Stand Tall My Sweet Dandelion Girl

by Jimenez, Javier

  I brushed my hand against the area where the bandage tightly encircled my scalp. When the nurses would help me switch the bandage out for a new one, I definitely felt a scar-like texture to the injury. A nice little scar for a nice little bandage I suppose.

  “Towards the conclusion of your psychiatric evaluation,” Dr. Lucio explained, “Dr. Sanchez became aware that you ran the risk of having nowhere to go, so she filed a court order, declaring that you needed further hospitalization under the premise that you needed your schizophrenia to be treated immediately; reasons being that you were a threat to yourself and that the disorder was extremely debilitating. The court order was approved recently, which is why you are in my office today as well. With Dr. Sanchez’s second attempt at locating a hospital for you, along with a few calls to the Californian facilities that are suppose to act as your ‘guardians,’ she was able to locate a psychiatric institution that was willing to hear your case. She pled your case: being a minor, debilitating schizophrenia, and threat to self and others. Consequently, the psychiatric institution added you to a waiting list. It wasn’t until yesterday that the hospital called back and offered to take you in as an inpatient. The hospital in question is a religiously funded hospital called Aster Psychiatric Hospital. Its not big or extravagant, but it will get you by. It’s located another county over from here. You will be on twenty-four hour watch during your stay there. They will help treat your schizophrenia and will give you the medications that you need.”

  Dr. Lucio paused for a second. He looked at me, and I returned his gaze.

  “Since it is necessary that you are evaluated over the course of six months, and you have already completed one month this far, Dr. Sanchez and a judge came to the consensus that the court order will be valid for five more months of ‘involuntary’ psychiatric treatment. You can say that it is forced, but if this is what you want, you shouldn’t have a problem with getting treatment,”

  I let everything sink in for a moment.

  There were so many thoughts running through my head, but the fact is that I lost touch of time as weeks flew by. The outside world moved so rapidly,

  The first semester of high school was over at this point, which meant that there was no possible way to get my grades up. I would most likely have to repeat senior year because I had now failed six classes. Neither night school nor online recovery classes could save what little was left of my plummeting academics.

  “Okay,” I whispered.

  “You have to understand that Dr. Sanchez and I are putting our best efforts in helping you. If she didn’t make the claim that your admission was involuntary, you would most likely be placed in a foster home where you might not receive the proper treatment that you need,” Dr. Lucio added.

  “Yes, I do want treatment,” I finally admitted.

  “With the court order, you have guaranteed inpatient treatment,” he continued. I began to grow suspicious as to why there was so much effort in finding a psychiatric hospital for me?

  “Why couldn’t I be an outpatient?” I asked him.

  “You are very ill, Sam. We can’t have you meet with a psychiatrist a couple of times a week and expect you to be okay. When it comes down to it, your report says that you were alone and nearly took your life.”

  “Well, I don’t know who's paying for any of this?”

  “It is because Dr. Sanchez claimed that you were disabled by your mental illness, that you were able to qualify for welfare programs. Those programs have covered your expenses at Chickadee, and hopefully, will cover anything that you may need at Aster. Consider yourself very fortunate, Sam. The majority of schizophrenics do not receive the mental health treatment that you are receiving and will continue to receive.”

  I felt sense of gratitude towards Dr. Sanchez for helping me this much.

  “So my expenses here,” I began. “I won’t be charged?”

  “It’s the same thing, it is all explained in the court order. You are ‘severely mentally impaired’ so the same welfare programs will cover you,”

  ‘Severely mentally impaired,’ rung in my ears. I didn’t feel severely mentally impaired, I felt fine for the most part. But even Dr. Lucio had witnessed the way I’ve reacted to auditory hallucinations. The voices that come and go, to be frank, are much more impairing than what I make them out to be. I get away from everyone and had the tendency to shut down, no matter how hard I tried to hide it from Maribel and the doctors and nurses here; I couldn’t keep it hidden from Dr. Lucio. That’s why he gave me a prescription halfway into the diagnosis. It wasn’t a half-hearted action of Dr. Lucio asking himself ‘should I give it to her or should I wait after the evaluation?’ He agreed to assign me the prescription, because he was fully aware that I needed them. There had even been instances where I had become unresponsive to him because of the voices and sounds overwhelming me. I could see why Dr. Sanchez and him would make that claim—‘severely mentally impaired.’

  “The last thing that the state of California wants is to claim you as it’s dependent, then send you off to the streets because you can’t afford the necessary treatment or a place to live,” Dr. Lucio continued. In a way, I understood him, I was a 17-year-old schizophrenic girl with no guardians.

  “But why not just send me to a state psychiatric hospital?” I asked him. I thought to myself, surely those are free since they are funded by the state.

  “To stay in a state hospital for psychiatric treatment would cost you over $9,000 a week, and in many instances, insurances will not cover that expense, not even Medicaid would pay enough of that expense for you to be admitted. These ‘state’ hospitals are not cheap and are definitely not for everyone. The patients who can pay for those hospitals often come from upper-middle class families.”

  As he explained to me the expenses, I thought to myself, I don’t think my grandmother would ever be able to pay $9,000 a week for my hospitalization, or even for a total of five months. I know that I didn’t qualify for fee waivers because my grandmother was not part of the poverty level, but at the same time, we couldn’t afford to pay for more than one college application, each UC application costing $70.

  “And then there’s the whole situation of not being able to find a bed in a psychiatric hospital for you to begin with,” Dr. Lucio explained.

  I wondered why it was such a problem to find treatment for individuals with mental disorders, and on top of that, why was it so expensive? I could never pay $9,000 a week for five months. That would have cost me over $36,000 a month, totaling up to $180,000 for the whole five-month stay there.

  Dr. Lucio continued, “I already mentioned to you about how we had to do a second round of searching for psychiatric care for you as an inpatient, Sam. The mental state hospitals here in California wouldn’t take you, despite the fact that you now had a court order for involuntary treatment as an inpatient.”

  “But why wasn’t there a place for me?” I asked him.

  “It is a combination of various factors. Mental health services for people suffering with mental disorders and mental disabilities are limited as to where they can go when they need professional treatment and monitoring. There are very few beds in the U.S. available for the mentally ill and a lot of times, hospitalization is expensive.

  If you wanted to get into the logistics and history of why there is very little support for the mentally ill, it is because in the 1980’s, there was a president called Ronald Reagan who made a lot of budget cuts, including cuts to the structures and support systems for the mentally ill. This led to a decrease in psychiatric hospitals and a pressure for anyone with any mental disorder or mental illness to receive treatment as an outpatient.

  States have been decreasing the number of psychiatric hospital beds for years and instead, more structures for outpatient treatment were developed. Now the problem is that when someone who is mentally ill needs a secure place to stay, there is almost no space because there is very little support for inpatient care and treatment.

  Nowada
ys, people with severe mental illnesses struggle to get the proper treatments that they need.

  It is only when a patient is on the brink of danger that hospitals will take urgency in a patient’s mental health. The more common thing for psychiatric hospitals to do is that they only take individuals when they are in life threatening situations, because the numbers of beds are becoming more and more limited. The mental health care system is neglected constantly in the U.S.

  The tragic part to all of this is since there is an almost a non-existent structure for the mentally ill, patients who need to be institutionalized wind up in jails or in homeless shelters, and in worst cases, in morgues.

  Since there is an almost a non-existent structure for the mentally ill; patients who need to be institutionalized wind up in jails, homeless shelters, or in worst cases, in morgues.

  The support systems here for the mentally ill are very faulty, and on top of that, federal policies cut into the budgets for these systems, leaving next to nothing of a support system for the mentally ill.”

  At first when he pulled me in here, I thought that he was just simply communicating information that Dr. Sanchez and her pair of social workers, would have wanted me to know. But Dr. Lucio knew more than what I expected from our everyday interactions. I think I found a deeper respect for him, not only for being well equipped in his career and helping me, but also for having a surprisingly deep understanding of psychiatric care.

  “So the Aster Psychiatric Institution, it’s religiously funded?” I asked him

  “Yes,” he said with relief, “It’s funded by the First Presbyterian Church and runs on any donations from its county. You will be in good hands, Sam.”

  “Okay,” I said confidently.

  Chapter 42

  Dr. Lucio notified me that I would be leaving to the Aster Psychiatric Institution by tomorrow morning.

  I said my goodbyes to Maribel, knowing that I would miss her the most from the Chickadee Hospital. She no longer wore a black contraption around her leg, just some sort of thin cast. She would use a wheelchair occasionally when we first met, but now she did most of her traveling on crutches.

  I gave her a hug and said my goodbyes, and made sure to thank her for her company.

  At 10 A.M., I gathered the few belongings that I had with me. A nurse appeared and when I was ready, she escorted me through the hospital. I found myself in the same elevator that I used to find access to a computer on the first day that I was here; the only difference was that I no longer had an unhealthy pressure. I felt relieved and even slightly content that things where different now.

  I finally arrived to the first floor and made my way down a hallway that led to the outside. As soon as I exited, I walked into a barrage of sunlight. There were so many bright greens from the plants and fields of grass around the hospital. And the sunlight felt warm on my skin, it was welcoming. It was gratifying.

  We walked down a short flight of stairs right in front of the exit. At the bottom of the stairs was a vehicle. Adjacent to the vehicle, was a woman standing. She informed me that the vehicle would be taking me to Aster. I climbed inside and adjusted my seatbelt. I let my fingers stroke the material of the seatbelt and the metallic latch, and finally secured it into place with a ‘click’ sound.

  It had been so long since I was in a car.

  The nurse and the Aster representative were having a discussion and exchanged documents, but I didn’t bother to listen. I wasn’t intrigued. I let go of having such intense concerns for a moment, and so I let go, and just let myself slip into the calm morning and delightfulness that the sun had to offer me.

  I was almost excited for Aster and hoped that things would be different.

  In a matter of minutes, the vehicle began moving, and that was the last time I saw the Chickadee Hospital.

  Chapter 43

  The Aster Psychiatric Institution was very different from what I was use to. I was admitted there on the 21st of January 2008.

  My expectations of Aster differed greatly from what Aster turned out to be. When we arrived, the Aster representative here walked me into the building and guided me into someone’s office. We walked in and stood in the room. “Hello, Debra,” said a man stationed behind a desk.

  “I got some documents that the Chickadee Hospital wanted you to have,” the woman said.

  “Great,” he said. I stood idle by, with no purpose, and even more so, unacknowledged, despite that I was present and visible in the room.

  He skimmed through the files and finally said, “Okay, it says that she’s a dependent of California, her medical insurance,” he paused and made a tick-tick-tick sound with his tongue.

  “It should cover her. Debra, I want you to call her insurance company to inform them that she is suffering from schizophrenia and will require treatment. Also, find out what medications will her insurance cover,”

  “Sure thing,” Debra responded.

  The man printed out two papers, made a mark or two with a pen, and handed them to Debra.

  “Debra, can you take her to her room?” he said to her.

  Debra looked over at me, and gestured to me with her hand to follow her. “Can you follow me, Sam?” she asked politely.

  “Yes, I can,” I informed the representative.

  We began walking to one side of the building until we reached an elevator. The shuffling of our feet and the clinking of Debra’s keys seemed to be the only sounds coming from our floor.

  We walked into an elevator that was a bit different from Chickadee’s. Both elevators were slightly bigger than normal elevators, so if it were necessary, one entire hospital bed may fit, but this elevator had no music to it. The elevator ascended us into the third floor of the building.

  Debra guided me out the elevator and we began to walk down a hallway that was accompanied with several doors, and as we kept walking, different hallways appeared that were just as crowded with doors.

  We made another turn and we passed by an open area that contained several adults that were all sorts of ages. Some of these adults were running around the room with their arms stretched making airplane sounds, and one was laying on a glossy floor making snow angels. Others were huddled on the edges of the room watching. Some of the other patients were simply sitting cross-legged on the floor, conversing with each other.

  I looked around, and found a few individuals standing in uniforms, but they’re uniforms didn’t look like scrubs. They wore khakis and tucked in polo shirts. They were talking to some of the patients, trying to possibly engage them or interact with them.

  Finally, Debra paused in front of a room and shifted her fingers through her keys till she found the corresponding key. She inserted the key into the room and unlocked the door.

  The room was very small and had no windows; it caught me by surprise when I saw it. It was even smaller than half of my room at the Chickadee Hospital. There was a single bed, and enough space for maybe some equipment that might have to be used in these rooms. Otherwise, it wasn’t very extravagant.

  “Sam,” Debra said to me, “you can make yourself at home and unpack your things. The restrooms are on the end of the hallways and there should be a staff member stationed near those corners if you ever need help. The restrooms are separated by girls and boys, okay?”

  “Okay,” I responded.

  “Do you need to use them now?” Debra asked me.

  “No,” I informed her.

  “Kay’ then. You seem like a good girl, Sam. For right now, can you stay in your room, yes?” she said.

  I nodded and replied with a “yes,”

  “Okay then, lunch is about an hour,” she notified me.

  I took a seat on my bed and she walked out. Once she closed the door, I heard the knob jiggle a bit and make a ‘snap’ sound. I didn’t have to stand up to check what was wrong with the knob. I knew that she had locked it.

  Chapter 44

  As my time here continued, I discovered that good behavior could get me benefits. Ma
ny patients didn’t understand that on the account that they were severely mentally disturbed or, as I later went on to discover, some of the patients had brain damage, which brought them to Aster.

  I spent my first two days locked in my room for the most part. On good behavior, we were allowed to go to the cafeteria on this floor, and on not so good behavior, the staff brought meals to patients if they didn’t want them to come out of their room.

  Debra later explained to me that small showering areas were located on this floor and that a staff member was usually stationed outside of the designated showering areas.

  When Debra released me for breakfast on my third day, she informed me that if I can handle taking a shower on my own, that I could use the small bathrooms with the vigilance of a staff member. If I couldn’t, the staff members would be in charge of my showering duties. As my time here continued, I found out that a fair amount of the patients were capable of showering. Some of the other patients couldn’t shower on their own because it was outside of their capabilities so the staff members helped them with sterile cloths and other materials. Other patients would refuse to take showers because of some distorted mindset, which often led to arguments and resistance.

  As my stay here progressed, a female patient revealed to me that there was a fourth floor. She explained that the fourth floor was for patients who were hostile or completely resistant. They were locked into some sort of solitary confinement for long periods of time. When I was here, they locked me in my room for two days on good behavior. Patients on bad behavior were not permitted to exit their room for almost a week. I could only imagine what the patients on the fourth floor had to go through. And as I kept thinking about it, I realized that the fourth floor would not necessarily function on a good behavior-bad behavior system. I figured that the patients there couldn’t control their behavior or that their behavior was deemed too irregular. The female patient that told me about this also told me that the rooms over there had beds with straps. She explained that the straps were like belts and were used to restrain patients when needed. In addition to that, she continued to explain that there were more nurses on the fourth floor. Here, we saw maybe one nurse for every six staff members. She continued to tell me about how the nurses were needed for medical procedures, or when one of the patients needed to be given some sort of anesthesia to calm them down. I wasn’t entirely sure if I should trust her word, but I definitely did not want to find out if what she said was true.