My Time in the Mental Hospital.
This is a continuation of both Please Allow Me To Introduce Myself . . . | by Wes Hansen | Sep, 2023 | Medium and Slowly Bleeding Out . . .. This is a continuation of Please Allow… | by Wes Hansen | Sep, 2023 | Medium which briefly summarize how I became homeless in America and have remained so for 15 years. This tells the story of my time in the Harris County MHMRA ward and the North Texas State Hospital.
My “family” actually put me on the street. I don’t think that was their intent, really, they simply misjudged my character; they thought I would tuck tail, accept the injustice, and go to work for my brother-in-law’s plumbing company. It’s a strange, strange turn of events, which I don’t truly comprehend. If someone would’ve told me when I was 20 years old that I would spend time locked up for crimes I didn’t commit — that didn’t even exist, do a stint in the Maximum Security Forensic Psychiatric Hospital, and end up homeless for 15 years and counting, I would’ve laughed hysterically and been a fool for doing so. Because here we are.
I spent 45 days in the Mental Health and Mental Retardation Authority (MHMRA) ward of the Harris County Jail in Houston, Texas, and another seven weeks in the Maximum Security Forensic Psychiatric Hospital, the North Texas State Hospital, in Vernon, Texas, even though I was completely sane.
In very extreme circumstances, you can be forcibly sedated in County Jails and State Prisons, i. e. if you are an immediate danger to yourself or others, but you cannot be forcibly administered psychotropic medication except at a hospital and under doctor supervision. At the hospital it is a very therapeutic situation; you have a treatment team led by a psychiatrist and the process is very gradual. The leader of my treatment team at the hospital I was sent to was the actual Director of the Hospital at the time, Dr. Black. But I was definitely abused by the State, a long, very long, story, and my immediate family was assisting the State!
You can be forcibly medicated while locked up in County Jail and State Prison, but it requires a Court Order and a trip to the hospital. I’m as sane as you can possibly be and I went through the entire process. It sucked, and bad. I engaged with an MHMRA Advocacy group, trying to remove myself from this nightmare. People simply have no idea.
In the County Jails and State Prisons one cannot be medicated against their will, even if they have scheduled meds and a long history of mental illness. This is Federal. This is because the Jails and Prisons are not medical facilities. Many mentally ill persons come into the MHMRA ward at the County Jail completely blown and off their meds. That’s generally why they got arrested to begin with. The MHMRA ward is a jail within a jail; it is two tanks within the Medical wing of the County Jail, secured by two heavy, metal doors. The Medical wing of the County Jail is NOT a medical facility; it simply maintains a pharmacy and nursing crew who dispenses pharmaceuticals. When you are processed into County Jail, you are interviewed several times, once by a nurse. The nurse asks you if you have any medical conditions and if you do, then you get placed in the Medical wing and any scheduled medications are provided.
For a sane person, the MHMRA ward is just a nightmare. For one, the stigma! You are given a purple identification band, which is the exact same as the child molesters. Yeah, go to court wearing a purple band! I was in a 30 foot by 30 foot concrete box, no windows, with 32 other inmates, the vast majority of who were completely and thoroughly compromised and off their meds. I was pissed on, had fecal matter thrown at me, you name it. There was only one other inmate in the tank who was stabilized on medication, a long time Texas Syndicate member, Alejandro. He and I probably played 1,000 games of dominoes and I almost beat him once!
There was a brother in our tank who Alejandro knew from the hood. He was from a very wealthy family but had destroyed his mind smoking wet. The guy never ate meals. He would buy jars and jars, plastic jars, of jalepeno peppers from commissary and that is all he ate. He masturbated at least 10 times a day and every time the nurse came to the door with meds — for Alejandro and the couple of folks in the other tank who willingly took them. His underwear and t-shirt were just black with nasty and since he only ate those peppers, he would shit water a couple of times a day. Every time he dropped his trousers . . . the stench, it’s indescribable! Alejandro finally spoke to a deputy on watch, who he knew, and the deputy forced the guy to take a shower and while he was in the shower Alejandro and I took his underwear and t-shirt and put them in a plastic bag. God awful shit, man!
I don’t know Alejandro’s story, but he never went to the hospital with us, going straight to TDC instead.
The rest of us left the MHMRA ward and went to the hospital at the same time; came back together too. When you get to the hospital, you are interned in the Cottonwood Unit. All units are named after trees. This is the unit where the stabilizing happens. Most inmates, if they are sane, like myself, or stabilized on meds already, are immediately transferred to the Ash Unit. Even though I had no history of mental illness, had never been on psychotropic medication, and was completely sane, they left me in the Cottonwood Unit until one week (actually three days and four nights) before we all went back to the County Jail.
The hospital is a gender mix, men and women together. The brother who masturbated 10 times a day was caught having sex with a female inmate in the restroom! He used to go around showing his dick to all of the females. The Cottonwood Unit was an everyday rodeo. It’s very violent. Some inmates would just punch others in the face for no apparent reason. They would then get tackled by 6 to 8 mental health workers and the duty nurse would shoot them up with sedative and place them in the quiet room. Eventually, everyone would get back on meds and stabilized. I probably finished 15 puzzles while I was there!
My heart bleeds for these poor people, but there was no valid reason for me being there. In America anyway, the inmate’s attorney is generally the one who requests the court for an order to determine competency to stand trial. My attorney, Elija Dodier, was court-appointed; a former judge who had been removed from the bench due to disciplinary reasons. Based on the attorney’s request, the Court then gives an order to the MHMRA for an evaluation. The inmate is interviewed in the County Jail by a licensed psychiatirst with the MHMRA and that professional determines whether or not the individual needs to go to the Hospital for a competency evaluation. Based on the MHMRA psychiatrist’s recommendation, the Court either does or does not give the necessary order. If they give the order, then you end up in the MHMRA ward, or at least I did. I know there were folks in the Medical wing, general population, who were on psychotropics, though.
But it doesn’t take much. I was interviewed for less than 30 minutes by a Dr. Freidman, and he told the Court that I was most probably suffering from Delusional Disorder. To give you an idea of how insane this really is, read that Wikipedia link and then consider: while I was interned at the North Texas State Hospital and under Dr. Black’s professional care, I was administered a special test, which, to my knowledge, no one else was administered. This test was composed of mostly multiple choice (four choice) questions with a smattering of binary (true/false) questions. A typical example of a binary question being, “Do you think you are special?” How do you answer that question with yes or no? I bubbled in both yes and no! I hope to one day see both Freidman and Black locked up in Prison, to say nothing of the Judge, George Godwin, who retired immediately following my case, but I’m not holding my breath.
When you get back to the County Jail, the MHMRA ward is really quiet and dark; quiet because these poor doped up folks sleep 18 hours a day and dark because the lights are kept off 20 hours a day because the medication makes these people’s eyes very sensitive to light. It took a few letters to the MHMRA Advocacy group, but I was eventually placed in the Medical wing, general population. A couple more letters and I was eventually returned to the general population of the jail, the Baker Street unit.
I met some infamous people due to that experience. The Baylor University basketball player who murdered his teammate was at Vernon, as was this crazy beauty queen and former Miss Texas who stabbed her ex-boyfriend 30 some times. In my MHMRA tank was a former security guard, Darren, a nutty, nutty white boy who kinda reminds me, in hindsight, of Donald Trump, and who emptied his 9 mm on his mother, killing her. This guy had no remorse and his only concern was getting his guns back. I told him, “Dude, you murdered your mother; they’re never going to give you your guns back.,” and if he would’ve been armed right then, then I would probably be dead! He was crazy. This electrical engineer from Dallas, who was accused of murdering a co-worker, was at Vernon. He had spent over 2 years in solitary confinement in the County Jail, so when he got to Vernon all he wanted to do was talk. We talked and talked and talked. He was a very interesting guy.
