Berry street off Julian Avenue...
or why I ask for a beebee gun for Christmas.

SQUIRRELS
Occasionally & frugally I 'squirrel-talk' to them varmit rodents.
Sucking my tongue from the top and side of my mouth.
shifting my lips to change emphasis.
Moving my tongue around inside my mouth.
Broadcasting on W-NUT (or west of the Mississippi K-NUT)

NO. I haven't managed to stop the squirrels.
However, when I found them digging up the arugala, I went to
the earth store and got the extra hot cayenne.
the clerk asked me if I was getting it for animals.
He told me the only folks who used the extra hot cayenne in any quantity
were planning on keeping animals out of their gardens... he also told
me the extra hot cayenne didn't hurt the birds. There have been times I consider
the engagement with the squirrels not beneficial to anyone. I may begin
feeding them by tossing seed over into the neighbors yard.
He can't see it anyway. He has a minor forest bordering the yards.
Besides that he is in Europe most of the year.

1953
I am 4 years old...
my father is carrying on a 'conversation' with the squirrels
while he is throwing railroad flares into the cistern to 'scare'
mommy's supposed rats. A cool yard with an acorn tree.
The squirrels are agitated and honest -- they are throwing nuts at him!
that's one thing I recall
about the little house on Berry Street.
Besides 'planting' my aunt's gift of a tourquise and silver bracelet from her Arizona visit.
I planted it to grow a tourquise and silver tree. oops.
Just one of the many things my mother had to surrendar when
4 kids in 5 years were keeping her busy elsewhere.

A neighbor told me to plant the lilies and tulips
under chicken wire. that would keep them out. now to buy chicken wire and
wire cutters... not on my budget ... at this time

Also want to report about the WishYard hospital experience -- last year.

2006
I received a bill recently, for that damn dumb involuntary incarceration.
So I wrote them this letter.

TAKE BACK THE BILL YOU GAVE TO ME:

I understand. I understand lots. I heard the Hudson Institute was
given Hilary Clinton's health care proposal and told to find the holes
in it -- to shoot it down. I heard they couldn't find holes in it
so 'they' went after Hilary (easy)
ok. My story is my own fault. And the absolute arrogance of medical intern
'students' who treat their folks very object-like.

Brigitte told me:
"June when I was really feeling down I tried Zoloft. Everything was the same but I just didn't give a damn. Maybe you can try Zoloft. Go to Wishard and get a script."

I don't really want any pharmaceuticals. But maybe I could get out of the rut.
Not care. It's alright to BE. Just BE.

So I went to the county hospital for the 'don't give a damn drug' Zoloft.
Tide me over. I was safe. Relax me enough to cry and get it out.

With $8 for the script and the garage; and Shari coming over tonight at 5 P.M.
I drove to WishYard. I learned I need verification to be eligible for the program
reserved for those of us without insurance and/or money.
I'd had the Wishard Advantage Insurance before my travels. I needed to get it again.
I drove to the office that would certify me. When I finally got back; they were ready for me.
I wasn't surprised to learn procedures included talking to a doctor;
but this medication required speaking to a psychiatrist.

I am well versed in the mental health arena. 1976,
My 22 year old brother thirty years ago left a beautiful suicide note.
The note left was his ticket toward our forgiving him as easily as we missed him.
A good friend called me up to console me with these words: "June, I have read enough Fyodor Dostoyevsky to believe suicide is a viable alternative." I'd read that much Dostoyevsky too.

My brother had been in Central State as well as every other mental health
facility in Central Indiana. When I step into Wishard to speak with a psychiatrist,
I recall being uncomfortable being in Central State to see my baby brother David.
I recall taking David to see Indiana Repertory Theatres' production of ONE FLEW OVER THE COOCOOS NEST for his birthday New Years Eve, 1975.
He loved the show and said to me: "That says it all. I have nothing to write.
The play is my experience. (AND.) Jack Nicholoson should play the role in the movie."

I was glad he liked the play. That he didn't take offense at my offering him this ticket after his being in LaRue Carter; I didn't visit there after my visit to
Central State. I was very uncomfortable at Central State.


Wish Yard: April 2005
(First mistake) I follow behind the young man who steers me through a doorway and into a hallway to another seat outside an office. I said: "I'm here for the anti-depressant, Zoloft, I won't kill myself, although I do know suicide as a viable alternative." The fellow leaves me there. Sitting. He comes back and wants me to wait for the shrink. "O.K." I have $3 for the garage. It takes a long time for two 'doctors' to arrive. They introduce themselves and I acknowledge how young they are.
(Second mistake) "Doctor younger than me? You know lots young man but not as much as me." (possibly insulting the young overworked doctor in the county welfare hospital.)

They were asking me stupid questions. They asked me if I had magic powers, ????...
I react. My reply I won't repeat here.
I want to go. Get the car out of the garage and be back for Shari's visit.
They won't let me go.

THE RANSOM OF RED CHIEF
When they told me they were locking me up... of course I considered how fat
the security guards were and how fast I could run and how far through the hospital and
across the street and up to the fourth level of the parking garage.
A wolf will chew off his foot rather than be caught in a trap.

I resisted resisting. Yield. Tao. Go with the flow, and goody for me.
I had a tablet with me (knowing hospitals and doctors as places gifting lots of waiting time... while looking for a blank sheet of paper I came across this:
'Perhaps when you have neither pride nor power than you are saved and brought to an unimaginable great Reward.' I am Willing!

"Using words to plead your case is risky business: Words are dangerous instruments, and often go astray. The words people use to persuade us virtually invite us to reflect on them with words of our own; we mull them over, and often end up believing the opposite of what they say. (That is part of our perverse nature.) It also happens that words offend us, stirring up associations unintended by the speaker.
Understand: words put you on the defensive. If you have to explain yourself your power is already in question. Words stir up arguments and divisions." *

*from Robert Green, The 48 Laws of POWER p.313

Thank God for the New Hampshire training. I was scared enough. I am not
evolved enough to slow my heart beat in this surprising calamity.

I did myself no good pointing out to the on-call shrink he didn't make eye contact with me
nor EVEN acknowledge me. I did myself no good by suggesting the other shrink
had a posture lacking trust... he was not in his body with his head projected so far forward.
I did myself no good by suggesting the place which has no window, view or
access to nature was neither therapeutic for doctors, staff or healing for the patients.
I did myself no good by pointing out a 'client/patient' Jeff was given an IV for injection and someone 'missed' -- pumping his left arm three times the size of his right arm.

I sat there in that stinking place in the two hospital gowns they allowed me to wear remembering how folks were encouraged to care about how they looked in New Hampshire State Hospital. There are no mirrors in Indy's westside establishment... just foggy metal which in my mind reflects back the FOG a mental health care facility would like to diminish.

I wound up spending the night. Yes. Thank god for the New Hampshire
State Hospital training.
The employment office had a posting for a mental health worker at the State Hospital, remembering my brother, and, here was a chance to be inside, learn and perhaps help
someone like my brother.

We trained for a month to be able to walk on the ward. This included a solid
week, 8-5, of S.O.L.V.E.: Strategies of Limiting Violent Episodes. How to defend yourself without hurting anyone. This was helpful for the patient injury
and worker compensation part of running a hospital. Solve evolved from the
martial art AKIDO which translates: 'the way of universal harmony'.
I was awed by New Hampshire making this investment in me. They paid me to learn.

I was scared on the ward for weeks after my training. I learned a lot about energy in that environment. How was it I was so tired at night? Most of the
people on my ward were not in their bodies. You would be talking with them
and their attention/energy was behind you. Very unnerving.
Most of the people on my ward had epilepsy, had hepatitis, and my folks were
developmentally disabled as well.

The night in WishYard had me remembering the folks I was paid to take care of and came to care for: the fragile x syndrome man (a leg of the x chromosome was broken), Rachel who had three (or four) lobotomies by the time she was 15 to curb her violence. She carried hepatitis and was a biter. They removed her teeth. The stitches got infected and she had to have
her jaw removed... she could pull her bottom lip over her nose.
Rachel came at me one day on a charge down a long hallway and I fell down;
to watch her attacking energy turn into helping me.
Donna Piranha however, when she charged I waited till the last minute to move
and let her hit the wall; and watch her energy shift to the bump on her own head.
There was little Henry, my instructions were to watch he didn't pick at his rectum as he had
already pulled his own tonsils out.
He had walked his father home from work when he was a boy...
his dad left work because he had fallen into a vat of acid.
Henry had watched his dad dissolve before his eyes.
A lovely lass, Sylvia had congenital syphilis.
Sometimes she knew where she was and other times she knew where she wasn't.
My goodness Joanie: "I don't lie."
Lord. Or Janie, I didn't know her diagnosis; she was called fish fingers.
There was Fritz, a merchant marine who found his way to New Hampshire via the
St. Lawrence Seaway; he talked non-stop in English, French and Arabic.
Big Tommie needed to be kept away from cigarette butts -- he would eat them.

(In those days (1984) Everybody smoked. Nurses, doctors, staff and patients.) There was Hazel a wildish woman who had been institutionalized by the signature of a friendly to the husband sheriff and judge for sleeping with a black man -- her tardive dyskinesia resulted from the years of thorazine.
I took care of little Jeanne whose vagina had been probed by every GYN in New England because she didn't have one.
Wilma a co-worker had worked on the ward for 29 years.
I sat next to Jeanne the day she said, "Hi Wilma,". Wilma hesitated, open-mouthed then said: "Jeanne, I didn't know you could talk." Jeanne laughed and said: "Of course I can talk."
29 years and Wilma hadn't thought to say 'good morning' to Jeanne.

And the fellow I was to keep from the water fountain. Why? You may ask. He would fill up with water and projectile vomit on whomever he had a grievance with.

Hospital policies had been affected by the conscientious objectors to Viet Nam. A few I recall: clients should pick what they wear and be encouraged to look nice. They should have some stimulation, games, music, art and interaction.

When I returned to Indiana, I didn't apply for the same job. One of my friends here had worked at Central State for 14 years and wasn't making what I'd made the first year. There was no Solve training. In New Hampshire I knew if there was a difficult sitation there were signals for help, methods of not over-reacting... nor instigating a situation -- bruhaha.

I have had severe allergic reactions to many drugs. My near death experience was after my third surgery; and the nurse told me to stop talking like that or I'd wind up in a psychiatrict hospital. Well, shut my mouth.
(I'd told the doctor 'god healed me'. After he told me there was no way I could stand up if I had lost as much blood as I told him. Not one for cleaning up a mess after that dredful D&C... I had bled into the toilet and
didn't collect the blood. I was changed however. And I believe Dr. Shanafelt was asked to stop practicing. After all many of his patients were wives of law students.
One reason for the formation of
THE INTERNATIONAL ASSOCIATION OF NEAR DEATH SURVIVORS
is the fact that so many folks were not understood and institutionalized... with the awful effects of drugs. Most of us are highly allergic when we 'return'.

Alright. I don't have the money dear Wishyard for this bill
and would object if I had regarding getting a bill for that miserable night. The food was dreadful. The environment was challenging for someone who isn't out of her mind.
Imagine getting a foothold on the real world in that place. '
Hey they are nuts so it doesn't matter?'

I went to WishYard for the don't give a damn drug; but I do give a damn.
I very much give a damn. I even give a damn that Wishard doesn't have the money to
provide mirrors in the psych ward or a window. I even give a damn that so many of us do not take responsibility for our own health.

I am pleased to report: Wishard Called me to apologize and tell me my bill was ZERO
I had imagined them asking me to come in and show the staff how to Be with
folks who are in such dire straights they will come to that environment for
help?

I have suffered lots from the medical care I have received. When I had good insurance I had 5 surgeries before I was thirty. Since I no longer have insurance, no one wants to 'repair' me.

I believe my NDE surgery was unnecessary and a way for the doctor to pay for a Bermuda vacation.
I call it my god bless and god damn the surgeon experience.
Although my life may have been saved by being in a hospital with the birth of my first child.
(I have one acquaintence who had 8 c-sections... another gal who had 2 c-sections and went on to have three vaginal births after c-section--VBAC)

I wouldn't trade what I learned from that experience. I told my Yogi friend I imagine her
addict boyfriend had a foresip birth... he resembles others I have known with that
horrible entrance into this world, their first 'lesson'.

Dr. Stan Grof could speak for hours convincingly of the patterns of birthing
influencing our lives... linking the drugs mothers have had since the WW2
(when we began having our babies in hospitals) linking the first lesson--
under stress ? take a drug. with our national drug problem.
Yeah mama mia... talk about what You went through... that baby had to squeeze
into this light.
and here is another example of the abuse of the population:

Dear Friends:Here is an article about autism that was just released by theAssociated Press.
The point is made that "Hispanics had lower autismrates, though it's possible that may be related to health-care access problems," implying that their cases of autism are not being diagnosed and are affecting the rates. My slant is that it is the OPPOSITE!!!
The fact that there are so many Hispanics who may not be getting"proper" health care may be saving them as they are not getting certain vaccinations that are linked to CAUSING this illness!! Whydoesn't anyone else see this? Read below.HowardNew Autism Estimate Is 5.5 Out of 1,000go to:http://www.associatedpress.com/