Agonia: Mental Health Advocates

What to Do Now:
A Mental Health Consumer's Existential Response
To Being Left-for-Dead by Systemic Indifference

There were cries prior to the last (Kentucky General Assembly, GA) legislative session that there would be falling-through (the 'cracks' and otherwise) in the mental health system without requisite funding. OK. Kentucky did not do that-- but went to bankroll the highway-constructors instead. OK.

Consumers: do not look for 'help' of the kind we got in the 1990s and prior due to the hullaballoo that was incited by 'bleeding hearts' (unfortunately so called) who had just enough 'Sacred Heart Christianity' to advocate/lobby for what here locally is Wellspring (for the decomensated, providing housing and treatments), the Crisis Stabilization Center (an alternative to 'regular' psychiatric hospitalization), and certain other cautiously-drawn programmmatics. The General Assembly-- still under the sway of the get-to-work-slouch politics of the Zeitgeist of the first part of this decade-- has left us high:dry:dated. Don't look for charity-stories about us in the C-J as much. Do look for the popularity of 'lunatics' jokes. Do look for the MH agencies to "cut you loose" as Recovered-- Guy-- you are so well that you don't need to talk to the likes of us anymore anymore anymore!!!!!

I am already beginning to have reports trickle in of cut-back consumers lacking supervision and then doing mayhem; I am now beginning to see more and more consumer-looking people bagpeople on the streets; there is a suggestion that some are medicating selves with dope-- unable to get anymore the meds like on PAP-- "Patient Assistance Program"-- freebies once flowing from our CMHC-- and God-Forbid!!!-- it looks as though not a few more have taken to 'dealing dope' in order partly to fulfill a supply; I have indirect but tangible report that the jails-- pretrial, post-convicted-- are full up with types like us because there was 'no room in the mental health inn.'

Now I invoke something called "existentialism," nuts-like-me: in fine this means assuming the-real prior to assuming the-ideal, and living responsibly-- 'damn their hide anyway!' I am in a bit of a hurry right now, but this wisdom-- wise as you can get if you're a consumer of MH-- is like us getting old-hat, but had its mavens like Jean-Paul Sartre, Martin Buber, the ole-Nazi Martin Heidegger-- a motley crew alright and some said they were as crazy as they would now make us out to be. But 'to be strong at the breaking places' as suggested above now I am prescribing a dose of existentialism (tastes like codliver going down; victual as hardtack for the longtrek pilgrimage we now must face.) We need, in fine, to separate the existential from the essential and best we can BE REAL without ass-u-me guesses that some savior besides Jesus in human-form will come, make things all nice and forgiving again.

I have already limned a good portion of the-existential. The problematic we face is a downturn in economy-- a legacy of dust-under-the-carpet-lipservice by the policy principates-- in Frankfort as well as Washington. The shortfall in Frankfort with GA was a reflection of these variables-- in particular with the shortfalls created by the regime giving us the Budget Reduction Act of 2006-- and profound cuts in Medicare and the rest of the social welfare system. IF HELP COMES TO THE 'RESCUE' DO NOT LOOK FOR IT SOONER: LOOK FOR IT LATER. Between this instant and relief there will have been a body-count-- and some of those-there bodies will be of you-me-MH-types-- by whom I mean not just us-nuts but the kind ones who provided the service heretofore-- there will be LAYOFFS AND RUMORS OF LAYOFFS for these clement -- I prophesy with the sage tendency of one well-burnt in both the worlds of giving and receiving 'help.' So don't look for help. Look for ESSENTIALS to fill the gap in EXISTENTIALS...

First, Consumers: survive. Do whatever you can to medicate properly. This need not be expensive as you might think. If you have been so-liberated by MH that you no longer have a healer, check around, and here-and-there will be GPs (general practitioners) and occasionally NPs (nurse practitioners) who might be so kind as to Rx like chlorpromazine [Thorazine (r)] or its ilk-- not as good as the new ones but still dirt-cheap as a psychotropic. It is also true that a generic for the out-patented risperidone [Risperdal (r)] is online; look for it to be a potential standby for the 'expensive stuff' on the horizon in the aftermath/afterbirth of W's "New Freedom-- get-t-work" for us.

Second, be self-cognizant: measure your mentalities and manners with honesty, brutality. Assuming that there will be some psychotropic you can get after the fold-up of the '10s-decade the GOP planned for us in mid-this-decade, you should with some " 'Zine" another to get-by be able to detect when off-going is at-hand. BY ALL MEANS IN COGNIZANCE DO NO HARM: THE SOCIAL WORLD IN WHICH WE LIVE IN THIS UNTIED SNAKES OF AMNESIA (USA) IS WELL ACCUSTOMED TO NEWS-JUICIES ABOUT CONSUMERS SHOOTING UP PLACES LIKE VIRGINIA TECH AND NORTHERN ILLINOIS U: LOOK FOR NO SYMPATHY/EMPATHY FROM HENCE ON THESE MATTERS!!!! Yet with ruthless honesty you should be able to detect 'when it's getting bad.' At worst, the forensic/correctional psychiatric places still give a certain amount of psychotrops: but you will if you get 'criminaled' for something 'heady' lose liberty, and a good toehold we have acquired on the license-to-live.

Look for sometime cuts in form for the SSDIs and SSIs and Medicares and Medicaids you get: this will come at the far-end-flop of the coming pol upheaval-- when the GOPs again get control of White House, Senate, House-- and then the talk will be "we can't afford to keep these bums in cigarettes [or whatever stereotype for which we will be then-blamed.] This will come with 'freezes' at first in the cashflow, then rollbacks 'for the common good.'

Try to keep a domicile rented as long as you can. This is what the cops call 'permanent address' and it can differentiate between freedom and jail. In your place, it might be best not to go out unless you have to do so: and if you do exit domicile, in short order look for a dearth of transit-- meaning for sure that 'public transit' and the para-trans (which was cut from nuts short-after the passage of the Americans with Disabilities Act.)

Get a pet. If you can't in future-tense get petfood for want of bucks, befriend the birds, the squirrels, the cockroaches that hither/yon will certain obtain around you. The animals will be your-only-friends, your-only-solace in a world that WANTS to hate you because of the Birchites who have come, will come, and are-now.

Mostly: don't look-for goods, but look-out-for bads. The rednecks who kill with purse-strings-- somewhat gone but by the American dialectical logic will return-- want you your-hide your-exit.

And don't you forget this!

Existentially before Essentially,
Vernon Lynn Stephens, Culdee
D.S.M. IV-TR # 296.44
M.S.S.W. belatedly
In the Place Commonly Called 'The Desert'
Here: Louisville, Kentucky USA

posted by Louisville Hermitage @ 8:50 PM 3 comments

REJOINDER TO INSULT:
When Given Less, DO MORE--
Starting with (The Privilege, for Time-Being) of The-Vote

In Kentucky, as under several other juridictions, mental health consumers have but a privilege to suffrage-- not a right. But as many of us CAN vote, let us vote now -- in the Fall 2008 election and always-- for what is of-our-wallets, of social-justice, and of-mental-health.

Due to the shenanigans of the ancien Regime-- I mean the politics of the late 1990s to the mid-decade now (and you know -- all of you-- whom I mean) we now as mental health consumers are forced to take the short-end, while vastness of high-ways, and of thus high-way-robberies has taken place from our of-people-by-people-for-people-supposedly governance. This is a perceptible trend. Service in all areas has stiffled, suffocated, strangled little:little:lots over a series of times that have brought great bequeathment to the Welfare of War, the Welfare of Wealth, the Welfare of Weird.

There has been hue-and-cry over the large increases in what MH consumers have to pay for services-- a reality often unspoken and of which the public is dim therefore-- as well as the cutbacks in what is obtainable. NOW I cannot get certain kinds of lab-test for my several medical conditions (psychiatric + those-medicalities-caused-by-the-psychiatric) that are the reality of my retirement-age life. I have discovered-- as The Boomers retiring now will certainly have discovered-- that the Social Contract for the shortfalls of school:jobs:opportunities we got in youth-- and the liability of old-men's-wars-- would not be met on the far end of time with the 'carrot' of a social safety net. No. Due to the action of a callous Congress (you know who was in charge in 2006 and prior, not my party) we face the demise of Medicare/Medicaid as we know it-- much much much to the woe of the American Medical Association and all equity-minded folk.

In mental health, those who plugged 'equity' for mental health did not realize that equity for mental health CERTAINLY in fiscal and authorization-for-fiscality terms does not meet with equity in government. The Medicare and Medicaid both tend to stiffle mental health. The services which others get, we consumers in the receiving-end get not from America. On the other hand, we are now beginning to be expected to pay more for less service. The co-pay increases pinned to consumers now are by no means the beginning of such co-pays, such increases-in-co-pay: we shall in short-order be expected to give payment-in-full-not-in-kind for these services in psychiatry (not long really 'mental health') which are getting sketchy and augur to become imaginary.

For this reason, I am supporting Congress-folk who support MH issues like our equity-under-government problem. My present (Democratic) Congressman does support this cause, a matter which I receive gratefully, gladly-- all the while knowing that against the John Birchers in Congress (House and Senate) and in Kentucky General Assembly (GA) this will have been a bitter and probably unsucess-meeting battle. Unless...

WE VOTE!!!!!! So it is not very surprising-- as long as I am so condescendingly permitted suffrage/the-vote-- to VOTE MY WALLET. That it IS the donkey-party Democrats who do this so consistently (and not for 'jobs-back-to-work-bum' I cannot get under any circumstances)-- I shall VOTE DEMOCRAT PLUG DEMOCRAT PROMOTE DEMOCRAT.

Should the elephant-party GOP see the light in a real way-- and support MH-- then and only then will this position be reconsidered, re-drawn possibly. But there is strong tradition of this GOP clique-conservative-of-justice-little to penny-pinch-when-pound-wise is indicated, and where mental justice has been concerned, we have seen much violence-- the closure of asylums, the criminalization of the mentally ill in spates, homelessness-smirking, and now the short-end-of-courtesy from the strangle-funding of MH. The reversal in GOP will have to be more than a "New Freedom" of a right-to-work for mental consumers without jobs at all or opportunity for jobs. This is raw. Democracy demands difference to this indifference-- and certainly it would appear that the party named Democrat-- and thus for our democracy-- will deliver.

This is the most-responsible thing I can do, taking this stance-political-- after striving my utmost to ascertain that I for one shall NOT be victim to this studied and callous indifference from the Ancien Regime of Bushes Northups and McConnells. I hope these lackies do see the shortfalls of their soldier-mercenary-hire to the War-Lobby GOP-- but even the more, well-fried by these previously-mentioned brutes-- will VOTE DEMOCRAT in Fall, 2008.

--Vernon Lynn Stephens, Culdee
D.S.M. IV-TR # 296.44
M.S.S.W.

posted by Louisville Hermitage @ 1:41 PM 1 comments

A Dead-Letter-- Kentucky Constitution 145(3)-- As Dead-Wrong:
The Franchise to Vote as Privilege-- Not Right-- for the 'Insane' in Kentucky

I have beaten a drum for the statutory qualification of Kentucky Constitution 145(3) as being restricted into the present not-guilty-by-reason-of-insanity law-- Kentucky Revised Statutes 504.020, with any other usage in-- for example 'testamentary capacity' being termed 'incapacity' only. The feedback I am getting is that "we [mental health consumers] CAN vote'-- by implication 'what's the big deal?'

The 'deal' is that the franchise-to-vote is a RIGHT for all adult people who are not disabled by felony conviction, bribery in an election, or "idiots or insane persons"-- the last designation being in case-law defined as "every degree of unsoundness of mind" [ Pulaski County v. Hill, 97 Ark. 450, 134 S.W. 973 (1911)] -- which is persuasive authority across jurisdictions until statute defines-otherwise. That in Kentucky we DO vote as mental health consumers only conveys that times-have-changed toward lenient definition of what "insanity" is by venues in this state. Nonetheless, this practice is a PRIVILEGE extended to consumers, and in the same way that times-have-changed for now, times-can-change-back.

Frankly, the ghastly occurrence of the April 16, 2007 mayhem by a should-be-consumer at Virginia Tech has occasioned tightening of the mental health laws in that Commonwealth [see the Washington Post article on this subject, at this link]; the February 15 slayings at Northern Illinois University predictably may have a similar effect; psychiatric maven Dr. E. Fuller Torrey would seem in this vein to be recommending to the old-days with mental health asylum for 'bad actors" among mental patients [see the article from the Orlando Sentinel on this topic, here]. Given the 'official' case-law and statutory-law on this suffrage question-- which I find expansive-- I cannot rule out that the PRIVILEGE of voting I have practiced since age 18-- yea through all my mental tailspins-- would not be court-definable as "every [any] degree of unsoundness of mind" and thus this PRIVILEGE could-- 'just-like-that'-- be-booped from me... and you, too, if you are one who has some degree at some time of such "unsoundness."

There is ebb-and-flow to American history, to Kentucky history. The law that is 'on the book' about the disenfranchisement of the unsound-of-mind was actually to-the-crossing-of-t-and-dotting-of-i what was practiced up to the first half of the 20th century. Only by the grace-of-chlorpromazine, movies like The Snake Pit and One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest, the Kennedy New Frontier Legislation in the Community Mental Health Centers Act of (October 31) 1963, and the persistent agitation over time of do-gooders-- that we do have the privilege even to set the dinner-table free-to-eat in our places-- let alone the franchise to vote. Zeal to "do something about these nuts running around committing no-no's" could in time have the cumulative effect of reversal to total disenfranchisement we had when the case-laws were written which would in turn do-us-in.

Consider the black-civil-rights experience. One might have thought that the 13th Amendment (abolishing slavery) and the 14th Amendment (defining all as citizens, and that all thus having civil liberties) would effectively provided the civil-liberties black people ought to have into perpetuity. But something came along-- case-law again-- originating right here in Kaintuck-- the Plessey v. Ferguson which upon arrival at the United States Supreme Court [163 U.S. 537 (1896)] defined the civil liberties of people of color as being OK if they are "separate but equal." This had the real "unequal and separate" effect of legitimating 'Jim-Crow' culture in this land until-- with great exertion-- the civil rights movement and Brown v. Board of Education [347 U.S. 483 (1954)]-- the Supreme Court reversed itself and posited the valence of integration. It is not especially encouraging to me to hear-tell that conservative courts and political conservatism are pushing to eliminate the "strong" interpretation of integrationist law. It means, in so many words-- 'what-comes-around-goes-around'-- and that nothing good we in commonweal 'have' is necessarily 'ours for keeps.'

Yes. 'We' DO vote in Kentucky, and in places where these old laws are practically disregarded. These are "dead letters" on our books [see the related disambiguation in Wikipedia. ] But don't rest on those laurels, affected-ones-- just a single hard decision from a high-court, or a similar judgment from the Kentucky General Assembly-- say after some hopelessly misguided soul goes on a rampage-- disownable by us-- but our-definite-problem-not-a-definite-solution-to-woe-- could get re-read this old law with all the old vigor that once it had. I say again, do-not-rest-on-your-laurels. In spirit and truth, the-vote extended to the mentally ill is a modern perk-- a generosity extended not-to-cause-trouble-- but at opportune time the PRIVILEGE can be taken just as Cinderella's carriage turned into pumpkin at the appointed hour. Do not rest on your laurels.

What we have is not what black folk have with the 14th Amendment-- or what women got with the 19th Amendment-- no: we if definably 'insane' cannot vote here-- what option we have for suffrage is merely a kind of "wink" at the highest law in this land-- our Kentucky Constitution-- and a willingness to let-pass-in-order-not-to-make-trouble. But this placidity is legally only apparent-peace-- trouble obtains here, nonetheless. The CHARTER under which we operate-- our 'Kentucky Magna Carta' is whopperjawed. For this reason, I am troubled by the wording of the constitutional language, and want legal redress-- best as can be obtained-- with responsibility and equally-responsible-civil-action. "Eternal vigilance is the price of liberty-- --power is ever stealing from the many to the few"[Wendell Phillips, American abolitionist]; therefore let us keep-vigil-without-ceasing!

I do not rest my case!

--Vernon Lynn Stephens, MSSW
D.S.M. IV-TR # 296.44

Telephone: 1 (502) 561-5419
Anytime re MH/social-justice/human-civil-rights.
Email: freethink@insightbb.com
Anytime re MH/social-justice/human-civil-rights.

posted by Louisville Hermitage @ 4:24 PM 3 comments

More on the Suffrage Disenfranchisement of the "Insane" in Kentucky:
Legal Use of the Term 'Insane' Not Restricted
To Not-Guilty-by-Reason-of-Insanity (NGRI-- K.R.S. 504.020)
But Also to Non-Criminal, I.E. 'Civil' Use

With some vigor in the last entry to this Web-log, I tendered the accurate information that Kentucky Constitution 145 (3) CATEGORICALLY PROHIBITS "insane" folk from the franchisement-of-suffrage, the right-to-vote. The question in so many words has come to me: Yes, 'insanity' is a legal-term atop psychiatric determination; what does it mean-- by linguistic pragmatics-- in the legal sense-- in case-law and other policy determinations?

To the end of accurately-- and only with balance and accuracy-- addressing this particular question-- I went to the U/L Law Library on the afternoon of February 24 to check exactly what I point-at here-- the legal contextual definition in 2008 for "insanity". To wit, I went to Corpus Juris Secundum (CJS) 2007-- which is kind of a legal-definition encyclopedia (multi-volume) and to Kentucky Digest as well as Kentucky Revised Statutes. The "Kentucky" books all point to MH definitions for the non-criminal use of the insanity term, as well as to the not-guilty-by-reason-of-insanity term (NGRI, under 504.020.) The main law lexicon universally in this land is CJS; this discouraging use under the "mental health" section of volume 56 includes the following wording at exactitude:

"The word 'insane' ordinarily implies every degree of unsoundness of mind [Application of Jordan 270 Misc. 734, 10 N.Y.S. 2d 911 Sup. 1939-- says my corrupt CC!] Generally speaking an insane
person is one who is of unsound mind [Oklahoma Natural Gas Corporation v. Lay, 1935 OK 868. 175 Okla., 51 P.2d 580 (1935)]; one who once had a sound mind but has lost it through injury or disease [In re Hendrickson 12 Wash. 2d 600, 123 P. 2d 322 (1942)] According to some authority a person is legally insane if the person lacks the substantial capacity to appreciate the wrongfulness of his or her conduct or the substantial capacity to conform his or her conduct to the requirements of the law [ People v. Foster, 138 Mich. App. 734, 367 N.W. 2d 349 (1984)], although mere weakness of mentality or subnormal intelligence does not itself constitute insanity [State v. Bennett, 345 So. 2d 1129 (La. 1977)]."
CJS 56 "Mental Health" Section # 1, page 530.

Up to use in 1988, as a former exact employee in forensic psychiatry who wrote a patients' rights legal thesis at Kent, I can say that it would appear that most of the usage of the term "insanity" went for NGRI under K.R.S. 504.020; there was some usage under the civil incompetency-- "testamentary capacity" provisions-- with use conservatively-interpreted-in-generous-favor toward the alleged-incompetent. My proposal-- and I think it a modest proposal-- would be to draft legislation and enact same to the specification that "insanity" in Kentucky only be defined under the provisions of K.R.S. 504.020 and to use "incapacity" in every other sense previously used for this expression outside of criminology.

Stricter interpretation of insanity-- precisely consistent with the used CJS terminology-- could mean, with my having ~ 17 invols in which "I was a danger to myself by reason of mental illness"-- be defined OUT OF the franchise to vote. That the practice is now leniently interpreted in 2008-- as opposed to older strict practice-- would not imply necessarily that in 2030-- about my maximum predictable lifespan-- the standard could not be practiced more-restrictively. That I have voted all my adult life, all through the time since first psychosis in 1977-- MAY not mean that in tuffer times this condition will always prevail.

For that reason, I am speaking for the restriction to 504.020 use of "insanity," and thence to replace the term with evidence-based operational definitions altogether. A promising "replacement-term" for "insanity" in the civil-diminishment-sense looms with the term-- also a legal expression-- "incapacity." But there is absolutely no reason-- given the state of mental health recovery now-- yea unto virtual-if-not-total-remission-of-symptoms with treatment-MENTAL HEALTH CARE IS EFFECTIVE TO EVERY PRACTICAL EXTENT!!! In fine: this "fossil" on the Kentucky Constitution 145(3) is a spot/blemish that this 21st century mental health consumer finds disconcerting and would like to "petition the government for redress." For these and other equal-protection/due-process considerations I do define the mental health empowerment movement as a civil/human-rights endeavor. One would think that after the franchise to vote was extended to blacks with the 14th Amendment and the suffrage of women in the 19th Amendment there could be something/somewhere to eliminate a disenfranchisement of "the insane" as uncomfortably defined in CJS.

I was not-- incidentally-- direct-selling the idea that anyone would be of necessity obliged to agree with me on this civil-rights angle. I shall beat a drum for it... I have been a cry-in-the-dark all my life and can continue thus. But of the issues-- "the hot buttons"-- that turn-me-on-- you may include this one..."am willing to pay the necessary price."

--Vernon Lynn Stephens, MSSW

D.S.M. IV-TR #296.44

Telephone: 1 (502) 561-5419 anytime for MH social-justice/civil-rights.

Email: freethink@insightbb.com anytime for MH social-justice/civil-rights.

posted by Louisville Hermitage @ 4:55 PM 0 comments

The 'Insane' CANNOT Vote in Kentucky--
Suffrage-Disenfranchisement of MH Consumers
Due to Kentucky Constitution 145 (3)

Mental health consumers in Kentucky "the Dark and Bloody Land"-- and all righteous folk everywhere-- brace yourself for stern news: the 'insane' of this Commonwealth have an unqualified disability from voting in this venue! Read the Kentucky Constitution at Section 145 (3), where we are informed that "idiots and insane persons" are (apparently in all instances) prohibited from the right-to-suffrage.

Immediate qualification is necessary for this usage. Here as elsewhere now, "insanity"/"insane" are legal terms-- it is necessary to involve psychiatry/mental-health in determination of this 'incompetence,' but it is not the cause/sufficient-condition for the determination that one is 'insane.' I would say that almost exclusively we associate the term 'insanity' to use in a criminological context, where it becomes necessary to question whether a defendant "as a result of mental illness or retardation {she/}he lacks substantial capacity either to appreciate the criminality of {her/} his conduct or to conform {her/}his conduct to the requirements of the law" Kentucky Revised Statutes 504.020

I CERTAINLY have no objection to Kentucky's having an insanity defense-- and it would be raw injustice if we had none for such incapacity. But all witting parties know that "insanity" has a common usage, even limited psychological-science usage, and a broader context than the criminalistic setting. We know for example that the terms "insane"/"insanity" are oft invoked in proceedings related to "testamentary capacity" -- the ability to effect a will or contract-- see the Wikipedia article on this topic. But this is a limited usage: these terms are increasingly merely the pop and unscientific and limited-forensic way to specify mental incompetency.

I would counter that NOW-- decades after the closing of the "asylums"-- after the advent of chlorpromazine antipsychotic and the effective mood-stabilizers-- after a large number of us consumers have emphatically demonstrated that we are responsible and contributing and effective participants in the communities of neighborhood, nation, and world-- we can begin to retire this term to the antiquity it deserves. Cruelties inflicted on "the insane" mitigate against the utility of ever again digging-it-from-such-a-grave linguistically.

Accordingly, I tender the following not-too-timid proposal: why not pass a law to the effect that in Kaintuck-- or anywhere-- "insanity" as a word be 100% restricted to use under definitions of criminal insanity-- such as the K.R.S. 504.020 I cite above? It could even be that the other uses of "insane"/"insanity" will then have reason to wane from our vocabularies in time-- although there are societal forces that like to keep alive the-negative.

What if we don't do such an expedient move as to restrict "insane"/"insanity" to the criminal context? To wit, "insanity" can refer to the general proposition that one's behavior does not conform to societal expectations and that one is dangerous-to-self-or-others thereby -- see the Wikipedia article on "Insanity." This is exactly the sort of language that is contained in mental health commitment laws everywhere in this land-- including in Kentucky Revised Statutes for Involuntary Mental Commitment 202A.026

The "bottom line" for me -- with 17 "involuntaries" [essentially for 'shouting' usually]-- and all others who have ever been 'invol-ed'-- run some risk of for reasons good-to-someone for our prior declaration of danger-self/others-- be turned away at the polls under the harder interpretations of Kentucky Constitution 145 (3). This would of course be a political bombshell and nightmare to the power-elite for fire-put-out-damage-control, so I speculate that nowadays this would not occur. On the other hand, I doubt not at all that in Kentucky's murky human rights history this HAS occurred. For prevention, and for "cleaning up the dirty language" from the Books, I think we need-- all responsible folk-- to do something like what I recommend: to get this "insane"/"insanity" thing written restrictively to criminality NOW-- then eradicate its use forever by the substitution of new, evidence-based terminology.

Kentucky is not by any means alone in disenfranchisement -- to some degree or another-- of the "insane" from the right-to-suffrage. Actually, 37 states, the District of Columbia, and Puerto Rico have such legal-writ encumbering mental health consumers from the-vote. In this 21st century, decades after the Civil Rights provisions of the Americans with Disabilities Act-- we must all work toward this happy and just goal.

So as Social Work Matriarch Mary Richmond said, "Start where you are." My allies are perhaps to be found; the NAMIs and other mental health advocacy groups may wish to be vocal about this rank writing in the Kentucky Law. I fancy that I might find help from the Churches; in this regard I think it instructive that almost-to-the-point the local Catholics are in favor of lifting the prohibitions of the not-guilty-by-reason-of-insanity for voting privileges-- or so I have rather obliquely had intimation; the Presbyterian Church, USA, has its headquarters just down the street here in Louisville on Witherspoon Street-- they may want to "pitch in" for the civil liberties of mental health consumers. In fact, I think a lot of people would find this issue a lively topic. And it almost goes-without-saying that numbers of civil-rights-mavens, libertarian pols, and the mental health professionals probably could leap-on-this-with-abandon.

So as the lively bunch of Lexington (Kentucky) NAMI like to say "Let's get 'er done!"

--Vernon Lynn Stephens, MSSW
D.S.M. IV-TR # 296.44

Telephone: (502) 561-5419
Anytime for mental-health/social-justice issues.

Email: freethink@insightbb.com
Anytime for mental-health/social-justice issues

posted by Louisville Hermitage @ 2:47 PM 0 comments

A "Maroon Valentine" on Love-Day-- 2/14/2008--
For Kentucky's Orphan-People--
The Tight-Belt of Governance Tightens Like a Noose

On Valentine's Day, just this past Thursday, the Commonwealth of Kentucky House of Representatives hosted a get-together for the have-nots-- with the meeting of the Sub-Committee on Human Resources. I attended this convening-- and came away in a peculiar mood-- as if I had been one who attended a party hosted with some august ambivalence-- a congress of waifs celebrating an "Orphans Valentines Party" presented by a few well-intended hosts, with ambiance-- music-lights-decoration in minor-key.

The stimulus for this get-together was for imperiled folk-- those living close-to-the-wire-- the brain-injured, the severely retarded, the chronically-mentally-ill, and seniors-- all faced with short-change budgeting and short-change treatment by the system-- to speak up for themselves-- TO BE HEARD. This "HEARING" made discomforting listening to anybody with the least sense of conscience and decency-- I shall here recount the disconcertions that "hit me" there-- shocking and catastrophic words that were stinging to hear. But I went away wondering whether all this maroon-note-lamentation on the Love-Day 2/24/2008 was indeed HEARD by the great and august body of the power-elite after all. I shall explain in a few extra words...

This assembly was well-attended by the needy-- there were in excess of 150 people there-- an overflow crowd that had to be accommodated by channeling a number of attendees to a side-room-with-television-monitor. I did come early-- but it was crowded for the people-attending-- standing room only. Herein came testimony from those affected by the gutting of programs for the truly-wounded of Kentucky-- the autistic just-looking-for-a-home, the mothers-facing-death-and-then-incapable of-dressing-feeding-clothing-the-retarded-son, the devastated-mentally-ill-who-with-cuts-will-not-survive-make-it, the wives-of-brain-damaged-carwrecked-professionals-now-vegitating.

This assembly was under-attended-- in my studied estimation-- by representatives in the Kentucky House of Representatives-- I counted two such Reps-- one was the Louisville-Human-Cause-Champion Reginald Meeks-- and by another whom I could not identify despite some watching-previously of General-Assembly news on Kentucky Educational Television.

To me this dearth of Representatives and surfeit of needy-folk was most-telling: for I happened in early, to the meeting of some kind of sports-testimony for another committee like an hour prior to the Human Resources Sub-Committee meet: there the situation demographically was opposite. The Officials behind the bench hearing-witness were in abundance-- and there were guys at the table talking about some nifty plans for letting golfers play at Valhalla in Louisville during the Riders' Cup horse-race thing this year. The attendees were under-represented-- I had absolutely no trouble finding a seat.

From these presents, it is not hard to infer the priorities of this fast-women-and-pretty-horses-State. Kentucky does love its fine old horsey traditions-- and has always been "dark and bloody" (as the legend is that evicted Native Americans called this place) on the receiving end for the have-nots. True-- the Louisville Courier-Journal (CJ) sent in Deborah Yetter-- who functions as the social-action reporter for this organ-- who turned out a grabbing piece about how those affected by the nothingness of fiscal impossibilities imposed by shortfalls in the budget this year-- implying how there portends to be camps-on-the-street of the infirm-- a community adrift with milling suffering people-- in the "cold Kentucky rain" unless some effective remediation takes place.

This made good "copy" in the CJ-- I read the online version doing my pauper-best to be well-informed via PC-- and even made a couple of comments to the Yetter publications on this sore-topic. But I am under zero illusion that this state-- beyond the FEW in-power like those manning the House Human Resources Sub-Committee then-- and the MANY who will just have to get rained/snowed-upon. We cowboy-rednecks in this wacky place REALLY DO seem to care about horsies and basketball and korn-likker and to-backer more than the suffering of people. While I read and was animated by the Yetter story on these issues, I doubt if there will be much hullaballoo from very many others... who seem the-much-more-concerned about the new stadiums that will have been built, and fightin' for the honor of ole Kaintuck' to make it all the way to the NCAA.

I attended this hearing in the anticipation that I might be able to get-a-word-in-edgewise about the dropped-out drop-dead situation of those I see on the streets in Louisville, those beneath the services provided by agencies, the hard-core nitty-gritty Untouchables who are seemingly left to die-- without the blessings of NAMI, the mental health centers, the day-care drop-in centers-- whose station is not mine, as I by pluck and huff-puff managed to pull myself from homelessness to this station-- not plush by any means-- but at least dry to rains and semi-warm in winter-- and with a viable landlord-- and this magic-box my PC-- from which I can connect to a world which seems never-to-have-heard-or-care of Untouchables of my ilk. But I in fine did not get the opportunity "to talk" -- so impacted was the waiting-line-of-testifiers with stories at least as grim as mine...but that is "par for this Unbridled State Golf Course."

I would like to express words in a certain sense of grief about the during-before-and-after of this "Orphans' Valentines Party." The arrow-of-time to accommodate the sequence of these events-- the elite-well-attended sporty committee with few "folk"-- the under-attended-by-elite well-attended with "folk" Human Resources Committee-- and the blip-in-the-most-conscientious-newspaper in this state-- augurs to be like a FLASH and FIZZ-- easily forgotten for coming news here of March-Madness-basketball, then the Derby, then baseball football and back-to-basketball-again-- will probably spell short-retention of the blood-and-guts issues ABUNDANTLY VOICED in this hearing.

The Sub-Committee meeting was focused on the possibility of raising the tobacco tax a few pennies-- we are as tobacco-producing state holding at 46th nationally on the cigarette tax-- which for all the crises limned by these hapless on whom I report above is supposed to send-some-help. But I truly have some doubts. First of all, this is a to-backer nuts state-- and secondly even a substantial boost (an unlikely event in view of the lobbyists) will not do much to comfort-the-afflicted; comfort-for-the-comfortable will be the more-likely status quo eventuality to these proceedings. There is talk of casino gambling-- and while I kinda grate at the thought of some of the misadventures incumbent with the high-living-gaming-set, it is true that "the people" do not really seem to mind forking out their fortunes on a bet as opposed to forking out some pennies for the-clobbered-in-society. Grudgingly therefore, I do support gaming-- which our Gov says will double our state revenues. But then: the Baptists and Holyrollers and the Gaming-Mafia of other states are ganged up politically against even this slim hope.

What [!!!] a "Maroon Valentine" we have received-- we Untouchables in this Unbridled State! The next thing I expect to hear will be that our bodies-- upon demise from Kentucky hypothermia-- will be composted to avoid the expense to counties of interment/cremation of the intestate. But then, the indigent in Kaintuck have always been left-to-die after disfranchisement-- Daniel Boone being one of the first in this regard-- kicked out of holdings in Kaintuck to die in Missouri -- then to have his holy bones brought back for memorial-as-hero in Frankfort cemetery. Some of my own kinfolk were 'Missouri-ed' also. Some were abolitionists in Boone County drafted by the Confederate Army-- "to fight for our lost cause of slavery." My great-grandmother on my mother's side was committed to hard labor at Central State Hospital status post partem depression-- and when she couldn't work having acquired TB-- she was interned to Eastern State to have her leg-rot-of-with-tubercular-tumors in seclusion-- and of course the state was KIND and USUAL enough to send her abandoned-thereby son a bill "for therapeutic services rendered."

SO STAY AWAY FROM THE DARK & BLOODY STATE-- LIKKER/TO-BACKER-CRAZY KENTUCKY-- ONCE YOU GET TRAPPED IN HERE-- YOU NEVER EVER GET OUT OF HELL!!!

--Vernon Lynn Stephens, MSSW
D.S.M. IV-TR # 296.44

Telephone: 1 (502) 561-5419 anytime for mental health issues.
Email: freethink@insightbb.com anytime for mental health issues.

posted by Louisville Hermitage @ 2:59 PM 0 comments

Litigiousness as Cause-Lost:
The "Maya-Karma" of Depending on Civil Trials
To Effect Social Justice in Mental Health

Mental health in America exists in a social-field, and the "field-effect" known to physics would seem to apply aptly to the conditions that obtain for us. By this I mean that mental health consumers are part-in-parcel with every other process in the social system, and changes in one part will eventually feed-over and "hit us."

There exists a reality that much of service-delivery in mental health is affected by the "asylum mindset" baggage that in effect discredited the social station of being "just a nut," and therefore one whose word is not to be taken/trusted as true. Under this mischief, EMS drivers will obtain the keys of a suicidal patient and "do a pitch" of these on the way to the psychiatric hospital-- and laugh about being able to "get away" this affront when it is time for the patient to return and unlock his domilcile for post-hospitalization-recovery. In the same way, the police will "lock up" any mental patient who walks within a mile of Central State Hospital in East-End Metropolitan Louisville-- the consumer may be just-visiting-a-friend, just buying a Snickers (r), visiting the gravesite of a former friend, but due to the phobic nature of the neighborhood around Central State regarding "those loonies they let loose all the time"-- any known mental patient walking in that vicinity is thus vulnerable. In the same way, a police officer-- who according to Kentucky Revised Statutes 202A.041 can function in defined mental health emergencies as (2) psychiatrists, a judge, jury, and correctional system in handcuffing a mental health consumer and carting her/him to University Hospital, for the treat of cup-of-coffee in a clean environment and the adulation of the nurses and attending staff-- and indeed with impunity may beat a consumer or "just rough 'im up a little" with utter impunity-- a service-complaint to licensure or JCAH will simply be regarded as "unsubstantiated" banter from a incompetent person. With glee, every plaintiff in a lawsuit-- upon discovering that the defendent has a mental condition (however treatable) can-and-will predictably win-the-case by presents to the jury that "this person is under psychiatric care" -- and should not be heeded as truthful.

There ARE injustices that affront us-- mental health consumers-- as a group. And the untreated/not-in-the-system dangerous-mentally-ill who go about doing mayhem OR the psychopathic deviate dope-pushers who with drug-money "cop an insanity defense" successfully with the-best-justice-bucks-can-buy are IN NO WISE a help to our cause. Nor are we helped by "ambulance-chasing" lawyers of the winner-take-all type, "heavy hitters" who will bring suit on pretexts, get large settlements after trumped-fights, the rewards of which go to pay all the legal fees. Nor are we in any way facilitated in quality of life or human rights by Mental Health Courts (called 'Mental Inquest' in this county of Kentucky) when those venues in each-and-every-case simply turn out "lock-up" verdicts, or unexplained "agreed decisions" for the consumer to do exactly what she/he HAS been doing all-along-- TAKE YER MEDICATION!!! In these and a plethora of practical ways "the asylum sociology" is still alive/well/kicking in this redneck state in a redneck country.

In other words, the mental health consumer is sans a monied endowment in a perilous condition when civil liberties and the right-to-life-liberty-pursuit-of-happiness-- in a way that is qualitatively hardly any different than the esteem asylum-residents had in 1950. We consumers would be operating under a considerable delusion if we regard "the system as being there to HELP us."

I propose another "gambit" for the mental health consumer-- and a better standard of conduct. We know from the teaching of Mohandas ('Mahatma') Gandhi that Truth-Force (satyagraha) is stronger than any social fiction whose intent is deceit-to-sustain injustice. Using such experiments-in-truth, Gandhi was able to evict the interloping landlords from the Imperial Raj of India to establish the Free Indian State(s). I propose with Gandhi that truth-force is absolutely the only defense we shall need-- or which will WORK for us in sustaining freedom-under-the-law.

In other words, in the instance of lawsuits-- should I ever be victimized by a "nuisance lawsuit" the pretext and context of this could only be that someone is trying to suppress the-truth-the-whole-truth-so-help-me-Truth[God]-- which as my sole editorial policy is all that governs this content. I realize that such Truth may make the comfortable-uncomfortable and only act to make the victimized-uncomfortable-have-meet-comfort; thus I do know that in this cowboy nation some privileged party may indeed take exception to this publication "organ" and try procedurally to "shut me down"-- not hard to do because I am impecunious/broke-independently on the money-end and cannot sustain costs-- especially I cannot defend against unbalanced/unjust systemic liabilities. But the very effort to "shut me down"-- when it happens-- if if happens-- should only be taken as an indication that "money doesn't talk, it SWEARS, obscenity who really cares, propaganda all is phoney" as singer Bobby Dylan sang in purer days.

Therefore, I am NOT inclined to go to trial-lawyers or seek court-remedies for all the injustices I know are exacted on people of my station. The maya-karma of becoming implicated in the deceptive gamesmanship of "getting a good case together for a settlement" will not in the first instance be tried here, only and abidingly the practice of truth-telling-- gently vigorously always-- until the conscience of the social-community "burns with fire" for what is being done. By thus feeding-the-adversary with his fictive-fare, such "fire atop the head" [see Romans 12:20 KJV] we generate will effect the vanquishing truth-force, the inexorability from which the phonies will never be able to effect escape.

My way is the HARDER/STERNER/MORE-AUSTERE WAY compared to get-backs and vendetta and quarrelsomeness-for-the-hell-of-it. To those who are in-it-for-self only, or who have a get-rich-quick mindset, the words I offer here will not delight. But ONLY this way I proffer or one like-unto-it-in-all-ways will suffice "by any means necessary" [a quote of Sartre employed too by St. Malcolm X-- see the Wikipedia article on this topic] to effect resolution of our civil-rights, civil-service crisis.

"I do NOT rest my case!!!"

--Vernon Lynn Stephens, MSSW
D.S.M. IV-TR # 296.44

Telephone: 1 (502) 561-5419 anytime for MH issues.
Email: freethink@insightbb.com anytime for MH issues.

posted by Louisville Hermitage @ 3:57 AM 0 comments