The first thing I noticed was the ‘revolving door’ phenomena.  That is, people go out, and then they’re back in, over and over again, demonstrating that standard treatment—­drugs, electroshock and group therapy—­had been ineffective.  Worse, the treatments given at Riverside were dangerous, often with long term side effects that were more damaging than the disease being treated.  It felt like nursing school all over again; in the core of my being I somehow knew there was a better way, a more effective way of helping people to regain their mental health.  Feeling like an outsider, I started investigating the hospital’s nooks and crannies.  Much to my surprise, in a back ward, one not open to the public, I noticed a number of people with bright purple skins.

I asked the staff about this and every one of the psychiatrists denied these patients existed.  This outright and widely-agreed-upon lie really raised my curiosity.  Finally after pouring through the journals in the hospital library I found an article describing psycho tropic-drug-induced disruptions of melanin (the dark skin pigment).  Thorazine, a commonly used psychiatric drug, when taken in high doses over a long period of time would do this.  Excess melanin eventually was deposited in vital organs such as the heart and the liver, causing death.

I found it especially upsetting to see patients receive electroshock treatments.  These violent, physician-induced traumas did seem to disrupt dysfunctional thought patterns such as an impulse to commit suicide, but afterwards the victim couldn’t remember huge parts of their life or even recall who they were.  Like many other dangerous medical treatments, electroshock can save life but it can also take life away by obliterating identity.

According the Hippocratic Oath, the first criteria of a treatment is that it should do no harm.  Once again I found myself trapped in a system that made me feel severe protest.  Yet none of these specialists or university professors, or academic libraries had any information about alternatives.  Worse, none of these mind-doctor-gods were even looking for better treatments.

Though unpleasant and profoundly disappointing, my experience as a mental hospital psychologist was, like being in nursing school, also very valuable.  Not only did I learn how to diagnose, and evaluate the severity of mental illness and assess the dangerousness of the mentally ill, I learned to understand them, to feel comfortable with them, and found that I was never afraid of them.  Fearlessness is a huge advantage.  The mentally ill seem to have a heightened ability to spot fear in others.  If they sense that you are afraid they frequently enjoy terrorizing you.  When psychotic people know you feel comfortable with them, and probably understand a great deal of what they are experiencing, when they know that you can and intend to control them, they experience a huge sense of relief.  I could always get mentally ill people to tell me what was really going on in their heads when no one else could get them to communicate.