The next thing I knew I was on the plane in the middle of
the night headed for the nut house in Yankton. It was a very interesting
experience.
I was put under suicide watch right away. I was exhausted
and very angry. Every half hour they would shine the flashlight in your face to
see if you were asleep. I wasn't depressed, just very angry and I think I had
every right to feel that way. But I learned that every inmate gets into a state
of depression after being there a while. How can it be otherwise? You are away
from home in a hostile place, aggravated by the situation and totally without
knowledge of your impending fate. It is psychological terrorism. But I, as all
inmates do, learned how to cope and play the game.
While most of the staff there were totally incompetent,
there were a few there who were not "true believers." One guard, or
whatever that position was, came up to me after a couple days and told me she
had been there a long time and had seen a lot of people and it was clear to
her, she said, that I did not belong there. We got to be pretty good friends
during my three weeks there. There was a man there, who I shall not identify,
as Janklow says, if he got their names there would be consequences, who felt
the same way and encouraged me to write a book. I told him if I wrote a book
nobody would believe it nor buy it, and he promptly answered, “I would."
While my stay at the nut house was torture, it was also one
of the most interesting journeys I have been on. It was a fascinating study of
a cast of real characters.
The fist person I really got to know was Dr. Somepalli,
psychiatrist. He was, I think, a Hindu. He was an import from India in any
case. I wasn't exactly delighted to be under the care of someone with a religious
persuasion that I thought was "out to lunch" to start with. He didn't
come to the United States because there were no people to treat in India. It
did not take me long to realize he was a lazy little pup who considered it
below his dignity to break out in a sweat.
I had had previous experience with
"professionals" from that area. They all had the same philosophy that
they learned from the British occupation of their country. They believed once
you had attained a status, you could coast on your title. He told me mental
illness was just a chemical imbalance in the brain, and he, of course, had
access to all the chemicals in the world and it should be just a simple thing
to try all the chemicals until one worked. He decided Resperidome was the
chemical lacking in my brain. That drug was used for psychotics. Of all the
diagnoses these quacks came up with (the real diagnosis was to come later from
Psychiatrist Dr. Bean. (Click on to Dr. Bean's evaluation) nobody had come up
with that diagnosis. Maybe he thought since nobody had come up with that,
including him, he should start there. Actually, nothing he did made any
sense.
After the ordeal, I was ready to try anything to get some
relief from the situation. I thought I had better try the drugs to appease Somepalli,
if for no other reason. This, I discovered, was the drug from hell. I went into
the nuthouse in outstanding physical condition. I left so weak I could hardly
stand.
Resperadome puts you out like a light. The problem is that
there are periods of the day where you can't be in your room. There is no way
you can stay awake so you fall asleep on the couch by the TV. But, you are not
allowed to sleep there. What happens is that you find yourself in a situation
with no way to win. It causes more depression.
After a few days of trying to survive the toxicity of the
drug, I understood what it was meant to do. It gave the feeling that everything
was fine and not to worry. The strength of my rational mind was able to
overcome the drug and I realized that I was in a hell of a lot of trouble and
to survive it, I needed my senses.
In one of the three times in the three weeks I was allowed
outside in the cage, I thought I was ready to play some volley ball. After a
few seconds of exercise, I couldn't even stand up straight. After that, I
refused to continue to take the drug. Colleen, (AKA Nurse Ratchet of ONE FLEW
OVER THE CUCKOO'S NEST) got furious. She degraded me in the test area for about
a half hour. How dare anybody challenge those in charge! I got her back as best
I could. They always had "treats" right after "Meds." I
belligerently refused the drugs and gorged on the bribes anyway. I quickly
became very unpopular with staff.
There were always staff people sitting at the tables in the
TV area writing down what everybody was doing. These accounts went into your
folder and you never knew what they might have said. I called it
institutionally induced paranoia. Now, we had a real mental condition.
Ironically, the person who quickly understood the problem
was not a mental health professional at all. The Catholic priest (unlike all
the rest, he did not have a financial stake in this matter) came around once in
a while and somehow we got to talking even though I was not Catholic. He turned
to the Bible Ezekiel 33:1-6. There it was! The problem is that I refused to be
an enabler and would not let corruption simply roll on unopposed. It was my
moral fabric that was being tested and there was no room for compromise for me.
I had zero tolerance for corruption without regard to anyone I had to oppose.
We had many fun political conversations and I got to like him a lot.
Although it was I who was to be observed, I did not regard
it as a one-way study. To keep my sanity, I decided to observe how the
operation worked and examine the cast of characters I was about to encounter.
Mark was a big fat aide or whatever they are called. This
guy was apparently over some other much more competent workers. They were in a
constant state of anger with this guy. I saw it as the perfect example of how
things were run there. The stupider they were, the more power they had
accumulated. I enjoyed driving Mark nuts. His button, I discovered, was easily
pressed when confronted with his inconsistencies. Since I was an inmate in the
nut house, I thought I might be able to learn from the book, ONE FLEW OVER THE
CUCKOO'S NEST. I asked Mark if he would check it out of the library for me. He
got angry and red in the face and angrily announced that they didn't do things
like electric shock treatment in the institution anymore. Well,
technically he was right. When they wanted that done, they shipped them off to
hospital, Sacred Heart I think, there in Yankton. While I have no proof, there
was mention of a ward where the inmates of years gone by who had lobotomy
treatments were housed. I am pretty sure I got that from a staff member.
There was one outstanding nurse there. Somehow she was able
to stay above the politics and do an outstanding job. She came to clean the wax
out of my ears. She had the gentlest touch. It was a healing hand.
But in charge was nurse Colleen, AKA nurse Ratchet, who I
have previously mentioned. She was a believer in the system. It was clear to me
that she believed that the ends justified the means and nothing professionals
did should ever be doubted, especially her.
As far as the inmates, as I said, not all the nuts were on
the same side of the desk. I encountered some very interesting people.
Dennis had been there several times before and explained to
me how the system works and how to work it. He was not well educated in the
formal sense, but he was pretty smart in his own way. He sized me up right away
and announced to me, "You don't look crazy to me." He enjoyed teasing
me about the big watermelon I had growing in my back yard at home how I wasn't
going to get out quick enough to eat it. He came real close to having that
figured out right.
Dennis was there because he wanted to be there. He was
admitted because of alcohol abuse. I asked him how long they were going to keep
him there. Until the fishing got better, he told me. I wondered how in hell
that had anything to do with anything. Perhaps I was crazy!
Actually, it made perfect sense. Dennis liked to get drunk
and have fun. There wasn't really anything too wrong with him. He was alone and
didn't have anyone to worry about and they fed him pretty well there, and he
got to go anyplace he wanted so he balanced that against his desire to have a
drink and go fishing. Since fishing was bad and he really wasn't ready to get
drunk, it was an easy decision. On weekends his fishing buddies would come by
and give the fishing report as to when it should improve, then Dennis began to
plan when it was he wanted to be discharged. He knew how to get out any time he
wanted. He was in charge of his discharge date, not Dr. Somepalli. Dennis knew
all he had to do was tell Somepalli what he wanted to hear- presto. That is how
the game is played. I found out Dennis had the strategy worked out and I
decided to use it. So there I was with my Master's degree, being taught by
somebody who probably didn't finish high school. So much for education.
Larry had a more serious problem. He had been on
restriction since he got there which I understood was a considerable time. In
order to get off restriction you had to standard of behavior to meet. Larry had
tried to get off restriction but acceptable behavior had to be met several
weeks in a row, as I understood it. It isn't that his behavior was out of
control, it was just not what the staff wanted. Larry may get upset and mouth
off a little. When the demerit meeting would come once a week, some staff
member would have it written up and Larry would not get to go outside. Then
they would hound him at the meeting and he would get upset, argue and, of course,
get written up again.
The solution they came up for Larry was unbelievable. They
decided to move him to Oregon or somewhere. After several weeks of being on
restriction, they were going to give this guy an airplane ticket, put him on a
plane alone and ship him out. I often wondered if he ever got there or if he is
still lost in the airport in Seattle someplace.
As I was sitting at the table reading an outdated magazine
one day, a young red head came into ward six. She was angry and disheveled. As
it turned out, I had gone to high school with her dad. Once we had established
a link, we got to be good friends.
Julie had a break up with her boyfriend and was suffering
from whatever happens to any of us when that happens. While she was upset and
down some, she didn't seem to have symptoms of serious depression.
I prepared her for what was about to happen to her. I told
her to hold on tight because maybe she wasn't depressed then, but it would be
there to visit her in a few days. It wasn't great insight on my part, it just
happened every time.
They diagnosed her as having a bipolar disorder. That is
the catchall trick that they used on me too. There is no specific criterion for
it. It is an opinion based on in interview with a psychologist. It is like
asking a Baptist preacher if he thinks you need to be saved. They never pass a
chance to validate their own existence and importance.
Neither Julie nor I had any business being there, but we
were there nonetheless. We spent lots of time there playing cards and laughing
about what was really happening. We were probably the only decent therapy
either of us received. Finally, she could not take it anymore. Her boyfriend
had been calling her and they had gotten things patched up. He decided to
rescue her. Since she checked herself in on the stupid advice (her opinion) of
Capitol Area Counseling, she had the power to check herself out.
Boy, did that cause a stir. They had put her on a recovery
plan, which, of course, included drugs. The side effects were too much for Julie,
and she started to refuse them. She started to get better. That did not please
the powers in charge. She made arrangements for her boyfriend to get her, and
her spirits improved daily. Somepalli was not happy. He tried to coax her into
staying through the treatment period. The last time I saw Julie she was with
her boyfriend and they were making plans to go back to the ranch where Julie
had her interests. I wondered how Somepalli thought keeping her there was going
to improve on this situation. He wanted to remove her from her home, put her
under strict control, feed her drugs with serious side effects, let her suffer
the indignity of living in the crazy house and somehow he reasoned that that
was going to be better going back home. But then, little Somepalli did made
much sense to me.
I had been there only a few days when Chuck, a young
Indian, came to ward six. Chuck probably had been on drugs and was a little too
happy for society’s paranoia. He acted like he might have just polished off
half a six-pack and was ready to take on the remainder. Since I had lived on
the reservation and understood all corruption and crap that went on there, we
hit it off immediately. We would laugh and tell stories of our experiences with
the madness of reservation politics. We understood insanity when we saw it.
I don't remember what his diagnosis was, but he ended up
taking more drugs than I ever imagined possible. I remember one pill
especially. It looked like the one I tried to choke down my horse for worms. It
proved too much for my horse and it proved too much for Chuck too. Soon the
toxicity got too much for Chuck's system. He started to deteriorate quickly. He
grew more and more upset. I learned something that Somepalli overlooked. Chuck
talked about playing "Orange Blossom Special" on the guitar. I am not
sure if I had this in grad school or whether I had read about it somewhere, but
as a guitar player myself, I knew the potential information Chuck might reveal
when playing. I asked for a guitar. After a few days and a serious amount of
bitching, we got one. I handed it to Chuck to see what he would do with it.
As soon as I handed it to Chuck, happiness came over his
face and he embraced the instrument and began to pick. Hundreds of notes came
out and none of them matched. He could pick the note with the right hand and
finger the right string with the left, but it made no sense to anyone but him.
Regardless of the lack of any music I could understand, his music did calm the
savage soul.
Our lease on the guitar ran out and we had to return it.
Chuck couldn't stand the toxicity of the regimen and he started to refuse some
of the drugs. That only contributed to the disaster. He started to get real
paranoid (institutionally induced) and was soon out of control. He began to
suspect I was telling things to the staff behind his back. He was right to a
point. I had confronted Somepalli with Chuck's deteriorate. I said to
Somepalli, "Chuck is getting worse, not better." I voiced my
displeasure and he was not pleased. I must confess I don't suffer stupidity
gracefully.
Other than being scared of being shot by Janklow's goons,
an encounter with Chuck was the only time I was concerned about my physical
safety. He cornered me in the hall out of sight of the staff and started to really
get on my case. Somehow I talked my way out of that mess and reported it to the
staff to protect other inmates. Chuck kept getting worse and they restricted
him to his room for days. I could hear him in there going mad. Bad arguments
were going on between him and the staff in his room.
One day Chuck disappeared and I never found out what
happened to him. The code of confidentiality kept his fate hidden.
Another time I violated the rule of not getting involved
with another inmates plan of recovery was with a young man about twenty named
Chad. I liked Chad immediately. He reminded me of my own son about that age.
Chad was tall and thin and had many of the body characteristics of my oldest
son, Kim.
Chad was a wreck. He probably really needed to be somewhere
to get help. He was definitely bipolar and schizophrenic. I took it upon myself
to make his stay as good as I could understanding his serious disadvantage of
not understanding the system and how to survive it as Larry had taught me.
Actually, to understand what was wrong with Chad was not
difficult. Somehow he could not get his mind to shut off and rest. It was
exhausted to the point of self-destruction. I took him under my wing and he
would listen to what I told him. He had an especially hard time in
"Occupational Therapy" which was one of the dumbest things they had
going there.
Occupational Therapy was a class that met about twice a
week. It was "taught" by a young woman about my daughter's age. What
usually happened there was an argument from the beginning until the end. Most
of the inmates were bombed out on drugs and couldn't keep on task. It was a
touchy feely kind of thing that didn't work. She had us circling smiley faces
on worksheets. After having graduated college cum laude, and have taken courses
in psychology than she probably never heard of, this was not exactly
interesting to me. The most complicated thing I did there was to make a paper
airplane. I was too kind to tell her I had been a flight engineer on
a four-engine P3A submarine hunter and that making paper airplanes may not
have been appropriate for me.
I did, however, serve a useful, purpose there. Chad would
ramble on and this kid didn't know how to control it and Chad was getting
verbally abused by her constant lecturing him. Chad complained about it to
me. I worked out a strategy fir him. I told him if he wanted to avoid the
problem he should sit by me and when he was digging himself a whole I would tap
him on the leg as a signal to shut up and count to a hundred to himself. That
would allow the class to get on and by the time he counted to a hundred, he
wouldn't know what the topic was anymore so it would be difficult for him to
get involved again. It worked great.
The other problem with Chad was that the drugs were
knocking him out cold. He would fall asleep in the TV area and they would
hassle him about it. The problem was that he could not help it if this happened
to him when the rooms were locked. Finally Chad decided he had to quit the
drugs so he would not get into trouble. This looked like the plan for disaster
to me. This kid needed something to shut him down. I argued with him to keep on
the drugs and promised I would keep helping him. I told Somepalli what Chad had
in mind and that I was trying to keep him on his meds. That, of course, was in
violation of his own orders. He said I should keep encouraging Chad to take his
drugs. I wondered if he realized what he had just said.
Chad started to miss classes and couldn't get out of his
room and kept getting demerits. Well, at least he didn't get into fights with
the Occupational Therapy girl. I didn't get to see much of Chad after that but
I am satisfied he got better in spite of the system. How could he get any
worse?
Among the parade of professionals was Dr. Hatch. Her job
was to help you hang yourself. She came in with her personality profile test
(Minnesota Multiphasic Personality Inventory). I had already studied it in
psychology classes and since I had volunteered to take it once in college to
see what it was like so I knew what to expect.
This test was over six hundred questions long
and multiple choice. That meant the person tested had to choose from the
given answers whether it fit the case or not. One of those "when did you
quit beating your wife" situations. I found it interesting to study how
this test worked. (My curiosity often lands me in trouble, but it answers a lot
of questions.) I read and studied each question as to what it really asked with
an eye as to why the question was included in the first place. When I got
finished answering the questions that were not too ambiguous I had left over
three fourths blank. This was not the situation the institution wanted.
Dr. Hatch was not happy that I was not letting her do her
job. She then took me into the test room to get what she wanted. She wanted to
know why I had refused to answer the questions. I explained that many had
hidden meanings. I gave two examples. The first was if I found fire
fascinating. What they wanted to find out was if the person taking the test had
a tendency for abnormal interest in fire. I explained that I did find fire
fascinating if I were observing a candle burning because of the science of the
four states of matter and how the chemistry worked was simply amazing. I
explained how a burning building was not fascinating because of the
chaos and violence involved. Since the question was ambiguous, I refused
to answer it.
The other example I gave was the question asked if you ever
played house. I was the father of a daughter and we enjoyed playing house and
tea parties often. The question as written, however, had "played
house" in quotation marks. Written like that one may be admitting to
something he never really considered.
The really interesting part of the test was the part that
tests your willingness to tell the truth. It was designed to put you in a
position where you would admit to not always telling the truth, like someone
invading your privacy or asking unwelcome questions, (like the test itself was
doing). Once you got said there were times you didn't tell the truth, then you
had a tendency to lie. If you said there were never any times that were
appropriate to mislead, then you were definitely out of the norm and it was
presumed that you were not telling truth.
The test may have credibility if the one being tested was a
willing subject. That is not how it is done. The inmates were coerced into
taking the test and many times did not even read the questions. There were
answers provided and a response could be given without attention given to
the question. As I interviewed the other inmates, including Julie who was
perfectly sane, that is exactly how they did it.
As I m mentioned before, Dr. Hatch's test was incomplete
and she was not going to let it be. She took me into the examination room and
we went over the questions that I had refused to answer. She would try to
explain the questions and then SHE would fill in the answers on the sheet.
Let me explain the issue of test validity. I took courses
in graduate school about this so I understood that what had happened
invalidated the test. Any standardized test has criteria that must be met
before a test can be considered valid. They all have to be administered under
the same conditions. Obviously, this test was not. Since I refused aid in
hanging myself, it was brought up at the hearing that I had refused to complete
the test. If they couldn't do any damage with the test, they would imply
something negative by mentioning I had refused to comply.
While Hatch was trying to figure me out with her six
hundred question test, I was busy trying to figure her out with about ten
carefully constructed questions of my own as well as studying her body language
and how she spoke. I concluded she was really a pretty decent person and just
trying to survive the problems that life had handed her that were beyond here
own control.
Sometimes I wondered if there might not be a conspiracy by
the state to help improve the quality of workers of the private sector by
hiring all the incompetent people in the work place themselves before they had
a chance to wreck things anywhere else. Pete, the social worker, could fit into
that category easily.
I remember one encounter with Pete at morning rounds. We
were going through the very complicated situation I found myself in. I think
Somepalli could keep up with the saga pretty well, but I think I lost Pete at
the first unexpected turn. In order to understand how things worked, you had to
have the brainpower to hold more than one concept in your head at a time. Since
Pete couldn't do that, he thought the problem was with me.
One day Pete came in to hold some class we had to attend.
He was just bubbling over with his good fortune and could not wait to tell us
how happy he was and how good life was for him. After being locked up and under
constant harassment and none of us had much control over anything we did,
hearing about this wasn't the thing that improved out spirits. Pete never
picked up on this but prepared to present his lesson. The topic was on
schizophrenia. I looked around the room at who may be ready to receive this
deep subject matter. Other than myself, everyone there was completely
incapacitated by drugs or not of the mental ability to comprehend this
heavy-duty subject.
Most of the time Pete was quarreling with inmates who
probably weren't aware of what the planet earth was about, much less
understanding anything about schizophrenia. Being curious about things anyway,
thought it maybe interesting. I learned that there were twelve symptoms of
schizophrenia but you only had to have nine to qualify for the disorder. I
often wondered why it didn't take all twelve and why the others were not
important.
What really burnt me is that Pete came around one day with
a paper in his hand and he was pressuring me to sign it. Its purpose was to
exempt the state from any responsibility, and I was to accept the blame and
cost of everything they did to me. I would have signed away everything I ever
owned and would have become homeless. As it was, they left me with a pile of bills
anyway, but I was not going pay them $250 a day to incarcerate me, and worst of
all, invade my privacy. Multiply that by about 24 days and it gets expensive.
If they wanted to have the one who screwed everything up, they needed to send
these bills to Janklow. He was the one who ordered my incarceration and his
plan failed. Well, Janklow never paid for his mess, the taxpayers did.
A few days before I was to have my hearing, a new guy
popped on the scene. His name was Rick. He announced that he was going to write
up my treatment plan. I thought this was a little strange because I was
supposed to be there for observation and evaluation, not for treatment. I
thought perhaps I should know something about someone who was going to have
this much power over my life.
Rick was probably in his 30's with long light brown hair
tied in a ponytail. He was slender and had a wild enthusiasm about him. I asked
him how he had gotten involved with his job. He explained to me he
was recovering from a chemical dependence problem when he got this
job as a counselor. As best as I could tell from what he said, he had little
training, if any, in clinical psychology. Although he was not any darker
completed than I, he went on for some time talking about the importance of his
Indian heritage. Just what I didn't need- a person who was seriously confused
about his heritage, someone who was on a live-long recovery plan himself, and
totally convinced he had the solution to my problems. (His recovery plan for me
will be placed under the nuthouse heading as soon as I can relocate it.)
As the time for my hearing drew closer, I learned I was
going to undergo another evaluation by another Psychiatrist, Dr. Stevens. He
was supposed to be the independent psychiatrist furnished by the state. I
wasn't dumb enough think that was possible. This guy made his living at the
nuthouse and he was not about to jeopardize it by coming up with the conclusion
that Janklow did not want.
I had had the chance to observe Stevens while he was in the
ward several times. I knew what to expect. When it came time for his evaluation
we went into a room and closed the door. He announced to me that the woman with
him was his wife. There was some time they had in preparing for whatever they
were going to do. My attention was riveted to the little discussion they had
going on as if I were not there. There was something wrong with this
relationship. To watch them react to each other and the tones in their voices
made the hair stick up on the back of my neck. I didn't understand that
relationship and even with my very active curiosity, I didn't want to know
anything of how that relationship worked.
Since I knew how this was going to end anyway, I thought I
would throw this guy a little curve. When they got their things set up, I
opened with question. I asked him if he was a Christian. I had no interest in
what the answer was, but in his reaction to the question. I definitely caught
him off guard. He mumbled and stumbled as he was trying to think of his answer.
Finally, he answered that he was. It was clear to me that he didn't even
understand himself and I felt there was no chance he was going to be able to
understand me either. It went downhill from there.