tuesday ramble

well i went to the dog park, to the grocery store for a donut/cookie stock up in the kitchen. i cried a few tears and didnt let it go further than that because of my gut sobbing history, i have to maintain minimal crying or it will take over, this i have in the last months tried to master. i suppose that's called trying to master grief or stifle feelings. i don't know. it is with dread this hospital thing, that going there and being in this system, it gives dread where it shouldnt be. medical hospital settings are so different. i also have yet to be in a psych ward w my daughter where there was a talent show or where a patient could easily cheek a pill and fake being out while other patients congratulated (Dr.House on the season opening of "house" i watched today online) a patient for being able to cheek that pill, after an assaultive behavior. waving ones arms toward someone or yelling can get you a B-52 shot in the ass and or a seclusion locked room, and if someone punched out a patient like Dr House did on that show they would be in seclusion drugged to the max. the setting where no staff were around at all so DrHouse could make out with a visitor..yeah right. not to mention he takes another patient on a joy ride in a car to a carnival. and never have i seen a cake ceremony upon discharge of a patient. it's a taxi ride and a voucher to housing or homeless shelter is what i've witnessed, and it's not a party. the out door time is 10-15 min a couple or 3 times a day if lucky. there are no talk therapists. there are art groups. and tv sets. or pacing on the tile floors. or sitting on your plastic mattress. staring out the window. pacing. sitting on the plastic mattress. pacing.

watch the movie the soloist. that's realistic and not pushing drugs as a theme to wellness. the movie faces reality that no one can fix people and drugs don't either. that support, family and friends counts and more than many people think in the psych business. it portrays a reality that many people choose to live outside without homes and that many do have mental illness. i write mental illness because it's what the society norm is for talking about all of this. but in fact we are all (as a friend of mine says) the same, some have different constitutions. we all really are different than each other isn't this true? the sun rises and sets and damn if some people have a life trapped in their minds, some are freer than others but we all can see the difference and appreciate it, right? i know people stare at my daughter. that's their problem. i see a joyous person, sometimes more bothered by her thoughts at times and other times content. i see the free spirit she calls herself and at times i see torment. lately its total free spirit and of course the doctors in a psych ward dont like that. some behaviors are not acceptable, i am not saying all ways are out in the "regular world" but hell, i hope she keeps her spirit, well she has kept it so far, all of these years, because i see her back now. so she's not totally well, but the spirit is there, so that should give hope it wasnt lost.

there needs to be a large community where people can take meds or not, choose how to treat their symptoms and have many things for activities, and jobs of whatever a person can handle, live in cottages or apartments and have freedom and peers and support, individual care plans based on one person at a time.

i don't know where this ramble began, i'm just gonna hit publish and go to bed.