Mitigating the Madness

When I started writing the “Little Background” posts I hadn’t planned for everything I’ve experienced to come pouring forth so freely. I had thought giving a “little” background would help readers understand why the Spravato treatments I’m undergoing have made such a difference in my life, but it seems with that difference comes all the repressed emotions I’ve stuffed down and tried to ignore. So please dear reader, forgive me as “A Little Background” has become “A Whole Lotta Background”.

No triggers. No anxiety. How wrong I was, and it’s only now that I’m starting to understand how drastically it’s affected my life. Even when I was actively trying to avoid anything that even threatened to cause me a meltdown after my forced hospitalization, avoiding the problem did not help. Let me repeat that for the people in the back, so to speak, avoiding triggers doesn’t help.

I’m sure you’re now wondering about my forced hospitalization, and I really chalk that up to transphobia more than a mental health crisis, but here goes.

The Detainment

At the time I was homeless, and living out of a conversion van. This was before the whole van-life culture popped up, and having two adults and two children in one van was cramped living at its best. My wallet and what little money that we had left along with it. Having no one to turn to and not wanting my children to suffer, I swallowed my pride and went to ask for assistance at social services. Like most parents, there isn’t anything that I wouldn’t do for my kiddo, step or bio.

I had hoped that they would be able to help me, but because I didn’t have an ID, they told me there was nothing that they could do. After repressing all my emotions year after year, doing my best to just survive, I couldn’t handle it anymore. I broke down crying in public. As I sat there on the curb in front of my vehicle crying I was approached by a few people from the building next to the social services office, at the time I didn’t realize it was a mental health office. The people seemed to be nice, asking what was wrong, and when I told them they invited my and my family inside. They promised they would help us and that there was nothing to be so upset about. It would be okay.

And everything was…or so that’s what I wished had happened. The real truth is I was left traumatized and with a mistrust of people that I have to this day many, many years later.

First, the staff separated my spouse (she was my partner at the time) and our children. They told us they were going get the kids some snacks and let them play while we worked things out. My spouse and I were taken to another room with a man named Lars. I will never forget this man’s name as long as I live, and it isn’t for a good reason.

The conversation started off pleasant enough with small talk until I mentioned that I was transgender. Suddenly the feeling of the encounter completely changed. When the conversation started I had given Lars my preferred name, but once he found out that I wasn’t cisgendered he demanded, “What’s your real name?”

I shut down. I wasn’t going to waste my time dealing with someone with that type of attitude towards me. I guess he didn’t like the fact that I started ignoring him, because I soon found myself being detained by the city police.

I had no idea what was going on, later I would find out that Lars had me detained and held in handcuffs for over three hours so he could filed a TDO, or temporary detainment order. For those like me at the time, a TDO is a court order that places you into a psychiatric hospital if you’re a danger to yourself or others, neither of which I was. Nonetheless I was held for three hours in handcuffs, and my shoulder hasn’t been the same since.

If the hostility from this person that had claimed to want to help me wasn’t bad enough, I had to deal with the open hostility from the police officers that showed up and treated me like I was a serial killer when until that point I had never been in handcuffs. I didn’t have a record. I was a law abiding citizen that happened to be transgender. How dare I!?

Even though I was livid at how I was being treated I was still respectful of the officers even when they spit their vitriol remarks at me.

“I don’t care what you think you are, if you give the nurses any trouble I’ll make sure you go straight to the women’s jail.”

This is the one that sticks with me the most. I feel like the officer was trying to antagonize me so that he would have a reason to hurt me. His aggression towards me was nearly palatable, and I had done nothing to warrant it. Thus began my distrust and dislike of police officers. This is something that I still struggle with, especially after later interactions with law enforcement.

(Nothing I did wrong I assure you, and while I may or may not go into that at a later time, just know I do my best to stay a law abiding citizen. It’s not like I think I’m above the law or anything, I have no aspirations to become president.)

After being held in handcuffs, verbally accosted by overly aggressive male police officers with a hard-on for oppressing minorities, I was taken to the local access portal to hell.

Yes, I’m trying to bring humor to the situation, because talking about my time in this place is difficult. I don’t like to relive it, but I feel that it needs to be said, especially when this place has only gotten worse over the years. (I’ve never been back, but I know people who have, and I promise you the health of their patients, mental or otherwise, is not their first priority.)

*Since I’m trying to keep these posts around 1,000 words and I need a mental health break, I leave you here this week reader. *

{to be continued…}