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
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