Medication Nation

Another excellent article posted here. Kuddos for both Pro Publica and its excellent investigative reporting and, even more so, Medication-Nation for keeping so religiously current on events.
I had the generally horrible experience of living in Carson City, Nevada for several years starting in early 2001. Since I have a rare illness, Periodic Paralysis, one of my best friends there, a retired FBI agent, made me promise to move back to California when he had taken me to a Reno hospital almost totally paralysised, left me there for appr. 7 hours- in which I was discharged, and picked me up, still paralyzed! He told me, "Promise me you move back to CA. They are going to kill you here." But luckily, with this bout of paralysis, they did not toss me in a a psyche ward like they did in Carson City. I use to say of both their jail and Behavioral Health Center- "If you build them, they will come."
I got tossed into their facility in CC because I had a bout of paralysis and I believe, they needed some new revenue. Even the Psychiatrist did not understand why I was there, but could not do anything to release me on my 3-day hold. But I was aggressively called in for attempted to cause "severe bodily harm on a patient." What had happened, in group, I had used "big words," like the facts I use to go to Stanford for medical treatment (I lived in Mountain View which was 10 minutes away), and had also lived next to Robin Williams in San Francisco and walked by his house about 5-6 times a week. Because of these "big words," the woman went into the bathroom and tried to slit her wrists, while I got interrogated and extenstively drilled for at least 4 hours- only to find out that I was quite sane and should not have been there in the first place. Apparently, it was discovered, her father also used "big words" like me and he must have been a real monster. The sad thing is, she mixed us up.
But the quality of care in Nevada is horrific and the staff was poorly trained on the average. I had heard hightmare stories about the Reno hospitals and I knew then that by going to Reno for ER care, I ran the risk having a rare illness of being toss in one of those facilities. It was only because of my retired FBI friend (who showned his badges) did we get the respect we did, but even then, I got discharged still paralyzed...
I am still not done with PSI. I have just been trying to get healthy, as a number of my docs told me that trying to achieve justice from them last year was "killing me." In fact, I had four (4) docs say that but I am starting to feel better- even on morphine for pain, which SV & HO told me was a "delusion and psychosis." I would never, never live in Sacramento again and funny thing is, I do not have Bipolar or Schizoaffective Disorder here. I only had it in Sacramento in a PSI facility. Strange huh?

Now if only California officials could be as responsive to FAILURE as Nevada has been, maybe we could suffer less pain. Maybe people could actually get better instead of get worse and/or die after visiting these places. COME ON CALIFORNIA!!!! You are letting your own people down!!!! Stop locking up your most helpless citizens in hell !

I talked to a retired therapist friend of mine who lives in Carson City (where I lived in the earlies 2000's) and she states that there allegedly has been a new agreement to keep this PSI facility OPEN. If this is true (I have not had time to do the research on what she has told me), then to me, it is a similiar repeat of what happened at Sierra Vista/PSI when they hired a new lobbiest and spokesperson who took Ted Gaines out to lunch- and then he changed his mind about attempting to close down the facility and/or stop the opening of the new facility. A funny thing happened to me when I called to express my opinion about this. Although I was 2xs sexually assaulted at Sierra Vista, later almost insitututionalized when I continued to repeatedly report what happened (like my records at Sierra Vista, I can imagine that the ones at Heritage Oaks have also been tampered with) for allegedly being "Bipolar, Severe, Psychosis" and "Schizoaffective"- both of which I never had and do not have according to everyone I have now seen since 2006. (I contine to have PTSD and Dissociative Disorder NOS, and my current trauma therapist who does EMDR says I have "more trauma" than any patient she every worked with in over 30 years. But with PSI, I am "delusional and psychotic" and the medical records of Dr. Lloyd Benjamin shows that, in fact, my whole life has been semi-delusional/delusional, so I need to take anti-psychotics for it. Funny, I had no physical illnesses in Sacramento, but here in the Bay Area, where I have moved back to, I again have a team of doctors for a number of rare illnesses which PSI refused to recognized, as well as my being 2xs raped at Sierra Vista.
And in my quest to find justice, because I moved back to the Bay Area to get competent medical care and where I am treated with respect, dignity and a "normal" person- like the professional legal woman I was as a graduate from UC Hastings College of the Law and a woman who became disabled while working as an associate attorney for a high powered law firm- I was called up by the Roseville Office of Gaines Office and told if I called his office again, they would call the Sargaent of Arms" on me. I have no right to complain about any injustices that happened to me in his district- no matter how egregious and I still have current issues in his district that I need to finish up with because I own property on the border of his district which has legal issues which must be addressed. But again, I cannot contact his office because they will turn me into the "Sargaent of Arms," but when I called the Sarganet of Arms to ask them what they were going to do to me- well, no one got back to me. Crazy, huh? They system up there will make you crazy because it is indeed, crazy-making, and I only started to feel like a sane person when I went back to a place where the people and professionals I knew were sane, professional, ethical and obeyed the law. It has been 180% experience for me and I feel like I moved out of HELL reflecting back on my experiences there with PSI, Sierra Vista, Heritage Oaks, Dr. Lloyd Benjamin, Dr. Elazabi, etc., etc. If one actually had not gone through it personally, one honestly could not believe it because it is so far off the pale.
Well, folks, thanks kindly for listening again. I do need to take my nap. My PSI "delusional and psychotic" pain down here is actually treated with morphine from a physician I have seen since 1993. He too started out as a psychiatrist but got out after he saw sooo many people misdiagnosed, especially women. (He claims it is 10sx worse for them.) He again diagnosed me with PTSD- starting as a child. He can't personally understand how anyone could miss it- unless they were extremely lazy (or for profit.)
And lastly, if I find out what happened to the hospital in Reno, I will post on this board. Thanks again for your kind and compassionate interest and keep up the good fight.