2026. The Arizona State Hospital and Patient Abuse. (paoloreed@gmail.com)

Monday, June 25, 2012

RE: OAH Case #2012c-BHS-0338-DHS The Evolution Of A Grievance: Wherein, following over one full year of systematic suppression of my right to due process in relation to a criminally imposed sequence of administrative abuse of authority at The Arizona State Hospital, I prepare to go to hearing.

THIS IS AN ONGOING ARTICLE THAT BEGAN LESS THAN 24 HOURS AGO (SEE "RE: ADHS ADHS/DBHS OGA Docket #H090611S0009), AND RELATES TO AN APRIL 09, 2012, ARTICLE ("FACTS OF LIFE #1-4"), AND EVENTS THAT OCCURRED BEGINNING ON MAY 25, 2011, AND EFFECTIVELY CONCLUDING ON MAY 29, 2011.

I never received a response from the the court (Arizona Office of Administrative Hearings, aka "OAH") with respect for the motion to have Joel Rudd removed as counsel for The Arizona State Hospital (ASH)/Arizona Department of Health Services (ADHS) that I submitted to them on the 14th of this month. I believe that a response from the court is standard in terms of civil procedure as I know it, but apparently, the Arizona Office of Administrative Hearings doesn't operate in consistency with criminal, and or civilly managed court proceedings, and I have been expecting a response. I did, however, receive the following document from Joel "the mortician" Rudd himself earlier today. Herein, a graphic display not only of the radically disproportionate power dynamic at play when it comes to this process (wherein a named party to the wrongdoing at issue, Joel "the mortician" Rudd, is also the representative attorney for ASH, and has more formative authority in this matter than the court does), but also of the circularity of the process (wherein my original plea for support in the face of the related wrongdoing in this case reappears precisely where it started, in the hands of one of the perpetrators).

Think about this for a moment. A person is unlawfully and harmfully affected by an attorney's actions, and the person files a complaint with the applicable court, only to find that the same attorney is going to represent the defense in terms of challenging the person's claim. Sort of backwards, it would seem to me at this time, so I am compelled to consider expediting my case to a federal venue, and filing my complaint against the Arizona Attorney General in this matter as it stands at this time. It is an awkward position to be in, quite frankly. I never intended to take any individual or ASH itself to court in a context akin a civil suit, or to file a criminal complaint. And yet, here I am, on the verge of following the best advice I have been given in recent months, which basically amounts to using every resource available in terms of directly holding every individual I am able to name at this time, in order to further a federal court filing that will, to some level or another (depending on the individual in question), hold each of these people fully accountable. As onerous as this is, the patients at ASH, their families, and the citizens of Arizona deserve better than what this system offers at this time.
It is glaringly apparent now, following my dedicated adherence to every suggested avenue for resolution available within and throughout the entirety of the system (ASH, ADHS, etc.), that the grievance process is inoperable from the bottom on up. It is a farce, through and through, and no client-patient of ASH or the whole of the health care system in Arizona is validly provided with a sound course for redress when their given rights are abused or otherwise abridged. I was very definitely wronged when the basis for this grievance arose, and in good faith, I did everything I was supposed to do in terms of allowing for the appointed authority figures to do their respective jobs; yet, despite the veracity of the unlawful sequence of events underlying this matter, I am left with little to no hope for meaningful redress. Not through the state system, anyway. This is something I have long suspected, of course, but I bent over backwards, in spite of the very real harm dome to me and the relevant detriment to my treatment while at ASH, and gave the various agency officials every chance to do the right thing.
This is what the face of mental health care in Arizona looks like today:

BEFORE THE OFFICE OF ADMINISTRATIVE HEARINGS

STATE OF ARIZONA

In the matter of: No. 2012c-BHS-0338-DHS

P.P.

Appellant ARIZONA DEPARTMENT

OF HEALTH SERVICE'S

RESPONSE TO

APPELLANT'S MOTION

(Assigned to Honorable K.A.)

The Arizona Department of Health Services ("ADHS"), by and through undersigned counsel, responds in opposition to Appellant's motion "to have Joel Rudd and the Arizona Attorney General's (sic) removed as representative counsel for the appellee on the basis of very clear conflict of interest issues" apparently filed electronically on or about June 14, 2012. ADHS requests that the tribunal deny appellant's motion for the reasons that (1) the Tribunal is without authority to remove a party's counsel, (2) on the facts presented by appellee, there is no conflict, and (3) even if the conflict alleged by Appellant existed, it is not for the Appellant to raise and seek redress from the tribunal but is strictly a matter between ADHS and its counsel.

For these reasons, the Tribunal should deny Appellant's motion.

DATED this 22nd day of June, 2012.

Thomas C. Horne
Attorney General

Joel Rudd
Assistant Attorney General
Attorney for Arizona
Department of Health
Services.

(END)

As reflected in my motion to have Joel "the mortician" Rudd and/or the Attorney Generals office removed as counsel for the appellee in this case (SEE BELOW), I kept my request as simple and forthright as I could, and made my legitimate concerns about the this issue very clear. It is not as though I am the one trying to get away with anything, and with the concept of fair and impartial jurisprudence in mind, why the hell is Joel "the mortician" Rudd so opposed to allowing for this matter to be considered in as reasonably equitable a fashion as possible? Who and or what is he trying to protect?

OAH Electronic Motion Submission (Steps 1-9)

1. Your Name: ------ (aka PJ reed)

2. Your E-Mail Address: -----------

3. To: Administrative Law Judge K.A.

4. Docket Number: 2012c-BHS-0338-DHS

5. Pending Hearing Date: July 16, 2012

6. You may submit your motion by entering the motion and grounds on this form (see 6a), or you may submit an existing document as an attachment (see 6b). You may also do both if necessary.

6a. Motion and grounds (enter text or attach document):

I am the appellant in the above proceeding (case #2012c-bhs-0338-dhs). I am submitting my motion to the tribunal to have Joel Rudd and the Arizona Attorney General's removed as representative counsel for the appellee in this case on the basis of very clear conflict of interest issues. The original grievance document in this matter, which was researched, drafted, and submitted to ADHS on my behalf by a former staff person from ADHS Office of Human Rights, clearly identifies Mr. Rudd, and at least one employee who works under his direct authority in the legal office at AzSH, which is an AHDS entity/facility, as parties to the central allegations upon with this case is founded. This conflict of interest is a gross abridgment of my rights to due process and related access to fair and impartial court proceeding(s). I am attaching one page of the original gr. doc, mentioned above, that clearly identities by name an AzSH/AZ AG legal secretary named Cindy Froelich who works under the direct authority of Mr. Rudd, and who willfully engaged in unlawful conduct specific to this case; at a later date, I will also be submitting the full original gr doc as evidence in support of my allegations. If there are any problems with this submittal, please advise me accordingly at the soonest possible time. Thank you. Patrick Pickens.

IN CLOSING: This is not to say that we are throwing in sort of towel at this point. At least one other party in this matter has stepped forward and offered their direct participation in the upcoming July 16 hearing, wherein this matter is to be reviewed under the authority of OAH. In the meantime, case prep will continue, and all elements of the process as they play out become part of the record. Bottom line.

This is the state of affairs as it stands today, it is as reprehensible as its always been, and that is all I can say about it. Please contact me if you care to be of any assistance to this cause. Patient abuse at The Arizona State Hospital (or anywhere else) is fundamentally criminal, inhumane, and 100% beyond the commonly accepted standards of our times and of our nation. Write simple letters or make phone calls if you can to your elected representatives, or contact the US Department of Justice Office of Civil Rights. Be creative, be proactive. I need your help. The patients at The Arizona State Hospital are being subjected to ongoing abuse and grossly substandard medical-mental health care and practice, and the doctors and administrators at ASH and at the state are getting away with it.

paoloreed@gmail.com

Saturday, June 23, 2012

THE FOLLOWING DERIVES OF MY EXACT NOTES, TAKEN AT THE ARIZONA STATE HOSPITAL THROUGHOUT THE DAY OF MAY 15, 2011. SEEMINGLY LOW KEY, PERHAPS, THIS SEQUENCE OF EVENTS IS REPRESENTATIVE OF A ROGUE TEAM OF SO CALLED MEDICAL PROFESSIONALS, INCLUDING SEVERAL PRIMARY ATTENDING PHYSICIANS, AS WELL AS REPRESENTATIVES OF THE ARIZONA ATTORNEY GENERALS OFFICE, WHO TOOK IT UPON THEMSELVES TO BLATANTLY IGNORE WELL ESTABLISHED LIMITATIONS OF THEIR GIVEN AUTHORITY IN ORDER TO COERCE ME THROUGH INTIMIDATION AND ABUSE OF POWER INTO ENGAGING IN AN UNLAWFUL PROCESS THAT DIRECTLY INVOLVED/RELATED TO MY FUNDAMENTAL RIGHTS AS PATIENT AND HUMAN BEING.

May 25, 2011 REGARDING OAH Case #2012c-BHS-0338-DHS (AKA: ADHS/DBHS OGA Docket #H090611S0009); HEARING DATE JULY 16, 2012.
     Following my lawful refusal, at 9:40 a.m., to sign a legal document relating to my inpatient status at ASH that I was not even comfortable discussing until I had staffed it with my court appointed attorney, I am:
    1) threatened with immediate discharge into homelessness by an administrative secretary from ASH' legal office (Cindy Froelich), who has nothing to do with my clinical team at ASH;
    2) interrupted as I am attempting to phone my attorney in regards to the matter by an ASH psychiatrist who I have never even met (Dr. Lynn Lydon), who advises me without explanation that I am required at that time to be subjected to a psychiatric assessment to be conducted by her at that time, which I refuse to take part in, and subsequently;
   3) forcefully pulled out of therapy by security staff, who escort me against my wishes and without explanation to Palo Verde East unit;
   4) advised by two nurses (Dan Dryer, Gladys) and a social worker (Megan Mistcher) that my status has been restricted from "full grounds privileges" to that of highly constraining "suicide watch," who offer me no direct explanation at all as to this action;
5) restricted to my unit and thus constrained from being allowed to attend therapy or any other like treatment services central to my treatment at ASH for an indefinite time;
6) placed under the direct 1:1 physical attendance of staff who are required to stay within one arm's length of me at all times;
7) unlawfully served legal notice that my new (at that time) primary attending physician (Dr. Pervaiz Akhter) and ASH' Chief Medical officer (Dr. Steven Dingle), in complicity with the Office of the AZ Attorney General (Joel Rudd), has without explanation initiated a petition for court ordered involuntary treatment, this despite the fact that I am already subject to the authority of a one year court order for treatment that has been in effect for six months;
8) refused privacy by Palo Verde East nursing staff, as per the direction of ASH Chief Medical Officer Dr. Steven Dingle, when a human rights advocate named John Gallagher comes to meet with me as per a prior scheduling in relation to an unrelated, ongoing confidential issue.

IN SPITE OF THE WELL DETAILED GRIEVANCE REPORT AND REQUEST FOR A REASONABLY OBJECTIVE INVESTIGATION INTO THIS MATTER (as drafted and submitted by Arizona Department of Health Services Human Rights Advocate John Gallagher, and which I have outlined in several previous articles over the last week) THE ARIZONA STATE HOSPITAL ASSIGNED DR. STEVEN DINGLE TO THE ROLE OF CHIEF INVESTIGATOR IN RELATION TO THIS MATTER, IN SPITE OF THE FACT THAT DR. STEVEN DINGLE PLAYED A CENTRAL ROLE IN THE ADMINISTRATIVE ABUSE OF AUTHORITY IN THIS CASE. SUBSEQUENTLY (AS ONE WOULD EXPECT), DR. STEVEN DINGLE, SPEAKING ON BEHALF OF ASH AS THE CHIEF INVESTIGATOR, FLATLY REJECTED/DENIED THE ESSENTIAL DETAILS OF THE GRIEVANCE DOCUMENT AND ISSUED A PATENT DENIAL OF THE FACTUAL ALLEGATIONS FLOWING FROM THIS EVENT.

THE BELOW TWO PAGE DOCUMENT IS A COPY OF DR. DINGLE/ASH' FORMAL DENIAL OF THE FACTS, DRAFTED BY DONNA "YOU'RE SO BUSTED!" NORIEGA, WHICH I RECEIVED ON SEPTEMBER 20, 2011.

The pattern(s) of administrative denials, anytime staff at ASH (particularly clinical or administrative staff) are accused of misconduct, was clearly established well before this letter was released by Donna "you're so busted!" Noreiga on September 12, 2011 (one week after I had been forcibly transferred form the most peaceful unit to the most violent unit). The fact is, I had observed a wide range of unethical behavior by a number of senior staff at ASH, including blatant lying by one of my primary care physicians (Dr. Laxman Patel); flat refusal to abide by standardized rules and regulations specific to my rights by another one of my primary care physicians (Dr. Pervaiz Akhter), as well as my assigned ASH social worker (Megan Mitscher) and her superiors in the social services management staff ((Laura); and my communications with Donna "you're so busted!" Noriega to this point had been so inconsistent that it was clear to me that there's a critically major disconnect between the applicable rules, regulations, laws, and policies specific to the rights of mentally disabled patient-clients at ASH and the people most responsible for overseeing that patients are not denied their full protections on this context, and so on.

You think I am frivolously or unnecessarily trying to make trouble? Read JJ Hensley's news story about this shit. (See: "Victim's family Questions Why Man Was Free" AZ Republic, September 28, 2011). These people are monsters. If they're willing to put the well being of the public at so much risk, how you reckon they treat the patients at The Arizona State Hospital? These rat bastards personify contemporary evil incarnate, and they get away with it day in and day out. Do something about it now, before anybody else dies, or is otherwise directly harmed because of their wrongdoing. Patient abuse at The Arizona State Hospital is inhumane, it is criminal, and it has to stop. These devils need to be stricken from their positions as called care providers and/or public employees. Bottom line.

paoloreed@gmail.com

Tuesday, June 19, 2012

Prose The early stuff (ASH)

Welcome Mat

New girl on the unit, Jasmine
Big as a house, 22 years old
Former patient like way back
All the way to the youth units
Here at ASH
Has for several nights now
Required
Security responses.

She is big,
She could throw me through a wall.

Technician

senses peril when what he is really afraid of his own vulnerability; his weakness in terms of being trusted and all that is implied, he coats most everything in sugary melted nods of his head when what he is really doing is parlaying with his inablility to say no without fearing he would be incorrect. why did he warn us of things not real? why did he need to us fear the other patients? why not let us learn to trust who we can and leave the rest to gravity? he clearly did not need, in fact, to protect us in that way, we've never heard of a single patient running behind a staff member and smashing in their head with rocks, he knew all along it was him and his kind, the coward.

paoloreed@gmail.com

e modern

"we drove farther
into the mountains,

and then
drove some more;
to where my niece lives

with her husband hal
and their two young boys
high high in the hills

where the snow holds
in the gullies until June
and where the elk summer
between the storms."

there is a man walking in the asian park

below my window,

he has a garbage bag rain coat

and what looks like a large zip lock baggie

over his head, the rain is not so bad

but you never know,
this is the deep south.

i am somewhere

between some things today,

i am somehow
beyond some things today,
i am somewhat

available to some things

today, i am only myself
in relation to all such things
today.

i saw that coming, the mountains,

if not for us, for her;

the high mountains

the high new mexican mountains,

the high northern new mexican mountains,

the sangre de cristo
montagne.

those hills, valleys, (little e 1975)

and rivers
(picuris, llano, santa barbara,
trampas, vargo, truchas)

hold her face like a frame,

and there is a smell

of piñon wood smoke,

with the boys, and the animals,

the stove, and the basin:

the love contained in vessels.

(june 2012)

paoloreed@gmail.com

The Dream Team: Akhter, Dingle, Lydon. Keep dreaming, doctors, keep dreaming.

With all due respect for Mr. Magnuson, the case(s) below was a fiasco, as displayed by its overall history. But just like the fat pigeon named Walter (by my friend Iris), who eventually got nabbed by the feral cat pack at The Arizona State Hospital and eaten down to the last bone, I am of the opinion that doctors such as Steven Dingle, Pervaiz Akhter, and Lynn Lydon have grown overly comfortable with the illusion that they can get away with pulling whatever sort of clinically administrative abuse of their given authority that they choose to. This data is only offered as a matter of practicality. It is out there, we are interested, and I have the final word on what goes into this manuscript.

Magnuson v. Akhter et al

Joel Shapel Magnuson

Defendants:

Pervaiz Akhter, Wesley Smith, Steven Dingle and Lynn Lydon

Case Number:

2:2010cv02562

Filed:

November 28, 2010

Court:

Arizona District Court

Office:

Phoenix Division Office

County:

Maricopa

Presiding Judge:

Roslyn O Silver

Referring Judge:

Jay R Irwin (PS)

Nature of Suit:

Torts - Injury - Other Personal Injury

Cause:

28:1331

Jurisdiction:

Federal Question

Jury Demanded By:

Plaintiff

IN CLOSING: State employees have a way of relying on the federal courts to relieve personal injury cases such as Magnuson's, especially doctors, even if there is an 8th Amendment issue at stake, because the fed has little interest in determining whether or not the doctors have met their obligations in terms of their medical licenses (which are managed under the auspices state medical boards). None of the issues I am bringing to the table have anything to do with prisoner's rights under the 8th amendment, not at this point; and in the end, the matters to be critically reviewed via my work will directly relate to the licensure of each and every physician I ever dealt with at The Arizona State Hospital. It's not so fine a line as they want us to think. It's bright, and it shouts for attention.

We are always nearing that point in time when we know we have made a difference. This is just that sort of situation, and the energy is growing every day. But I still need the support of anybody who has an interest in helping this cause. Anybody at all. I am only one voice, and the patients at ASH are literally voiceless. Please, get involved today. Let's put a stop to patient abuse at The Arizona State Hospital and throughout the Arizona Department of Health Services now.

paoloreed@gmail.com

Case Notes: 2011-BHS-0263-DHS May 17, 2012 Wherein, the office of the director, Arizona Department of Health Services, fast tracks the final decision; the next step is clear.

Hot off the press: The administrative law judge in the above case, which was reviewed under the authority of the Arizona Office of Administrative Hearings (OAH [Phoenix, AZ]) on May 17, 2012, refused to reasonably apply the full merits of submitted evidence, including directly applicable law that was cited in at least three well detailed documents, and opted to dismiss this appeal in part (certain aspects of the original case were not determined at this time; I will reappeal those specific aspects of the case within 30 days); following which, a woman named Lynn Golder, operating out of the office of the director, Arizona Department of Health Services, under the title of "director's designee," signed off on a very cursory review of the administrative judge's findings, affecting a furtherance of the judge's dismissal to the same capacity as determined in her findings.
This is OK, we expected this, in effect, and we have already determined what the next best curse of action for this case is; and in no uncertain terms, this fast food-burrito stand issuance of the final decision actually expedites the broader process, which I welcome at this point.
Of note, however: There are several deviations from applicable procedural law in both the judge's finding as well as the language of the ADHS decision that definitely deserve a closer look. My people are already on it (sic). More later.

IN CLOSING: I don't know how many times I said it while I was hospitalized at The Arizona State Hospital for thirteen months between early January, 2011, and late February, 2012:
"I am telling you, you will likely not get away with this."
So indeed, the past performance (or lack thereof) of every associated office/agency in relation to this story has already made clear what we can expect of the affiliated state authorities as this process plays out. These cases in the Arizona Office of Administrative Hearings are somewhat bound to be mismanaged in the same way, in other words. No problem, for therein: Text book confirmation of my express intent to see that these matters eventually become part and parcel to federal oversight, whether in the courts or through direct federal agency intervention. All things in their time.

paoloreed@gmail.com

Monday, June 18, 2012

Prose: Syndicate- so so. Literary agent- Ding!

BOX TURTLE
American trance:
they shuffle in, sometimes wearing house slippers
freeze there, bowls of coins, hands perpetually pulling
on levers from heaven.

You hear stories about children
left to die in their parents cars,
or occasionally one even keels over right there
in front of one of the machines. Dead.
(emily van horn is dead)
(bela lugosi was already dead)
(little coz will never die)

Economic development
came to indian country in the same way
I came to the arizona state hospital:
empty promises and malingered streams
of information fueled by inefficiency,
greed, and humor. Levi saw it true:
It's always, all of it
a big laugh in the end.

"Two Peggies in the hand
is better than one Aleesha in the bush"
is the only funny joke I ever heard Josh tell,
although I had to chuckle when Thaden said:
"A goddamn egyptian weasel. You go through life
being taught that there are no weasels in the middle east
and then you meet that Saeed fucker."

So I said that to him one day:
"Hot damn, look at that! An egyptian weasel!
I didn't know there was such a thing
as an egyptian weasel,
and then you appear, Saeed.
What's up with that?"

Phoenix is pretty warm in the summer months.
I suppose you may have heard that. Out there on the patient mall
I used to watch Donny P swagger up to the fountain
like a battered John Wayne after a brawl, he'd dip his whole head
into that fountain, with its bird shit and mold,
then straighten up, blink
throw back that massive head of hair.
Beautiful men in awkward settings.

It was like a frozen planet
darting from shadow to shadow,
eyes peeled for water holes. I would sit out there
"I am the only one out here"
and watch desert birds dance
"I was the only one out there today"
Lard ass security really hated it,
it was warm, pretty warm.

Enriquez and Williams
saw it.
The one,
he was uncomfortable from the beginning,
he told me this very clearly, and he went home
to Georgia. He was alert to his surroundings, a nice man.
Enriquez
kept me glad,
it was the Espanola connect
and his love for revisionist historians:
"Speak to the truth, bro, speak to the truth!"
and the joke: "Joe Arpaio looks good in circles,
right there in the center of the circles. Ha!"

"Tom Horne is as crazy as a bat!"
I heard that in Texas, of all places;
his reputation is apparently....

"I will never look at doctors in the same way;"
she told me and my girls stories
about children sleeping in holes
underneath the houses where security slept
between shifts. "They wanted them close,
the kids." She somewhat lost touch with God
because of what she learned about men
there in those places. Hospitals, and homes.

American trance:
they have their desks
their windows and lights
they are sterile there.
They poison the minds of the given angels:
I am revolted and I am electric-
they are so, so wrong.

"I dance the dance, the dance, the dance...."
(robert miraval)

credits:
-the peggy(s) (by permission of the hoboken, nj, and wayne, nj transit authority,
respectively)
-aleesha (property of seafood mart: "whale on the beach!")
-sheriff joe (satan, the b-sides)
-williams (caspar the friendly ghost)
-enriquez (chris montano, juanita tally, larry jaramillo)

(PJ Reed 2011)

Sunday, June 17, 2012

I owe John Gallagher of the Arizona Department of Health Services Office of Human of Rights (ADHS OHR) an enormous amount of gratitude. His compilation of directly applicable statutory facts in terms of the numerous unlawful actions imposed on me in specific relation to this matter opened my eyes to the reality that The Arizona State Hospital is highly regulated by a fairly comprehensible body of easily accessible rules and regulations. Er, law and policy, that is, and given my background in law, John Gallagher inadvertently, yet directly, contributed to putting me back on track with my deepest convictions as a man in such a manner as to furthermore revive my familiarity with something that I put a fair amount of time and energy into, albeit in what seems to me as another life.

Long term chronic depression is a bitch no matter who you are. I skated along on the peripheral aspects of its worst impacts for well over 30 years, which doesn't say much about the given severity of the condition, as much as it does about my ability to dodge bullets, as it were. While still a preadolescent member of my family, which effectively went from being that- a family- to a residue of sorts in less then 2 years (for myself, between the age of 11-13), I began experiencing a sense of isolation even when in the thick of school and/or in other like social settings; a sense of isolation, or "otherness" (for lack of a better word), so intense that I began seriously pondering the meaning of existence when I was 13, or so. I had lost an older brother to accidental overdose by then, and my father had also died in unexpected fashion when I was ten; and I distinctly recall a sort of knowing, in the next couple of years, that all I had to do to reunite with them was direct myself to death on my own terms. As such, the fundamental reality that suicide is an option set in while I was pretty young, and I even came close to attempting suicide on at least one occasion, when I was 14 years old and experiencing severe psychological abuse imposed upon me by my alcoholic mother, who went through very tough patch of life in own right during those years. I never really concerned myself with the ramifications of these matters at the time, as I had no one to turn to, and had to rely instead on a developing resilience that eventually carried me on and well into my adult life with little to no critically alarming life events. Or so I thought, and it took my first psychiatrist, in May, 2010, to alert me to the simple fact that anytime a 14 year old child seriously considers suicide, something is critically amiss in the emotional and psychological realm of that kids' mind and body.

So far as my vivid recollections of childhood, particularly with respect for suicidal thinking, I have determined by now, after years (literally!) of formal hospitalization in insane asylums, that I possess a keen sense of self awareness, and that in direct combination with related observational skills, I recall these things as if not more clearly than most people do their own respective childhood years; this fact was affirmed and reaffirmed by several of my therapists between 2010-2012, and these residual memories have long fostered my deepest sense of identity as it stands even today.

Later in life, when I was a full on teenager, my bouts of depression occurred almost subtly; I was also an active user of marijuana by the time I was 17, which definitely served to lessen the impact of my lows; and straight out of high school I pursued such goals as dedicated ski bumming and long distance trail running in the northern Rockies (which is basically a really fun lifestyle); while all through my twenties, I was a committed high level bicycle racer, which also immersed me in so pleasurable a day to day existence that my depression was almost like a relative sleeping in the guest room of my mind. Again, I recall these periods of my life quite clearly, and through it all, I always knew that the time would come in my life when I would be faced with the "hunger" that I had first experienced at the age of 12 or so. For depression is something akin to hunger, in my opinion today, a wanting of sorts that exists on the basis of unavoidable interests in things not defined by commonly understood lines of self awareness.

My most seriously debilitating encounters with major

depression began kicking in when I was in my mid-thirties, married, attending college on a full time basis, and addicted to alcohol for the first time in my life. I was married to a very nice woman, and throughout all of it, I managed to do exceptionally well in school, which I basically attribute to my given maturity and related experiences in the blue collar working world. But I was also falling into marked patterns of withdrawal from my immediate surroundings, and at least on of my ASH psychotherapists, a very nice young man named Dr. Holmes, concluded that I may have experienced minor to moderate schizoidism (which is characterized by emotional aloofness and solitary habits). It was a strange period in my life (1995-2006), at times intense and satisfying, at times very difficult and almost crippling, but I tried to hang in there, and was far too proud to ask for help. The marriage crumbled and finally imploded entirely in 1999, and by the time I was in the second year of my scholarship funded legal education at The James Rogers College of Law in 2003 (University of Arizona, Tucson), I had lost the bulk of whatever tenacity I'd once had in terms of managing my emotional/mental well being in the face of chronic depression. It was seemingly rapid, my eventual collapse into madness, but I know now that all I was really up to for all those years was dancing around and away from my inevitable return to suicidal ideation. And I did, finally, give up avoiding the depths of my inner self in 2006 (during the spring of which I seriously attempted suicide for the first time), finally arriving at the terminus of a long, slow burning process of coming home, as it were, to my preadolescent desire to go, go, go away, and never look back.

Hence, my arrival in the shit hole known as ASH. When I had first settled into my new "life" as a possibly long term mental patient in Tucson, May, 2010, I was both cynical to a point of feeling that no man would ever be able to convince me of why I should choose life over death, as well as vastly departed from the sentient realities of my professional training and other life experiences. But these specific traits of my disorder subsided somewhat over the course of my first six months in-hospital (an acquired state of balance that I attribute to the good doctors and and staff at the University of Arizona Medical Center in Tucson, as well as to my therapist as St. Mary's Hospital, Shari Healey); and when I arrived at ASH on January 11, 2011, I was feeling relatively centered, at least in terms of what I felt I needed to do as a patient, with both my own treatment goals in mind as well as what I fairly felt I could expect from my caregivers.

These aspects of my progress as a patient to that date evaporated just about as soon as I arrived at ASH, however, in part due to the theft of my personal property as soon (literally) as I got there (see May 02, 2012 "Summary"), but more significantly due to the meanness of Ash staff, including a really nasty old white haired nasally voiced bitch of a charge nurse named Peggy, who tried to sink her psychologically abusive talons into my sense of peace and mind as a new patient on the Paolo Verde East unit on my third night there. It was as though all of the earlier assurances of the mental health community had been pissed on, and the hand offered to me through months of good faith therapeutic interaction had been jerked way, encouraging me to fall back into the despair of my mental illness' worst manifestations. Therein, my experiences at ASH from the get go were pretty much downhill; over my first 2-4 months in that accursed facility I increasingly found myself in conflict with abusive staff technicians and nurses and the related incompetence of my first primary attending physician, Dr. Laxman Patel, (who chastised me for voicing concern over the patient abuse that I was witnessing and experiencing first hand), and I also began to learn about the extent of administrative shortcomings at ASH. It was disturbing and unsettling to such an extent that my relative stability obviously deteriorated as a direct consequence of the substandard practices at ASH.

By the time I met the human rights advocate, John Gallagher, in late spring, 2011, I was neck deep in an unexpected recurrence of a seemingly permanent state of despair that had settled in when I first entered the psyche wards in 2010, (a "recurrence", or backward plunge, that I fully attribute to the close mindedness and related incompetence of administrative staff at ASH, such as the patient advocate, Sonya Serda), a phase of time wherein I actively compromised my absolute willingness to allow suicide to settle my affairs by opting, instead, for a dedicated and good faith exploration of whatever the mental health professionals in the psychiatric hospitals could offer someone like me. At ASH, my sense of choice (vs. my appreciation for my treatment) began to dictate the situation, and to someone like me, suicide is always an option; I was thus led into reconsidering my initial commitment to remain honest with my caregivers at all costs. There is a thing in the psyche wards known known as "contracting for safety", wherein a patient such as me is asked to promise the staff that I won't commit suicide (or otherwise hurt myself) on the basis of good faith trust. But at ASH, I encountered staff who made it very clear to me that my diagnosis as a chronically suicidal patient was not something they gave a rat's ass about, individuals who overtly suggested through their actions that I would do them all a favor if I were to crawl into a hidden corner and die. So the merits of contracting for safety sort of petered out on the basis of me learning the hard way that ASH staff can't be trusted in any sense of the word.

I felt duped, for I had clearly been lied to more than once by staff, and I had been demeaned, graphically insulted, and verbally abused; and in seeing brutal forms of psychological abuse imparted on some of my most vulnerable peers, my cynicism about my own species flared up so strongly that I began developing the first signs of deep distrust for the ones assigned to care for me. Why would any reasonably sound mind want to "contract" with people like them? This, the gist of ASH' most depraved staff members, people who quite clearly don't value the primary objectives of standardized mental health care and treatment.
Below are several key pages from the grievance document that John Gallagher of the ADHS Office of Human Rights assembled on my behalf, pages that represent the sorts of training I had been involved with as a legal professional, and which, as such, served to point me in the direction I am in today, fighting as I am for the rights and needs of ASH patients as they stand today. Note, if you will, that there are at least six specific violations of law cited, statutory law relating to my fundamental rights as a client and human being that directly flows from the text and and language of the Arizona Administrative Code, Article 9, Chapter 21, sections 201 and 202. The incidents of wrongdoing evidenced by these violations are broad, and yet well detailed, for as I said at the outset of this article, there is an easily accessible body of comprehensible rules and regulations applicable to this matter. Unless you are a patient at ASH, that is, are they easily accessible.

Note, as well, that details included below in the Conclusion clearly identify Cindy Froelich, an employee of the Arizona Attorney General's Office (at least to the extent that in her capacity as a secretary in the ASH' legal office, Cindy Froelich works directly under the authority of assistant AZ Attorney General Joel "the mortician" Rudd.), as an immediate party to the grievance's central elements of allegation. Therein, the basis of my firm rejection of having Joel Rudd and the Office of Arizona Attorney General in any way involved as the representative counsel for the appellee in this case; for indeed, Joel Rudd and Cindy Froelich engaged in some of the most critically unlawful actions taken against me in this matter, between the dates of May 25-29, 2011. They willfully abused their given authority and manipulated public resources in terms of creating a frailly long and technical court document, which was a blatant waste of taxpayer money as well as a severe threat of to my status as a patient-client status at that time.

Finally, on the last page below, please see the suggested Solution that John Gallagher carefully crafted in order to bring about a reasonable resolution to the matter at hand. This is an especially important aspect of the document, for therein one sees nothing more complex than a straightforward and good faith request for reasonable oversight of the issues raised in this matter. Especially important today, because of the basic fact that ASH' and ADHS's blatant refusal(s) to cooperate in this matter graphically represents the endemic problems underlying the administrative abuses that I have worked to make clear in my writing. These people have no interest whatsoever in meaningfully responding to patient concerns, particularly not if and when those concerns directly involve allegations of patient abuse and staff misconduct. As follows:

IN CLOSING: I hope that tomorrow I will see a response from the administrative law judge in this case about my motion to have Joel Rudd formally removed as representative counsel in these proceedings, which I submitted to the court on Friday (see June 15, 2012, "RE:"). This is increasingly becoming a search and destroy sort of campaign, in the sense that as my acquisition of more and more evidence in terms of the ongoing abuse of patients and related abuses of clinical and administrative abuse of authority at The Arizona State Hospital, I am increasingly willing to target the specific representatives who do, at this time, need to be held fully accountable under the law. At this time. Not tomorrow, not in three or six months. Now.

What a great time this is to get on board with this cause. A moderately deep increase in cash flow to the needs of Arizona's mental heath clients in the outpatient community came about in recent months, and the attorney generals' office is taking quite a bit of heat in relation to their own lawlessness right now. A great time, indeed, for anyone with a sense of conscience to do their part in fighting the abuse of patients at The Arizona State Hospital, and beyond. Please, get involved, take action, help make a difference today.

paoloreed@gmail.com