that are struggling to pay the mortgage and put food on the table.”
    He added, “This seems like another example of the bureaucracy being out of step with the Legislature and the taxpayers.”

    Nelson declined to comment on the situation.

                                                    (from the Yankton Press & Dakotan, July 07, 2010)

ARTICLE END

          As a tax paying citizen of Arizona, it greatly troubles me to know that an identified need of the poorest state in the nation (South Dakota)  to "allow a wider pool of applicants" in its own administrative agencies has effectively opened the gateway for someone like Cory Nelson to become the head administrator of a public health care facility such as The Arizona State Hospital. Beyond being brand new to our state, the man has no formal background in health care (therein, an explanation of sorts for the presence of his infantile personal web site "crazycorycorner.weebly.com"), and more importantly (perhaps), Arizona is NOT the poorest state in the nation.  

       There is no justifiable reason for the citizens of Arizona to compromise our administrative policies in terms of establishing and maintaining as high quality a standard of medical care as we possibly can. Likewise, Arizonans have made clear that the state's public health care resources always need to be available to our most vulnerable citizens, including our children, the elderly, the infirm, and the mentally ill. In fact, given Arizona's most disturbing statistics at this time (as applicable to both ASH as well as the agency "Child Protective Services"), there is simply no room in the current Arizona Behavioral Health Services department for anyone not dedicated via heart and principle to the needs of that department's citizen based clientele.  

       This is particularly true at The Arizona State Hospital, where at this time there is a critically substandard state of medical-mental health care that largely exists due to the long employed primary care physicians and their lower ranking associates there at ASH. As I have tried to make clear since day one in my ongoing investigation and reporting of patient abuse at ASH, the issue of substandard care there is clearly out of control and seemingly unrecognized by the state agencies responsible for oversight of the Hospital's entire operation. The problems are so deeply embedded in the standard day to day practices there that only somebody with a very clear understanding of the Hospitals shortcomings should be running things at ASH. This is centrally important to the health and well being of ASH' entire patient community at ASH at this time, and I refuse to relent in my dedication to these issues, because I know beyond any shadow of doubt that only serious reform will bring about the sort of changes that need to happen there at ASH.

       At times it may seem that I am going out of way to direct any form of criticism about the conditions at The Arizona State Hospital that I can come up with, but nothing could be further from the truth. The fact is, I am simply not productive enough to stay 100% abreast of even my own stored memories and documented records, and at times I get a little lazy about structuring my accounting in the context of the data itself. But even if I shoot from the hip in terms of discussing my feelings about ASH, I can't avoid stumbling upon yet another body of well founded evidence about the mismanagement at that facility.  
      Indeed, things are becoming clearer every day, and all it takes is having access to public records through resources such as The Freedom of Information Act, and even the basic Internet itself. Administrator's at the Arizona State Hospital have thus far succeeded in unlawfully denying me access to my own personal medical records and other like information specific to my experiences at ASH, but in the meantime, simple research is bringing in new details in relation to the highly questionable backgrounds of the highest ranking staff at ASH, which in and of itself directly verifies my worst suspicions. 

Meanwhile, back to ASH supervisor Cory Nelson's work history.

       I learned the worst about Cory Nelson firsthand, in late summer, 2011, when he willfully participated in direct retaliation against me as a patient at ASH simply because I was willing to cry "foul" in the face of rampant clinical and administrative abuse of authority. Because of Cory Nelson's blatant disregard for my rights as a citizen and my needs as a patient, I was unlawfully transferred from the most peaceful unit at ASH to the most violent one (see April 09 2012: "Fact #3"), this despite me having no history of violence whatsoever (anywhere, at any time), and when I personally asked him about it, he stated:
      "I was informed of the need to make space on your unit of origin, and when we took a look at which patient was fit for such a transfer, you were the guy."       After this happened, but only after I had formally restated my inquiry and related concerns in writing,

Cory Nelson advised me in a letter as follows: 

      "It is certainly within the purview of the Superintendent/Chief Executive Officer... to make decisions that are in the best interest of that facility." 
       In this letter, Cory Nelson did not refer to the needs of the one patient most singularly impacted by this decision (me), nor did he offer any explanation whatsoever in terms of the anticipated therapeutic benefits to me, or why in fact I was deemed the only patient that he felt could be transferred at that time. As such, his vague comments concerning my rights as a patient-client at ASH violated key provisions of the Arizona Administrative Code at the time, and in failing to adhere to these standards, his actions were also in violation of federal and state laws specific to my protections and liberties as a citizen.  

        Thus, I came to the conclusion that something was fishy about this guy pretty quickly. He had only been at ASH for a little over 6 weeks when the above communication occurred, and I was initially willing to take into account; but before long, I began experiencing repeated acts of violence against me on the unit that I had been transferred to, violence that was at times orchestrated by staff on the unit; and no matter how strongly I stated my dissent about these matters, my expressions were effectively ignored time and time again. It was nerve wracking and at times terrifying to experience, and it is also something that any number of patients have to face day in and day out at ASH. Systematic retaliation for nothing more than exercising one's lawful right to cry "foul" when wrongdoing occurs, literally as though ASH' staff and the overall operation exist independently of the bylaws and standards of our nation; and in this specific instance, Cory Nelson's conduct was central to the administrative abuses that I am most concerned about in terms of the state's abject shortcomings in relation to behavioral health care. 

       That said, it is quite clear to me today, via my own actual experiences at ASH, that Cory Nelson's primary objective as a professional is to find relatively high paying state system positions (be it in South Dakota or Arizona, etc.), where he can exploit gross inefficiency and directly related systemic ineptitude without direct fear of being held accountable. I am also willing to say that low quality systems management in any given states administrative body is as commonly understood a fact of life in America as one might hope to find; and at ASH, in my humble though learned opinion, individuals like Cory Nelson, Donna Noriega, and Dr. Steven Dingle (to name a few), fairly well thrive because it is a setting where competence is measured not by direct service to the systems' clients, but rather by the ability to manipulate applicable statistics and cover up systematic shortfalls.

       

IN CLOSING: IN MY VERY WELL DOCUMENTED EXPERIENCES AS A PATIENT, NOBODY IN THE ADMINISTRATIVE OFFICES OF THE ARIZONA STATE HOSPITAL CAN BE TRUSTED TO MEET THEIR BASIC OBLIGATIONS TO THE CITIZENS OF THE STATE OF ARIZONA BECAUSE THE DISCONNECT BETWEEN THE VERY REAL EXPERIENCES OF THE PATIENTS AND STAFF AT ASH IS SO DEEP THAT ADMINISTRATORS LIKE CORY NELSON HAVE LITTLE TO NO IDEA WHAT THEY ARE DOING WHEN THEY  ARBITRARILY IMPOSE TECHNICALLY OVERBEARING ACTIONS UPON SAID PATIENTS.  BASED ON MY EXPERIENCE, IT IS ALSO MY OPINION THAT THEY ARE EFFECTIVELY INCAPABLE OF SUCH BECAUSE THEY ARE SIMPLY TOO SHORTSIGHTED (ETHICALLY AND PROFESSIONALLY)  TO HANDLE THE RESPONSIBILITY OF CARING FOR VULNERABLE ADULTS. CORY NELSON'S ADMINISTRATIVE EXPERIENCE FLOWS FROM HIS INITIAL PROFESSIONAL EMPLOYMENT IN A STATE PRISON SYSTEM. BUT THE PATIENTS AT ASH ARE NOT PRISONERS, THEY ARE PATIENTS IN A HOSPITAL. THEREIN, A SICKENINGLY GAPING EXAMPLE OF THE GRAPHIC DISCONNECT BETWEEN THE NEEDS OF MENTALLY ILL PERSONS AND ASH' HIGHEST RANKING ADMINISTRATOR. THIS IS WRONG, IT IS INHUMANE, THE CONDITIONS AT THE ARIZONA STATE HOSPITAL ARE CRIMINALLY SUBSTANDARD, AND PEOPLE LIKE CORY NELSON ARE GETTING AWAY WITH IT. BOTTOM LINE.  

       

        Please see my April 30, 2012 "Resource Ideas" article, and get involved as soon as you can in defending the rights of patients in the Arizona State Hospital. The patients at ASH are mentally ill. They are not criminals, and they deserve nothing short of reasonable medical/mental health care. The administrative and clinical abuse at ASH is ongoing, and it needs to stop. Now. 


paoloreed@gmail.com

Leaving Arizona   Of taking my leave of one the most unsafe states in the country today and heading for friendlier lands.          AND JUST IN CASE THE  ADMINISTRATORS AT ASH/ADHS/BHS THINK OTHERWISE, HEAR ME NOW EACH AND EVERY ONE OF YOU : I AM NOT GOING ANYWHERE, IN FACT, AND MY DEDICATION TO SEEING THAT YOU PEOPLE ARE HELD ACCOUNTABLE FOR YOUR ABJECT LACK OF CONCERN FOR THE SAFETY AND HEALTH OF YOUR CLIENTS IS FAR FAR FAR FROM OVER.

        Following over two full years of experiencing the deeply mismanaged system of behavioral health care in Arizona, a period of my life was horrifyingly punctuated by thirteen torturous months in the state's only plug term public mental health facility, The Arizona State Hospital, I am getting the hell out of Arizona in order to set up shop in a safer and more humane region of this nation. I have give all I have to give, at this point, in terms of residing in Arizona as a person diagnosed with serious mental illness, and while I very much regret that I cannot remain immediately at the side of the state's at risk adults in the behavioral care system,I am taking full advantage of the only resource that I really feel can be trusted in my world today: An old and very dear friend. I am privileged, indeed, to have a host of very good old friends, and while we have not necessarily remained in close contact, my truest friends know exactly who they are, and I have never questioned their presence in the landscape of my personal life, because we earned our relationships over many long years through trust and mutually shared precepts of  basic decency and friendship.                                                                                                                                                        

       This is not to say that I will not be continuing my dedication to human rights and related patient abuse issues at The Arizona State Hospital, however. The fact is, following this point in time, I will be provided with far better resources as a writer and activist-advocate, and I will not have the immediate bad taste in my mouth that inherently comes with living in Arizona at this time. I will also be fully able to travel to and from the state as needed in order to participate in at least there yet to be scheduled court proceedings, and/or other like activities specific to my rapidly developing work as an advocate for mental health patients in Arizona.

       My instinctual suspicions of deeply endemic shortfalls in the Arizona Department of Health/Behavioral Health Services are increasingly being confirmed in every possible way as I painstakingly continue my investigations of patient abuse at ASH and beyond. I was recently made aware of an upcoming federal court proceeding in regards to at least one other patient at the Arizona State Hospital, (Warren v. Brewer, 2: 2011cv 01901), for example, and own feelings about the possible findings in relation to last last Thursdays hearing (case #2011-BHS-0263-DHS) were boosted today by a prominent Arizona attorney who was kind enough to review my notes from the case.

 Meanwhile, other investigations are turning up all sorts of administrative and governmental corruption in various offices of Arizona government, and a front page story in today's Arizona Republic offered the following data in this context, as follows: 

Arizona political scandals back in focus with investigations

Recent probes hurt state's image, stir public distrust

54 comments by Dan Nowicki - May. 19, 2012 11:22 PM
The Republic | azcentral.com

Arizona has never been known for squeaky-clean politics. Its elected officials have been embroiled in some of the most sensational scandals of the past few decades, including the Keating Five, AzScam and the alt-fuels fiasco. One governor was impeached and removed from office while another resigned after being found guilty of bank and wire fraud. A former U.S. congressman from Arizona has been awaiting trial for years on charges including extortion, embezzlement and money laundering.

But to some it seems Arizona has recently opened a new chapter in its raucous political history, as investigations and allegations of corruption and abuse of power have ensnared law-enforcement officials and an unprecedented number of sitting lawmakers. The targets of inquiries have included some of the best-known political names in the state: Maricopa County Sheriff Joe Arpaio, former Maricopa Attorney Andrew Thomas, Arizona Attorney General Tom Horne and Pinal County Sheriff Paul Babeu.

         On Wednesday, the latest shoe dropped: state Rep. Ben Arredondo, D-Tempe, was indicted on federal charges of bribery, mail fraud, extortion and lying. Federal prosecutors allege that Arredondo, a former Tempe City Council member, took gifts such as pricey professional sports tickets in exchange for taking official action on behalf of a phony company that actually was a front for the FBI.

Arredondo previously was embroiled in yet another controversy surrounding gifts from the Fiesta Bowl to politicians.

         Arredondo's arraignment is scheduled for May 30 in U.S. District Court in Phoenix. Lee Stein, Arredondo's attorney, told The Arizona Republic last week that his side views the facts of the case "very differently than the government, but we'll do our talking in court."

        While there always have and likely always will be crooked politicians along the lines of former state Rep. Richard Miranda, D-Tolleson, who quit the Legislature this year before pleading guilty to federal felony wire fraud and attempted tax evasion charges, longtime political observers say that the fact that so many law-enforcement officials are under investigation is a new and disturbing trend that hurts the state's image and fuels public cynicism about government.

        And they lament what they see as a general lack of leadership and political will to address the situation. They long for the days when Arizona had influential public officials such as the late former U.S. Sen. Barry Goldwater, R-Ariz., who famously informed President Richard Nixon that he couldn't avoid impeachment over the Watergate scandal and later called on scandal- and gaffe-prone Gov. Evan Mecham to resign.

        "The decibel level of what's happened recently is unprecedented in the history of Arizona," said Jack August, a historian who has written several books about the state's politics. "It's almost like we're a renegade state."

        For Arizona, that's saying something. Its legacy of corruption has its roots in the Wild West of pre-statehood days and includes a series of unforgettable political scandals and crimes and a rogues' gallery of scoundrels. The 13th Territorial Legislature misappropriated so much money in the 1880s that it became immortalized in the history books as the "Thieving 13th." In less-distant times, Don Bolles, an Arizona Republic reporter who made his name in the 1960s and 1970s exposing rampant corruption in state government, was murdered in a car-bombing in 1976. (Think, if you will, of the risk I that I have taken thus for by standing up to administrate staff at ASH and beyond in the state behavioral health care system, and the assistance that I have had from local media: IT IS NOT OVERLY FANTASTIC OR IRRATIONALLY FEARFUL TO HAVE CONCERNS ABOUT HOW DANGEROUS THE PEOPLE IN POWER ARE HERE IN ARIZONA>  

       But August and other observers say that the combination of high-stakes investigations now unfolding may eclipse even historic Arizona episodes.... 

      Two of Arizona's U.S. senators -- Republican John McCain and Democrat Dennis DeConcini -- got caught up in a national scandal related to their relationships with disgraced developer and financier Charles Keating.....

      "There is a history here, but we are seeing today is different," August said. "This is much more high profile."
                                    High-profile cases

         In addition to the Arredondo indictment, other high-profile cases involve:

   -Maricopa County Sherriff Joe Arpaio, a Republican who is being sued by President Barack Obama's U.S. Department of Justice over accusations of racial-profiling and other civil-rights abuses related to his anti-illegal-immigration operations. A separate federal abuse-of-power investigation also is ongoing.

   -Recent Maricopa County Attorney Andrew Thomas and his deputy Lisa Aubuchon, who were ordered disbarred April 10 by an Arizona Supreme Court disciplinary panel for ethical misconduct in connection with prosecutions they launched against other Maricopa County officials and judges. Rachel Alexander, another Thomas aide, had her law license suspended for six months and a day. Aubuchon and Alexander are appealing; Thomas is not.

   - Arizona Attorney General, Tom Horne, a Republican is under investigation by the Justice Department for alleged illegal coordination with an independent third-party group during his 2010 election campaign.

   - Pinal County Sherriff Paul Babeu, a Republican who until May 11 was running for Congress. Babeu and his agency are under investigation by three agencies, including the U.S. Office of Special Counsel that is looking into possible violations of the federal Hatch Act, which makes it illegal for certain government employees to engage in partisan politics. Other investigators are looking into whether Babeu abused his power by threatening a former Mexican boyfriend with deportation and whether the Sheriff's Office destroyed public records.

         Former Maricopa County Attorney Rick Romley told The Arizona Republic that concerns about public corruption are greater today than at any time during his career. As county attorney, Romley oversaw the AzScam sting that resulted in the 1991 indictments of seven state legislators who took bribes from an undercover "wiseguy" police informant who pretended he was pushing for legalized gambling in the state.

        After AzScam shook the political landscape, there was strong consensus "that this was not acceptable conduct," Romley said. Today there is a stark attitude of "anything goes" in politics, he said, and seemingly no leaders a la Goldwater who appear inclined to intervene and stop it.

        "What's shocking to me today is that there are allegations of potential corruption by law enforcement," said Romley, who served as county attorney from 1989 to 2004 and again on an interim basis in 2010. "That to me is a distinguishing difference. Whether it's Thomas, whether it's Horne, whether it's Arpaio, whether it's Babeu -- that to me changes the dynamics dramatically. Because that was always sort of our line of protection. We could always trust law enforcement."

          After AzScam, lawmakers passed reforms, banning campaign contributions from state lobbyists while the Legislature is in session, requiring lobbyists report gifts to legislators and mandating ethics training for themselves.

        "The Legislature hasn't done any self-correction, as it did with AzScam," August said.

Arredondo is the fourth Arizona legislator to find himself in serious trouble this year. Three state lawmakers exited under clouds during the recently concluded legislative session: Miranda and state Sen. Scott Bundgaard and state Rep. Daniel Patterson, who both resigned after being accused of domestic violence and while facing the prospect of expulsion.

        In another pending case, U.S. Rep. Rick Renzi, R-Ariz., was indicted on federal corruption charges and did not seek re-election in 2008. He is still awaiting trial.

        "People appear to be more willing to commit ethical transgressions if they feel that it is in service of some higher purpose," said Jen Overbeck, a psychologist and assistant professor of management and organization at the University of Southern California's Marshall School of Business. "I'm not saying that they have good intentions. It's just how people justify to themselves what the rest of us see as some pretty heinous unethical actions."

Read more: http://www.azcentral.com/arizonarepublic/news/articles/2012/05/19/20120519arizona-political-scandals.html#ixzz1vTCyBS9t

         IN CLOSING: This article makes clear that Arizona is haven for high level corruption and related criminal conduct. I personally attest to the fact that staff at every level of employ at The Arizona State Hospital, I experienced endemic dereliction of duty to the public good and directly related criminal patient abuse on a daily basis for the entirety of the time that was I was hospitalized there between early January, 2011 and late February, 2012. In further illustrating the nature of these problems, I also attest to the fact that I made it my mission to civilly protest every instance of serious misconduct that I witnessed or was personally subjected to, to literally anybody willing to listen, but my good faith attempts to report misconduct were systematically rejected and suppressed as a matter of standard administrative practice at ASH and in the Arizona Department of Health/Behavioral Health Services for the entirety of my time there. All of my claims in this context were rejected as being unsubstantiated, frivolous, imagined, or false. It is was across the board the same thing every time. 
         FR0M THIS POINT IN TIME, MY SUBSEQUENT ARTICLES WILL BE DRAFTED AND PUBLISHED FROM SOMEWHERE OTHER THAN ARIZONA, BUT  JUST IN CASE THE  ADMINISTRATORS AT ASH/ADHS/BHS THINK OTHERWISE, HEAR ME NOW EACH AND EVERY ONE OF YOU : I AM NOT GOING ANYWHERE, IN FACT, AND MY DEDICATION TO SEEING THAT YOU PEOPLE ARE HELD ACCOUNTABLE FOR YOUR ABJECT LACK OF CONCERN FOR THE SAFETY AND HEALTH OF YOUR CLIENTS IS FAR FAR FAR FROM OVER.


paoloreed@gmail.com 

       

"

Case Notes: 2011-BHS-0263-DHS May 17, 2012  Wherein, I present my testimony about the substandard conditions at The Arizona State Hospital and throughout the Arizona Department of Health Services/Behavioral Health Services in front of judge for the first time.  

              The following are my actual opening and closing statements specific to the above case proceeding, which I read word for word to Judge Kay Abramsohn in a 2.5 hour long court session in the Arizona Office of Administrative Hearings on Thursday, May 17, 2012. 

Opening statement (verbatim, as prepared in advance)

(NOTE: AG'S WITNESS: UNANNOUNCED UNTIL NOW- OBJECT)  

"Good morning, you honor. I want to express my sincere appreciation for your assistance thus far as this hearing has approached, and your tolerance for my relative inexperience in these matters."  

(NOTE: I also object, shooting from the hip, to the state's admission of an announced witness at this time. I obviously have not been granted an opportunity to prepare cross examination of this witness. Is it standard procedure for the state to be able to both bring in announced witnesses as well as present their testimony in advance of my opening statements?) 

"As per my May 08 letter to the court, I am absent several critical evidentiary materials, and feel the need to state my disagreement with this proceeding going forward despite the appellee's blatant refusal to maintain good faith communications specific to this process.  

On the morning of July 07, 2011, I was maliciously assaulted by ET, resulting in grave physical, emotional, and psychological harm to me, including very obvious damage to my rib cage, and clearly expressed mental duress and anguish that I shared with various members of ASH staff throughout the day of the attack. 

I was subsequently denied my lawful right to file a report with public law enforcement, and over a period of five hours, I was coerced by at least three members of ASH admin. (Mitsher, Serda, Ahktrer) into considering whether or not I should exercise my lawful right to file a report w/public law enforcement. 

More than 7 hours after the attack, when I was finally granted contact with public law enforcement, and only after ADHS/ASH staff were granted first access to law enforcement- which constitutes unlawful interference with the public law enforcement investigative process- the PHX police refused to file a formal complaint on my behalf on the basis of this interference.

ASH security intimidated me immediately prior to meeting with PHX police as well as on two subsequent occasions specific to the issue in question. 

Over a period of seven months following the attack itself, my rights to meaningful safety, health, and protection, and related investigative proceedings were repeatedly denied in graphic defiance of applicable law and policy."   

"In Sum:  I WAS IN NO WAY CONFRONTING OR OTHERWISE INTERACTING WITH ET immediately before she approached me from behind and assaulted me. ET did not offer any idea whatsoever as to why she was in my face, and there was a med rom door she could have used, the med window was wide open, I stated every clearly that she had hit me, I requested immediate assistance, and I immediately requested assistance, but no assistance was offered.I immediately requested contact with the police, but my request was denied, thus denying me my constitutionally protected right(s) to due process and equal protection under state and federal law. I was so intimidated by the attack itself and the immediately related events that I experienced grave emotional harm that lasted for several months (deep fear for my safety, anxiety, and related sleep disturbances)  I was so dismayed by the subsequent failures of ADHS/ASH to meaningful consider and investigate the events of July 7-10 that my condition as an SMI was aggravated with specific respect for my diagnosis (increased suicidal ideation, depression, fear and anxiety, etc.) To this day, I harbor deep seated distrust and fear of authority that all three of the therapists (and I) directly attribute to this matter, distrust that I never harbored prior to this event. These issues reflect endemic unlawfulness and related substandard mental health care and medical practice." 

Closing statement (verbatim, as prepared in advance)

       "I am requesting that each and every aspect of my presented concerns as they stand today be investigated by an impartial investigator, and that this entire investigation as it has stood to this date be remanded in order to assure that my full rights in relation to his matter are preserved in 100% accordance with all applicable law and policy, including state and federal statutes specific to abuse in the context of disabled and SMI persons, vulnerable adults and citizens, and any other like provisions of law and policy. Nothing short of rigorous oversight and full accountability under all applicable law and policy will suffice in terms of meaningfully addressing these issues, and I humbly request that the court take my heartfelt and good faith testimony into account for what it is: I am a nonviolent person with no record of violence whatsoever (including during the entirety of my hospitalization between May, 2010-Feb. 2012), and I have never been involved in any nature of frivolous or inaccurate misreporting of crime or misconduct in my entire life. My only desire from the exact moment that the original incident of July 07, 2011, was to be treated with fairness, and to to be protected from physical and emotional and psychological abuse;  subsequently, my only desire was to be served my sue right to investigation of these matter, and to be protected from administrative abuse of authority and related administrative negligence. I am a human being, nothing more nothing less, but given the setting in which these very, very unacceptable events occurred, due consideration should be given to my status as a disabled-SMI person and citizen of AZ and the US, for the things that I experienced though out the entirety of this matter were: 

       A) not something that I exclusively encountered at ASH, and

       B) would never have been allowed go occur anywhere outside of this facility, which as a state HOSPITAL FACILITY is a public entity that all citizens of this state rely upon in terms of providing safe and humane mental health care and related treatment, as applicable to ourselves, our families, and our fellow citizens.
       I again wish to thank the court for granting me this opportunity, and for tolerating my relative unfamiliarity with these sorts of proceedings. Thank you very much, your honor." 

paloreed@gmail.com

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. 

       Each and every day, seven days a week, including holidays, the Flagstaff Family Food Center feeds multi-course, well rounded dinners to  upwards of 100-200 needy individuals and their families, as applicable, from temporarily down and out folks such as yours truly, to chronically homeless campers and transients, and the seriously mentally ill. The center has a small staff of paid employees who work very, very hard in their own right at minimal rates of pay in order to assure that the Center functions as a safe and healthy venue for anybody who might happen to visit, but the real heroes at the Center are the many volunteers who appear each morning in order to help with all aspects of the Center's operation. Over the past three months, I have been privileged and pleased to be able to participate in the Center's activities, both as a diner almost every night of the week, and as a volunteer in the kitchen 3-4 mornings a week. I have made friends, supplemented my very scarce dietary budget, and I have sincerely enjoyed the company of numerous kind hearted people every time I go to the Center.

        

       This is the sort of thing I am most accustomed to when it come to caring for others: sincere, heartfelt consideration of another persons needs, no matter how simple, and consequent appreciation for their inherent value(s) as a person. Ideally, of course, this is what I am accustomed to, but I have a work history that includes at least a dozen different positions in basic customer device, from waiting tables and retail, to public and private school teaching, as well medical care experience as an emergency medical technician and professional ski patroller, so I can certainly acknowledge that service positions can be complex. But I think it is fair to Say that I have well rounded expectations, too, when it comes to looking to others who represent themselves as health care professionals in legitimate hospital settings.
       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.       

          Upon leaving ASH in late February, 2012, I was immediately blown away by how polite people in the "real" world, this in the sense that I went into a Circle K within one half hour of my discharge, and even the clerks there struck me as the kindest people I had encountered in seeming decades. I recognized the situation for what it was, too, realized without having to put too much thought into the fact that the staff at ASH had, somewhat overwhelmingly, so deteriorated my expectations of how people treat one another, that even the most basic niceties struck me as bizarre. And as I settled into the routine at a short terms transitional facility, I began studying my reactions to these things because I was really concerned that my ASH experience may have destroyed whatever fundamental appreciation for other people that I had once had.  In a short time, however, I was relieved to rediscover myself for who I am, which is to say that I am not by nature hateful or spiteful, and I have never invited conflict or negativity into my life. But at ASH, I was surrounded by hateful and spiteful staff, and many of them actively invite conflict in the most basic of their interactions with patients, as though they are paid to test the patients, to push their buttons, and demean them, as a matter of day to day common practice.
         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. 

        Shortly after the death of our father, on my 11th birthday, Reed gave me the epic Neil Young & Crazy Horse album, Everybody Knows This Is Nowhere, which was the first record that I ever owned,  as well as Richard Bach's seminal novella, Jonathan Livingston Seagull.  I kept that original recording of Young's earlier work for over 45 full years, and I still consider it to be one my favorite albums. My brother pretty clearly saw the need for me to learn about life's deeper mysteries at a pretty young age, at least in my interpretation of such things, and I sincerely believe that his efforts in this context had some of the most significantly positive effects that I have ever experienced in life. He seemed to recognize my most basic attributes, too, for he really had a knack for getting my attention and keeping it. 

        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. 

       Meanwhile, the ideals that I mention flow from my earliest experiences in terms of practical education. My experiences as the youngest child in a family of four started out pretty dynamically, albeit in a fragmented way, because my siblings had all been raised in different parts of the world, and when I was young, they all shared an enormous amount of their own acquired life experience with me. By the time I was born, the whole family had traveled and lived amongst varying cultures, and immediately following my birth in 1961, we lived on a sprawling estate in Bermuda, the main house of which was built by a 19th century pirate, until I was almost two years old. I was also introduced to reading at a young age, and became especially fascinated with tales relating to human experience at the metaphysical level, including the Greek tragedies  and other similarly fantastic explorations of what it means to be a person. Likewise, the fact that my father was an American Indian, and my  mother the daughter of first generation immigrants from Ireland and Germany, contributed to a familial identity that was rich in terms of both deeply bred western tradition(s) as well as well as inherently unique progressive thinking and proactive lifestyle pursuits in the modern landscapes of the mind.  By the time I was born, the whole family had traveled and lived amongst varying cultures, and immediately following my birth in 1961, we lived on a sprawling estate in Bermuda, the main house of which was built by a 19th century pirate, until I was almost two years old. These sorts of  things, at times fleeting and yet undeniably integral to who I am as person, all lend themselves to my strongest sense of self identity today.  

            Such is life. I recall coming home form school one afternoon and finding my mother sobbing in her bedroom. She told me that Reed had died, and I felt awkward, somehow, in her presence. She was very, very upset. I wound up excusing myself, and then leaving the house in order to go ride my bmx bike, like I always did after school. I do not recall ever feeling sad that Reed had died, although I do remember realizing how much I was going to miss him. It was a strange thing to experience, his passing, but I did not take it hard.

        But my older Reed's death drastically, and understandably, tore my mothers already fragile peace of mind apart. In the first 6-12 months after his death, she began to abuse alcohol on a daily basis. It was like night and day, seeing as I did the degree to which her mental state deteriorated during those years, and in time, the effect of this abuse had drastic effects on me, because my mom developed into a psychologically abusive and somewhat violent closet drunk, which in turn caused me to consider for the first time why I should feel obligated to remain here on this earth. It is just about that simple. I remember this period of my cognitive life quite clearly, and that I never really felt sorry for myself, or that I needed to share this fundamental suicidal thinking with anyone else; for to me then, the idea of taking my own life was much like it is today: Suicide is an act, nothing more, nothing less; a willful expediting of a process that each and every one of us is going to be subject to one way or the other.
        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. 

paoloreed@gmail.com