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claimingtheflame · 4 years ago

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Lincoln Trail Mental Health Facility Part 1

Once again I want to reiterate that a lot of these posts are diaries I wrote never finished. Some of them jump around in my life. The story is about something that took place several years after D left

I remember the moment I turned in the paper. It was nothing. The last question asked my thoughts on the final death of Juliet. I sympathize. To this day I do. Many people probably do. She ended her life because she was in the grip of a mythic tragedy. Who could walk away from such a fate?

Except. Even though this is exactly how I felt, my teenage brain did not yet have the skills to articulate this. I ended up writing something like "I feel what juliet did was right. The world is ugly and filthy and who wants to live in it without someone you love." Because I was an edgy goth kid.

This would send me into the clutches of my own sort of tragedy. A brutal, destructive storm began churning that friday that would completely knock me out of my stupid unlaced combat boots on monday.

It happened like this. I walked into first period, Biology. I sat next to Adam, my closest friend. A knock came shortly after the period started and it turned out to be a senior girl who wanted me to be escorted to Mrs Mudds office. I did not know who that was. It turned out she was a counselor. She had coppery hair and a long, perky, somewhat simian face.

In this story, there is a long list of incompetant people who should not have had their jobs, and possibly should have been in prison. Mrs Mudd is not one of them. As much as I dislike her to this day. Maybe she did really mean well. Maybe she was just swept away by the drama of the whole situation. This is Elizabethtown KY after all.

We talked for a few hours. Looking back, I really don't think I said anything to her that should have been construed that I was depressed or suicidal. We talked about a secret place I visited in the woods behind my neighborhood. We talked about various religious beliefs and about music I listened to. Either way, my mom picked me up from school and I was somewhat excited for the break-in monotony.

We have drove to Lincoln Trail Behavioral Health Center , and I really didn't know what was happening. I had friends who had gone, but I didn't really believe that's why we were there until I saw the look on my mom's face as we walked in. There was a serious feeling of betrayal then. Like God woman haven't you put me through enough. This was an unfair thought. My mother is the second person blameless in the story. I would find out later that basically everybody from my school was telling her I was planning on killing myself quite literally. Mrs. Mudd had apparently told them that the place in the woods was my planned spot to die. I had self-harmed in the past. It was all pleasure related though and I thought it had nothing to do with my mental health. Either way it had been months prior to this, but it added to the Snowball Effect.

I'll admit that I didn't really understand my own mental health at this age. I had just been released from D's clutches only a few precious years earlier. I had no clue what was going on. I was going through a suspended childhood in many ways. All that said, Lincoln Trail Behavioral Health System did not help or address any my mental health issues. Let me reiterate. Aside from some experimental self harm 6 months prior(I received counseling, was evauted, etc), at age 15 I was pretty well behaved. I rarely got in trouble. I certainly never acted disturbed. Lincoln helped nobody who actually went there. In fact I barely escaped with my life and sanity. This is not a dramatic statement. This was a terrible place, as you will learn.

I was obviously scared the moment I walked into this place, all the stories I heard. We were buzzed through a security door after a few accusatory last looks at my mother when I went in quietly. I heard if you resisted or yelled that they gave you a shot in your ass of some kind of sedative. I did not want to give anybody the satisfaction roughing up the goth kid and shooting them in the ass. This was a short-lived Triumph. I would learn quickly that this place was not for me and that there was some horrible mistake pretty early on . I was led to a room and told to take off my clothes down to my underwear. I was told to turn around in front of this guy, who nodded with approval after watching and told me to put back on my clothes. I was wearing really baggy SpongeBob boxers. I guess I could have gotten away with hiding something into the facility. That's the thing. I wasn't a f****** delinquent. Not yet or not anymore depending on how you look at the chronology of things I did as a teenager. Anyway I do remember a kind moment here. The guard escorted me down a hallway and a girl smiled at me brightly. "It's really not that bad here." She said. I smiled and shrugged. This was more of a kind gesture than I realized, I would find this out later.

I was then led to the office of the first real fuckup in this story. This would be my counselor. I don't remember her name. She was somewhat nice to begin with. I'll call her mrs. Wannabe because later she would read a bunch of poems about her Native American ancestry. This extremely blond, blue-eyed woman with a square German face and freckles. Me and Wannabe would talk for about 30 minutes and she would send me on to my actual psychiatrist. I do remember this man's name. I will never forget it. His name was dr. Kodali. We can call him King fuckup. Fuckup prime.

He was a small man, with a small mustache, and skin the color between a beet and a russet potato. He spoke in broken English. He asked me why I thought I was there. I told him about the paper I wrote. He smiled and said " yes we all say things we don't mean. " he asked me if I follow the rules at home. I said yes as long as they are within reason. He laughed at me and said " my own daughter thinks several of my rules are not within reason. Children come to learn to obey. " we did not talk about depression, and this statement would turn out to be significant in many ways. It would come to outline the failure of this institution to children who actually suffered depression. Which I will admit that back then I might have been suffering from. Certainly anxiety. But who doesnt, to some degree?

Let us frame our Shit Pit King with what I didnt know about him before I explain my own experiences. He received kickbacks for pushing certain medicines. This is an important detail. He had been accused on several occasions of over-prescribing meds. He was widely hated as a doctor, and I can't believe he still has a job.

During my first visit, he was mostly dismissive. Interrupted me and laughed at me often. He was mostly interested in my behavior. If I acted up. If I respected authority. Literally nothing about suicide was discussed. So why did this guy prescribe meds at the end of our conversation? He picked up the phone, called my mother, and gave her the dosage information. I narrowly escaped this medicine, whatever it was, due to a surprising hero figure in the story who we will discuss later.

He dismissed me and I was sent to "group" for the first time. This is nothing like "support groups" you see in Lifetime movies. It was a huge room, an obnoxious amount of desk chairs crammed in a circle. Boys on one side. Girls on the other.

I immediately dislike this. It feels tense, and I feel scrutinized. I try to ask a girl near me if I can use one of her pencils. She folds her arms and rolls her eyes. " I can't talk to him." She says to the ceiling. This gets the attention of the counselor of the group, who is actually just an early 20-somethings aide of some kind, there are a few of these. This one I call Nick neckbeard. He says " we are here to work on our problems, not to date. " I am immediately embarrassed. I definitely wasn't trying to date anybody. I let it go but it does set the tone.

Since I am the new kid, a round of introductions is done. Not a lot of these people are notable other than the fact that a lot of them are in here for drugs. Some are in here as an in-between stage between Juvenile Detention and Society. I get the distinct feeling that most of the boys are here for drugs and violent crime. I reflect bitterly that I am in here for writing a stupid paper.

There are several thug wannabe types, maybe two or three other white guys that aren't like that. One obvious skinhead as well. It's split in half racially. Five white Boys & 5 black. There was a round of introductions. Most were there for, as mentioned, substance abuse and violent behavior. The skinhead boasted of being in because he stuck foreign objects in his body. He stabbed himself with pens and various utensils. Another boy was in for desecrating graves. The girls were almost exclusively substance abuse. There was one Arab girl that was in there, and though she talked much I never quite understood why except that I knew she definitely needed to be in there. She either talked incessantly of sex or repeatedly told this story about a "bad doll" that lived in her house- all in broken english.

So this was the introduction to the place. Honestly yes, I would have problems with the other patients. That's really out of the scope of the story though. They are mental patients. What do you expect?

The true problem with Lincoln trail was its staff and overall structure. Such a problem was this structure that it would break me down to that kernel of a child you see on all the other stories on this blog. Such that Lincoln trail would reduce me again to that boy child whispering a question to the darkness: "Why am I being punished?" It would make me know, through recognition and reinforcement of abusive themes I was already familiar with, that I was not in a safe place.

The first night I felt this first blow through humiliation and guilt. It was a simple thing really. We were sent to bed. A corridor with a small basket on the outside of each door. A female counselor was pointing each of us down the hall to our rooms. When my time came, she pointed vaguely down the hall to the right side. I tried to ask for clarification and she shouted "Right there!" And my immediate reaction to being chastised like this was to go to one of the rooms with my belongings. She did not stop me.

I noticed one of the wooden bed frames(they were double rooms with single bathrooms) had no mattress. My roommate was a boy my age. He had close-buzzed haircut. He seemed politely surprised. I shrugged and got in the shower. When I turned the water off, I heard yelling on the other side of the door.

The boy was yelling angrily that he did not know who I was and that he had nothing to do with me. He was explaining that I came into his room unbidden and to no fault of his own. I dressed quickly and came out of the bathroom as soon as possible. A middle-aged blond woman grabs me by the arm and began leading me out of the room. When I asked her where we were going she did not say anything but tightened her grip and sat me down in a chair. This woman becomes important later. Five minutes later Dr kodali came into the office with my other counselor, both looking at me sternly.

I apologize for not knowing the exact words of the conversation. Basically the boy was supposed to have his room to his self. He was gay and had been known to have had sexual contact with other patients. They grilled me hard about whether or not I was gay and deciding whether I should be disciplined. Dr kodali somehow remembers that that my girlfriend had given testimony(positively) over my mental health and he seemed to leave it at that. The blonde lady didnt seem convinced.

When she led me back to my(actual) room, she took the liberty of going through my clothes and belongings. She confiscated basically all of my clothing, saying that it would distract patients(black jeans and tees...none of my flashier stuff). She confiscated my copy of Cannery Row, all my homework, and my shampoo. She really let off on me while doing this. Talking about how sneaky I was and if I was planning anything with Chester(the gay guy) that she would know.

This was Day 1. I would kneel beside the bed that night and pray(I just prayed to 'the goddess' back then), just to feel peace inside. I was so put-upon about the stupid clothes. They were my armor, in a way.

The next day would be a lot worse. I'd learn a lot.

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