Change My Mind

originally posted by: AutomateThis1
Only question I have is do I get a new body or a new brain?

A new brain, well, as new as I have laying around.

a reply to: AugustusMasonicus

If we're being completely honest. I don't know if you want the body. It's pretty trashed. There's some neurological stuff as well, so I don't even know if the new brain would take.

I can't feel pain all that much. The vision and hearing is a bit off as well. Just let the knew guy know he'll look good in designer frames and to keep the hair short since it's thinning.

Oh, and tell him to avoid dairy/lactose products at all costs.

Haha, I put knew instead of new.

originally posted by: AutomateThis1
Opinion:

The American prison system is not that bad.

It is if you suffer from a mental illness.

I have schizophrenia and I was taken to jail instead of a mental health facility to get my medications adjusted. While I was there, still lucid and in the throes of an episode, I was confined to a rubber cell, 8x8 with no blanket (the room was freezing) and nothing in there except a drain on the floor to relieve myself.

The only human interaction was when the guard would walk by, lift the paper covering the window so I couldn't look out, and check on me. There was a surviellance camera behind a grate on the ceiling above the stoop I slept on keeping an eye on me.

When they first put me in the room, they opened the slot in the door reserved for meals and handed me a pill and forcefully told me to take it. Me, being delusional but not paranoid, I thought it was my regular medication. It was not. Within 15 minutes I was experiencing and overload of sensory information and had an epiletic fit trying to block it out.

It was a very traumatizing experience and the guards didn't seem to care.

I spent two months in that room devoid of sensory information and towards the end of my time there I was hallucinating and praying to a slice of american cheese I had slapped on the wall after lunch. I have no idea if the cameras picked that up or not. It was a very bizzare time for me.

On the bright side, when the meal was next delivered I mentioned to the guard that my eyes were hurting due to the low levels of florescent lights overhead and they transferred me to a nicer holding cell, padded, but just the same as the previous one with a stoop and a drain on the floor. I stayed there for two weeks.

The guards were very rude, mocking me in my altered state of elective mutism and I just let them laugh at me and crack cruel jokes about my person. The only officer that was nice to me was the gentleman who transfered me to the State Hospital.

I wept tears of joy to be able to see the sky again. My paranoia was so heightened inside, in that room, that I went through grueling hours convinced I would never see the outside of that room again.

I was eventually transferred to a proper facility, my meds were adjust and I was held for observation, but when I was released it has taken me over ten years to shake off being back in that room, going through the mental gymnastics I had been through when in that room without proper medications.

I suffer PSTD to this day and for several years was terrified of Police because I was sure that they would just walk up and find a reason to take me back into that kind of room. I've since overcome that fear but a Prison is not good for anyone who is mentally ill, nonviolent, and just going through a delusional episode in the slightest.

But in your defense, from what I've heard, long term prison sentences aren't that bad, with beds and blankets and TV, reading materials and a bit more "creature comforts" than your average County Jail.

Still, (for me at least) my experience has definitely reaffirmed that we need more Social Workers dealing with Police and mental cases. Everything would have been much better if they had allowed me to speak with a mental heath professional instead of being subjected to a rather caustic system where people like me get lost in the cracks sometimes.

a reply to: GENERAL EYES

Damn dude. That's crappy.

Mental health is big issue for me. I think that the people we are told to consider experts in psychiatry and such are more often than not just olain terrible. Especially since many of them have their own mental issues.

And then we have politicians who couldn't care less for anyone.

Law enforcement who aren't trained to deal with episodes.

It's rough man.

I had to go through therapy when I was getting out of the Navy, because of the things I went through, and it was a #show.

I didn't want to be there, I didn't think anything major was wrong with me, but it was a friggin circus.

One therapist would say there's nothing wrong with me and he didn't even know why I was there. Another therapist would tell me that I was just stressed, that all I need to do is stop chugging Monsters and coffee by the pint, and to try and salvage what was left of my marriage.

Then, there was the psychiatrist who wouldn't listen to a word I said and actually told me that no matter what I say to her that she was going to diagnose me with major depression and severe anxiety and she kept insisting that I take prescription pills for mental illnesses. She even tried to sneak me Wellbutrin by telling me that it would help me quit smoking. (I quit cold turkey over a year ago.)

I told her that she was full of crap, she got pissy, and I told her that I wanted to talk to a different psychiatrist.

She told me that even if I did talk to someone else she was still in charge of the case. So, I asked her what the hell is the point, and she said that I just have to trust her that she has my best interests in mind. So, I told her to kiss my ass, because she was trying to screw me over.

Luckily, I got out of it fine. But she was literally trying to make it to where I wouldn't have been able to do anything I wanted to do when I got out of the military.

I don't trust any shrink, especially military ones.

I guess tomorrow night I'll throw up a new opinion.

If anyone has any suggestions shoot me a message.

I think I want to do a fun one this time.