This is the most existentialist thing I've ever written!

[kumininexile]

The Case For Voluntary Reinstitutionalization

by

Philip A. Kumin



To say that when I developed mental problems at the age of 18 in 1971, I had no idea what profound and protracted changes were about to be wreaked upon my life, this today might sound like a mere statement of the obvious. But it is true.

Little did I know that for the initial two or three years of my disability, I would wander streets and countryside homelessly, or find myself in jails and mental institutions. The good news, back then, was that I would eventually decide there was enough hope for something better in life, to make a mostly-successful struggle for recovery. Today, I'm a semi-well known advocate, endeavoring to become moreso.

There were years in between, however, which have left indelible marks upon my soul. I lost all jobs, I had no Social Security benefits, and I had no subsidized housing. I had no proper psychiatric treatment, and after a while, I could not even draw unemployment benefits any longer. To this day I continue to struggle with a family which, with one notable exception, continues to blame me for my own misfortunes and gives me no respect. I must acknowledge that I recently wrote a horrific letter to the Chairman of the Psychology Dept. at the U. of M., College Park, in which I accused the mental health professions, in concert with advocates, of imposing deinstitutionalization upon us merely to save taxpayers money. I predicted that while the majority of a now-lost first generation of former inmates has long since either been returned to institutions permanently, are in prison, or are dead, there may still be as many as four or five of my brethren wandering through the streets and countryside of America after some 25 years of deinstitutionalization for them. I wouldn't be surprised if this man never speaks to me again.

Interestingly enough, I have a good friend named Jennie who's a psychiatric nurse at Crownsville Hospital. Jennie knows that what I want the most now is to find a non-disabled woman of my own Jewish ethnicity, with whom I can spend the rest of my life. Jennie says that there is just such a young social worker there, and she has promised to introduce us.

I also have a friend who, at the height of his delusional psychosis, castrated himself not once, but twice. Until recently, he kept talking of having, "lost his faith," although he now says he has found it again. At the time, I simply wanted to help my friend in any way I could, whenever I observed his sad fundamentalism.

After so many years I, too, have lost my faith, though I'm also hoping to get it back again. I'm looking forward to meeting Jennie's friend, and am hoping she will become a good one of mine as well.

That's not exactly what I'd call existentialism, that seems pretty upbeat to me. Sounds like you're doing great, and I applaud how you've managed to survive the hard times. Wasn't it during Reagan's terms that so many mentally ill were released from hospitals and left to wander around without assistance? I've read that was a very large contributor to the homeless situation we now have.

Leave it to my wormy little brain, but how do you castrate yourself twice??

[kumininexile]

[That's not exactly what I'd call existentialism, that seems pretty upbeat to me.]



Which do you mean is upbeat? My piece, or existentialism?

No, deinstitutionalization didn't take place exclusively during the Reagan era. My take on the situation is that the policy of deintitutionalization had its place in the evolutionary chain of fiscal history in the US and around the world. Because the cost of living never stops going up, it's understood by economists that periodically new, "technologies," have to be devised which will result in savings to the taxpayers. There must have been such a concern in the 1940's or '50's. And so, voila', this led to the invention of psychiatric drugs in the Fifties, which would enable patients to live outside of institutions for the first time, provided they were willing and able to take the medication(s) prescribed for them regularly, (the 64 million dollar question.) It wasn't anticipated that large numbers of patients would not be willing or able to take the meds, or that there would be any good reasons why that was so.

Anticpating the imminent release of multitudes of patients from public hospitals, Congress passed the Community Mental Health Centers Act in 1962, which was signed into law by President Kennedy. This provided federal money to establish clinics around the country where patients could go to pick up the prescriptions they would need for their medications, and where they could also talk to a trained therapist if they needed/wanted to. It wasn't understood that patients were going to need a lot of other resources besides clinics, if they were going to be able to live in the community successfully. There was also no consideration given whatsoever to the fact that patients were going to be miserable outside of institutions upon discovering that they were going to be denied the chance to hold a job, be welcomed by their families, be free from stigma, and therefore lead decent, worthwhile lives. By the time the 1970's rolled around, enough preliminary infrastructure was thought to have been put in place for states to begin the process of emptying out their psychiatric warehouses. The biggest reason why homelessness among people with mental problems became the publicized disgrace that it did during the Reagan era was because it was only by that time that a sufficently large enough number of patients had been discharged, so as to be visible. This is not to say that Reagan's budget cuts helped the situation any.

As for the friend of mine who castrated himself twice, I can't say how he did it since he never displayed the injured part of himself to me. One testicle the first time, then he went back for the other one later on? (Beats the living Hell outta me.)

This guy was a Born Again Christian-type. That was what I was talking about when I said he used to talk about having, "lost his faith." That's also what I was refering to when I said something about his, "sad fundamentalism." I meant religious fundamentalism. I've never been sure whether or not that was clear.

[CrazyMazy]

And your problem is ?

Maybe you should get a life and quit thinking yourself as some sort of non human deranged sort of person and put your apparent brillant writing ability & pretty intelligent mind to some use other than whining and feeling sorry for yourself ?


You seem pretty intelligent - why not see what is good in life - like being alive - and do some good for the lesser of human begins.

Yikes, that's a little harsh!

Originally Posted by CrazyMazy

And your problem is ?

Maybe you should get a life and quit thinking yourself as some sort of non human deranged sort of person and put your apparent brillant writing ability & pretty intelligent mind to some use other than whining and feeling sorry for yourself ?


You seem pretty intelligent - why not see what is good in life - like being alive - and do some good for the lesser of human begins.

And your problem is ??

[CrazyMazy]

Sorry, I did not mean to sound so harsh.

Originally Posted by CrazyMazy

Sorry, I did not mean to sound so harsh.

Well I liked it... I think? Was that a PC thing to say? I might take that back. No never mind I'll keep it , for now anyway.

Hi CM *waves* welcome to the garden!

[lady cop]

Originally Posted by CrazyMazy

Sorry, I did not mean to sound so harsh.

don't worry, it only made him go swallow 14 bottles of pepto bismol.

[kumininexile]

Well, CrazyMazy, I can't say I entirely resent your assessment of me, because I'm thoroughly aware that somebody reading my initial post might get a similar impression, (assuming I care one way or the other, which I honestly don't.) At this point in my life, the therapist who I now see is focusing his efforts on reducing the likelihood I'll get into any trouble with the law as a result of the past 35 years of non-stop trauma I've endured. And mind you, criminality is not something which runs in my family, or in the culture I come from. By and large, Jews don't wind up in jail.

I've been caught in a kind of, "double vise," for years and years: on one hand having, "mental problems," is not anymore accepted by the Jews as a viable explanation for failure, than it is by any other ethnic group of people. As a result, there has never been anyone in my family who has ever accepted my failure to live a happy life, as being anyone else's fault but my own, (they say.) Researchers can come up with all the concrete biological explanations they want for the existence of mental illness: not one bit of it is ever going to mean, "**** to a tree," to any Jew. Some years ago my father, (who is a tyrant,) set up a trust fund for me when he realized it was unlikely I would ever be self-supporting. Well, that's fine in principle. Well, and good. And so you might then ask why I am so ungrateful such as to call him a, "tyrant," when he has gone to the trouble of providing for me? First, you have to understand something about one of the tenets of Judaism, and that is, that a Jew is considered to have a moral responsibility to provide financially for every member of his or her family, regardless of whether or not he/she has any regard at all for a particular relative in any other way. Yup, you heard that right: a Jew may very well help a relative financially who they personally despise. What that translated into in my father's case is that he used the trust fund he set up for me to manipulate me around, control every single facet of my life, and generally make life as unbearable for me as he could, knowing that I had no other choice but to be dependent on what he gave me. He deliberately set this trust up with my Social Security number on it, (which meant that I was always responsible for paying the income taxes on it,) while he also had control of how much money I either did or didn't get from it at any particular time. This atrocious and insane situation went on for years and years and years before I could get the legal help I needed to put a stop to it. My entire family considers me to be a good-for-nothing child/brother/nephew because they think I've been merely, "disobedient," to all of them. My act of disobedience? Not being able to hold a job!

The other, "vise," I've been in simultaneously for years has been the unwillingness of employers/coworkers to allow me to retain any job they might confer on me at first. God only knows, I tried to hold a job!! For eight or ten years, I stupidly went from job to job to job, refusing to go the route of entitlements, (which I'm on now anyway in addition to my trust fund money) and which I should have gone for in the first place. Like the assholish idiot I was for so long, every time I lost another job, I'd simply pick myself up, dust myself off, and go out and get another job. Well, you know what? NEVER, EVER, EVER, am I EVER gonna do that again!! How ****ing stupid I was! Did I ever get any credit from anyone in this butt**** Universe for those heroic efforts I was making to stay employed? ****, NO! I never had to work in the first place: I could have, and should have gotten on Social Secirity benefits from the gitgo. But like the idiot I must have been, I thought I would, "do the right thing, " and be a working, taxpaying citizen. What confounding balderdash!

As for your pronouncement that I should simply, "quit feeling sorry for myself," and go out and do something for the, "lesser human beings," in the world, well I happen to BE one of those lesser human beings. If you think I will EVER again make the mistake of putting someone else's concerns before my own, than you're nuts up a tree.