slainte

Page Ten

Friday 2 May 2008, Greenfield

So the DMH thought it was a fine idea to leave a 55-year-old woman with several psychological conditions and several physical illnesses homeless. Their plan for me was a homeless shelter. A person who is ill, and afraid of people, and very reclusive, and the DMH wisdom was that I should be thrown into a group. And what kind of a group? Well, I'm sure that not all of the people in the shelter are the way I'm about to describe, but many of them are. I know. I hang out in some of the same places they do. They ask me for money and cigarettes on the streets. I hear their stories of the kids being taken away, DUI's, drug rehab over and over again, arrests, not paying rent. I am afraid of people who live very average lives, so how much more afraid am I of people who don't? And I haven't lived my life in the ways these other shelter people have, and I haven't acted out my unhappiness by getting arrested or not paying rent or whatever. I've led a very different kind of life.

So the DMH "assisted" me (and I was told by two therapists that I could get "assistance" from the DMH) in these ways: They did not find me a place to live with even half of my animals. They left me, the animals, and lots of belongings for the sheriff. They let be torn away from me my whole identity and personal space and my family (the animals), and whatever measure of auotonomy and personal choice I had in my life, which wasn't a whole lot.

Let's raise a glass of non-alcoholic beverage to the wisdom, empathy and "assistance" of the Greenfield MA Department of Mental Hell. Slainte.

I get more tired every day from leading this rootless street existence that isn't my life. I get more sad and more depressed every day from the loss of the ones I love. Slainte.

Update 7 Aug 2009: All true. I've written more about these state employees, and their conduct of my case, and the complaints I made against them (to no avail) on updates on my other journals, all of which are part of my website.

When I originally wrote this post, I hadn't yet stayed in any shelter. Later that would indeed happen, and I would learn exactly what sorts of people there are in the shelters, as I stayed in three different ones.

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