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Aspens on a cloudy day…

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TOO MANY FAMILIES LIVE THIS PAIN by Jacque Cowger Mckinney

I have struggled with this post, but my husband, Steve, and I discussed it last night and decided we want to help educate, to the best of our ability, and to help make sense of some of the madness that surrounds us.

For a while, we knew that, in Illinois, a person has the right for a jury to determine their continued treatment in an inpatient psychiatric setting. We faced a six-person jury with an alternate to determine continued treatment for our child. We worried and dreaded the situation for weeks. How could six people, who had no experience or comprehension of this illness, determine our loved one's care? It seemed to me that a qualified physician should make that determination.

Well, yesterday, we arrived at the courtroom at 9:30 A.M. and left around 5:30 P.M. The decision was for continued treatment. I admit, after being sequestered ourselves, for five-and-a-half hours, we were frustrated and angry. But, after all was said and done, we realized that the world view of seven more individuals was changed forever. They were educated on the illness as well as the insufficiency of services in our state. One juror looked at us and said, “My heart breaks for you.”

I post this to say that, sometimes, we must be vulnerable and transparent for others to comprehend the nature of the beast we deal with, and for changes to be made. We’re not alone. Too many families live this pain. Please pray for change in our country for the care of some of our most vulnerable.

Jacque & Steve

WE RECEIVED THE WORST CALL OF OUR LIVES by Rhonda Meth

This is the story of the loss of our beautiful Monica, age 26. She was a great artist and jewelry designer. She was generous, loving and caring. She passed away at the room and board that was her residence. Unfortunately, she suffered from ulcerative colitis, diagnosed at age 11. She also had depression issues and high anxiety. Monica spent way too many days, weeks, and months in and out of hospitals for physical and mental health issues. 

Monica was living in an unlicensed room and board in Elk Grove, California. This room and board was supposed to be one of the better homes according to Heritage Oaks in Sacramento. Heritage Oaks had screened the person running it and the home. For the first four or five months, Pompae, the man running the home, was around. Monica was stable and well balanced from her medications. Pompae prepared meals for the six people living in the home. He supervised issues that came up among the residents. 

Then Pompae decided he needed more income and took a job doing construction work. He’d make breakfast for everyone and go to work early in the morning. He instructed our daughter to make lunch for all of the people living in the home. Monica worried about the other people and became anxious if she wasn’t around to make the lunches. This was not her responsibility. Pompae didn’t pay her to do this. He gave her some extra kitchen privileges. My point is six people, who all had mental health issues, were left on their own all day long. Monica said sometimes they wouldn’t have dinner until 9 P.M. 

The day before Monica passed away, I talked to her on the phone and she seemed to be doing okay. She was getting over a bad cold but was less stuffed up. She may have mixed up or taken too much of her prescription medications. We haven’t received the toxicology report yet. I think Pompae may have checked on her once during the night since her roommate was worried about her. He left for work at 6:30 A.M. When her roommate couldn’t wake Monica up at 9:30 A.M., she called Pompae and he told her to call 911. The paramedics arrived at 10 A.M. They worked on our daughter for an hour but couldn’t get her to breathe again. My husband and I received a call from the police department that afternoon. The worst call of our lives. 

Pompae shouldn’t be running a room and board but, after talking to APS (Adult Protective Services), I’ve learned there is very little accountability and few regulations these room and boards need to follow. Many of them are just collecting rent.

This needs to change.

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Of the season…

Hope you have a good weekend everybody!

TALKING WITH TRAVIS (BB8099) by Dede Ranahan

Continued from yesterday’s post:

Travis walked up to me. We each reached out to give one another a hug. Travis sat down on the outside chair. I said, “I think you’re supposed to sit in the middle chair.” He moved to the middle chair. I was a newbie and trying to do everything “right.”

“I’m a little nervous,” he said. “I’m really glad you came. It’s nice to meet you.”

I said, “I wanted to come. I’ve enjoyed your letters and I wanted to meet you. You sound like a really nice person.”

I don’t remember the exact sequence or all of the disjointed comments we exchanged. Our visit would last two-and-a-half hours. I do remember blocks of topics we covered.

“How are you getting along here, Travis? With the other inmates and guards?”

“I kind of keep to myself. I don’t talk much to the others. I don’t get involved in groups or drugs. I smile at everyone and they seem to like me. They leave me alone. Besides, I keep busy with activities like AA and Sunday church. I play my guitar for the church service and sing the songs I write. I’m also taking a computer class about Word and Outlook and other programs. Every class I take earns me credits toward an earlier release. Tell me about Pat.”

I shared some stories about my son. It’s four-and-a-half years since he died in a hospital psych ward. I thought I could do it. I couldn’t. I had to pull a Kleenex out of my vest pocket. Travis began rubbing my back which made me nervous. I thought there was supposed to be no touching.

“My mom rubs my back all the time when she visits me. It’s okay.”

Travis’s mom, Kathy, flies up from southern California once a month to visit him. “I love her so much. She’s my best friend. She’s my advocate. She knows all my medical stuff and medications and I’ve signed papers for her to have access to all the information and to talk to the prison staff and to my doctors. She fights really hard for me.”

Travis looks like his photos with dark blond or light brown hair and compelling blue eyes. He’s not a big man. He and I are about the same height — around five-feet-six inches. He’s been working out and trying to lose weight he gained from his prison diet and his medications.

This was definitely a two-way conversation. Travis said, “Tell me about your book. I want to know all about it. I want to write, too, someday. I want to read your book.”

I filled Travis in on the publishing process I’ve begun. “I’m self-publishing my book after lots of research and long deliberations with myself. The publishing world is difficult and no traditional publisher wants to take a chance on a 74-year-old unknown author. And I don’t have time to fool around. I can’t spend ten years looking for an agent and all the rest of it. But I feel good about the direction I’m taking. I have control over the cover design, interior design, and content. I’ve made a decision and that is invigorating. I’ll give you a copy when it’s published.”

“My mom and I will buy your book. We want to help you.”

I asked Travis, “Do you ever get angry about what’s happened to you?”

“I’m not an angry person. I think I’m on the path I’m supposed to be on. I think I help some people here.”

Nonetheless, Travis is counting the days until he’ll be free again. “Do you have job skills for when you come out?”

“I have lots of job skills. I used to manage a motel. I can do plumbing work and heating and air work. I want to go back to college and get a degree. When I get out, I can help my mom with her thrift shop business. And her boyfriend with his pool cleaning business. I’ll have a place to go.”

Travis’s cellie is being released in a month. “He grew up in the foster care system and was abused by some of the caregivers. He has no one. He’s been in prison four different times and has a mental illness but he says he’s not coming back here. He hopes to find a girlfriend who has a job. I like him. I worry about him.”

It was one o’clock and Travis was missing his lunch hour. I offered to buy him something from the vending machines. He picked out a jalapeño hamburger and a coffee drink. He heated the burger in the microwave behind the “Out of Bounds” line on the floor. “This is really good.” I asked him about prison food.

“I don’t look forward to meals. It’s pretty much the same all the time. For dinner we get broccoli, beans, and something they call ‘chicken’. We never get dessert. Maybe jello. But it’s sugarless jello.”

I asked Travis to tell me a little about being in solitary.

“It was terrible. I really lost my will to live. I just didn’t want to live anymore. And then I got your letter. And I began to get letters from people who got my address from your blog. The letters kept coming. And coming. The letters were coming from all over the country. I had cards and letters all over the walls of my cell. Those letters gave me back my will to live. They saved my life.” (Thank you everybody.)

“Did you write return letters?”

“I did.”

Out came my Kleenex again. This man, with a serious mental illness (he’s on three medications), is handling things better than I would in the same situation. “Travis, how’s this going? This is probably more talking than you usually do in one day. You have to tell me when you’re tired or need to go back to your cell.”

“I’m good, Dede. I’m glad you came to visit me.”

“So, if this is going okay, would you want me to come again? I could bring some photos of Pat and, now, I know where to buy the tokens for the photo booth. We could take a photo of us together.”

“I’d like that.”

“Once a month I visit a friend in her assisted living facility in Grass Valley. We’re the same age but she has MS and can’t walk. She’s in pain or discomfort much of the time. When I started visiting her, I thought maybe it would cheer her up. As time went by, with more and more visits, I wasn’t sure who was helping whom? (who/whom? — I never get it right.) She’s an awesome person and always smiles and says ‘hi’ to the other residents. She gives me as much or more than I give her. That might be what would happen if I visited you every month.”

“Yes,” Travis said. “You could help me and I could help you.”

“Shall we try that? Shall I plan to come again next month?”

“Yes,” Travis said.

We hugged each other goodbye. I headed for the exit and turned to see Travis walking up the ramp. He turned, too. I waved. He waved back. I hurried through the maze of double locked doors, dark hallways, elevators, concrete walkways and high, rolled-wire-topped fences. I needed fresh air. A perfect fall day, with soft sun, met me outside. Canadian geese stood here and there on strips of green grass. I waited 20 minutes for a shuttle to take me to the parking lot.

And so we began.

You can write to Travis at this mailing address:
Travis Christian BB8099
B-1-211
C.S.P. - SAC
P.O. Box 290066
Represa, CA 95671

GOING TO CALIFORNIA STATE PRISON TO MEET TRAVIS by Dede Ranahan

On Sunday, October 14, 2018, I visited with Travis Christian, known to some as BB8099. Travis is an inmate in California State Prison, Sacramento. He’s served five years and has five more to serve. He’s happy to be where he is now compared to where he was a few months ago — in another prison in solitary confinement or the hole. Or the SHU. At first, no books, no paper, no pen, no tv, no radio. Just Travis and four prison walls.

Travis has bipolar/schizo-affective disorder. In a psychotic state, he thought a man was Satan and stabbed him. Hence to prison. In prison, in another psychotic state, he punched a med tech. Hence to solitary. What’s wrong with this picture? When the mental health system doesn’t help someone, and he acts out, we send him to jail. When mental health professionals don’t help him manage his illness, we send him to the hole. Case closed. Hands washed.

This was my first visit to a high security prison. I drove through the wrong entrance and was told. ”You need to back up. The visitor’s entrance is back there.” I asked a question. “No questions. Ask at the Visitors’ Center.”

When I entered the visitors’ admission room, 15 people, from a church group, were ahead of the individuals trying to get in to see their loved ones. It was disorganized. Tempers erupted. “You’re infringing on our visiting time.” When I stepped up to the desk, I was told I needed to fill out a form (that I didn’t know about) and had to leave the line. A woman, visiting her husband, offered to show me the ropes. She helped me purchase a “credit card” to use in the visiting area for the food/drink vending machines.

When Travis’s name was called, I removed my shoes, watch, vest, and glasses to walk through a scanning machine. (Cell phones, combs, lipstick, wallets, and purses are not allowed.) Put back together, I joined a group waiting for a shuttle bus. I wasn’t shy about asking questions — “This is my first visit.” One couple was visiting her brother. He’s due to be released next year and will live with them until he gets his bearings. One woman drives each Sunday from Yuba City (about 43 miles) to visit her son who has schizophrenia. He’s been in prison 22 years. He’s afraid to come out. He believes people will think he’s weird. They won’t understand. Each time a release date is coming up, he does something to get in trouble and to delay his release.

His mom said, “It’s terrible in here. One Sunday three guards played a joke on my son. I couldn’t come to visit that day but they told him he had a visitor. He walked into the visiting area and no one was there for him. The guards laughed. My son was devastated. And they’re making new rules that make things worse.” Who makes the rules? “People in ties and heels sitting around a desk who’ve never been in a prison. Other people, like DJ Jaffe and Pete Earley, have good suggestions but none of them ever get implemented.”

The shuttle arrived and around fifteen of us boarded. The shuttle made stops at different prison entrances (varying levels of security) and the driver called out the names of the prisoners inside. “Christian” was called at the third stop. I got off the bus, walked into a grey, concrete building, and showed my visitor’s pass and my stamped hand to a guard. He opened an electronically locked door. I walked through the door. It closed behind me. A second locked door opened in front of me. I proceeded onto an elevator to Floor 2 and through two more sets of double locked doors. Finally, the visiting area spread wide open. I approached another guard desk to show my visitor’s pass. “Go to table ten and we’ll call the prisoner.”

Fifteen to twenty tables were busy with groups of two or three. I noticed that I was one of two or three white visitors. The rest were African-American or Latino as were most of the inmates. The room was big, square, bleak. Vending machines holding candy, hamburgers, hot dogs, chips, and assorted drinks lined the walls. A red line on the floor marked the perimeter of the room and said, “Out of Bounds.” The microwave area was marked, “Out of Bounds.” People ignored the line to microwave their sandwiches.

I sat down at table ten. I read the rules written on a laminated sheet on the table. One rule was “Face forward at all times.” I faced forward. Another rule was “Keep both hands visible at all times.” And, “The inmate must sit in the center.” (There were three chairs at each table.) And “Keep your feet off the table.” And “Brief hugs/kisses allowed when arriving or leaving.” There were nine rules. I don’t remember the others.

I learned about Travis through this blog. I wrote to him and he wrote back. He was in solitary at the time. Mail was a big deal. I posted his address. I hoped readers would write to him. More about that in a bit.

Travis’s mother, Kathy, sent me photos so I knew what he looked like. I sat waiting at table ten. After about five minutes, I saw him. Travis entered through an opening on the right and walked down a ramp. As he scanned the room, I waved. He spotted me (I’d sent him my photo) and a big smile lit up his face. Our visit, nine months after we first communicated, and one hour after I arrived at the prison, was about to begin.

Tomorrow: Talking with Travis

Travis before prison

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I'm handsome, ay?

Hope you have a good weekend everybody!

WE ARE STILL IN A PRISON by Tama Bell

That prison time you did. The mental health treatment you needed and never got:

It did a number on me, son. That time made all my other time seem like it was standing still. What happened to you, believe me, happened to me. I would wake up sweating, I would wake up screaming, or crying after a dream. I could barely think of anything but you. You stuck in the solitary cell with your illness and no treatment. Would I get a call that so many mothers had gotten?

I had the most important things happen in my life and could not be present for them: the birth of my grandson, my nephew's death, your grandfather's death, your aunt's death. Nothing could I do, nothing could I say that would put me squarely in the place where I was supposed to be — because I was there inside with you.

In 2006, I began my very first weight loss journey — it was time to take care of me. I wasn’t young, but society didn’t call me old. It was the perfect time, and I lost close to 200 pounds with a lot of suffering and work on myself. I looked amazing, felt amazing. You were holding your own in our community, but deep inside I knew it couldn’t last forever. Your mental illness was bigger than both of us. But in order to take care of me, I had to try to relax about you. I had to stop checking on you so much. I had to stop worrying about you so much. And so I did. I let go as my friends would say, and 'let god'.

The year 2013 came in like a warrior. It came with news that you were beating people up for no reason, that you were hanging out in places you had no business being, and doing things that were sure to get you in trouble. I gave you an ultimatum. Stop these things, and get back to mental health for treatment or you cannot come home. And you chose homelessness.

I watched as your illness grew worse on the street. Your paranoia, your delusions, they were deep and dark. I prayed ceaselessly for you but nothing changed. When the cops told me they had arrested you for attacking a man who was delivering food, I knew that not only had I failed you, mental health had failed you. They told me they could not force you to accept the insipid help they were offering.

I asked about a certain law that said if you are too sick to recognize your illness, a judge can make you accept treatment (Kendra's Law in New York State), but they said, “We have no doctor willing to go to court,” and “Just let him go to jail, he’ll get more help there than in the community.”

That was a lie. A horrible, horrible lie. After the jail, you ended up in the prison because you couldn’t do what probation asked you to do (just go to probation, report, and go to mental health appointments).

You in state prison is what really caused me to regain my weight. From 2013 to 2015, I emotionally ate. I went as often as possible to visit you in the first two facilities you ended up in, way way far from us, in upstate New York. I was thankful when you were placed in the last facility, where it only took about an hour and some to get to you. But the guards were horrible, making fun of you as they let you out of the cage, and the rules were scary and your life was diminished, even worse than what it was while you were just out on the street. No one could ever lie to me again, that prison would be beneficial, or “better than not knowing where he is.” Lie.

Tonight. I’m not sure where my son is again. After coming home in 2015 and being involved in a quasi mental health program, he has still refused treatment and I am trying to take care of myself. I am suffering from aches and pains I’ve never in my life imagined. And I still haven’t got hold of my weight. It seems almost pointless. We (he and I) are still inside. We are still in a prison. And until the mental health laws change to help families help those they love with serious mental illness, I’ll still be serving this sentence.

I look at a picture of me in front of Coxsackie State Prison in 2014. I’m in my own skin holding tight because I don’t know, truly, where you are.

A VISIT WITH TRAVIS by Travis Christian BB8099

Hi Dede,

Sorry about getting back to you so late. I had a mental health crisis and I had to go to the crisis bed. I thought my celly was Satan. I think it’s one of my meds that is causing me this (Abilify). Anyway. Scary.

So Sunday, October 14, would be great for a visit. My mom told me she talked to you.

I am looking forward to our visit. It’s going to be nice to meet a professional author. I am so jazzed about your book and for you and to learn the ropes. I pray for you to get through the process and enjoy it.

Well, I’ll see you soon. If this letter gets there too late that will be a bummer.

Thank you for believing in yourself and setting a good example. I haven’t been writing although, today, I started a journal. It feels good to put my thoughts on paper. Reading has been slow. Still not finished with the book you sent. But I will use it eventually and, hopefully, soon. Thank you. I hope you understand.

I got to go.

Love, Travis

Note: Travis and I have been corresponding since February 2018 but have never met. We will meet, for the first time, when I visit Travis at the California State Prison facility in Represa, California.

See more letters from Travis in the 2018 archives:
February 27, March 14, May 16, June 6, August 22.

Travis

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Happy Chick. Annabel Lee.

Hope you have a good weekend everybody!