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Lorenucia
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| Joined: | Tue Sep 9th, 2008 |
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| Posts: | 33 |
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Posted: Sat Jun 6th, 2009 12:09 am |
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This is an open letter to our state legislators and Governor Brewer:
I'm a voter. I vote. I'm also bi-polar and receive services from Magellan. If services are cut for the seriously mentally ill (of which, I'm considered one), you could have a lot of dangerous people running around Arizona. As it is our jails and prisons are being used to warehouse the mentally ill. Just think about the mentally ill woman who was left outside for four hours in temperatures over 100 degrees and died as a result. Many of our homeless are untreated mentally ill people. These people need treatment not to be locked away. (The same can be said, of course, of people with drug problems.) In the long term, it is cheaper to provide services to the mentally ill than to put them in jail. The mentally ill are also more vulnerable in prison than other prisoners because of their illness. When I was very ill, I thought that I was dead and in hell and being raped by devils several times a day. I had been gang raped while on a trip to Guatemala when I was 23, so these delusions were quite real. I would get in my car and drive for hours everyday looking for a "safe place"(devil free) to eat as I thought all of my food and water had been poisoned by the devils. I also drank my own urine and collected rainwater to survive as I also thought that the water coming out of my faucet had been contaminated by the devils. While I was driving around, I would often run red lights or turn left on a red, because I thought "what difference does it make? I'm already dead anyway." I would slam my head full force into my steering wheel to get the devils off of me. I once had a black eye from slamming my face into my bedroom wall for the same reason and was regularly concussed from such activity. I moved to Arizona in 2001 to live with my sister, as I had gone through all of my money, including most of my 401k, while I was ill. My sister agreed to take me in a few months after I was released from the state hospital. I have worked in Arizona and taken classes at the local community colleges. Just to shatter a few stereotypes, I’ll tell you that I have a 4.0 average. I speak 5 languages fairly fluently including Spanish and Japanese. My original degree is a Bachelors of Arts from American University School of International Service in International Studies (politics, economics, U.S. Foreign Policy, Foreign Languages etc.) which I received with honors. I worked for almost 25 years as a flight attendant, first for Pan Am and later for a major airline based in Atlanta. My company would never allow me to return to flight status once I was released from the hospital even though my doctors said, on medication, I was more than able to fly. Believe me, after what I went through when ill, I would never not take my medication and I'm only telling you a very small part of the horrors I survived. While I was ill, they had placed me on a medical leave with no benefits and no pay. They have since fired me. I have also suffered from on the job discrimination here in Arizona. When I arrived here, penniless and raw from my 3 1/2 year bout of mental illness, I didn't have a clue what to do as I had only ever been an international flight attendant after having graduated from college. I got a job at an Australian themed restaurant on Bell Rd. in Glendale so that I could work nights and go to school during the day. After about 10 months at that job, management found out that I had a mental illness. The next day, I was in early to open. The manager and I were the only ones on the premises. I saw on the newly posted schedule, that my work week had been cut from 5 to 2 days. I told him that I thought this was discrimination. He told me "You're fired." When I applied for unemployment, he claimed I had walked out on the job. Thankfully, it was so obvious to the judge in my case that he was not telling the truth, that she ruled in my favor. People are afraid of me. I think this is because of the overwhelmingly negative portrayals of the mentally ill in the media. I have never been violent to others only to myself. In fact, while ill, I was doing yoga and meditating because I thought that if I could become 100% positive and fearless no matter how many times a day I was being raped, I could rise up out of hell. In the Virginia Tech case, the people who were shot were not the only victims. Cho, the shooter, was a victim of a broken health care system and judicial system that had ample warnings of his need for mental health services.
I'd also like to tell you about my sister who works at Mentor as a supervisor of group homes for autistic and mentally challenged people. She loves these people. These people, the most vulnerable people in society, also need services.
In conclusion, please remember that a society is not judged by its treatment of the best and the brightest but by its treatment of the least among us. Thank you for taking the time to read this.
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