Season Reasoning

The last few months have been chaotic for me. I am still very unclear as to my mother's charges against her, her condition, her psychological state, etc... With the holidays singing in the air, I have struggled terribly to be happy with everyone else. My mind keeps going back to the most ridiculous scenarios I have dealt with for the last decade and a half.

One memory that refuses to leave my mind is how my mother was treated, in my presence, by a mental health tech in Lake City, Florida. My mother had been on a "petty crime" spree and the jail transferred her to an indigent facility, I later transferred her to a better facility in Gainesville, Fl. The building was beige, all beige even the chairs. It stunk and it was tiny. There were 30-40 patients in a small T.V. room to the side of the intake room where I met police as they transferred my mom. She had been there just the previous week and getting her transferred the week before had been unsuccessful by phone, so I chose to drive the 100 miles to do it in person. It was required that this facility take her vitals before we loaded her back into the police cruiser and head south to her usual facility. I stepped in quietly and listened as the barely-eighteen tech began taking her vitals. My mother was calm and doing as he asked, raising her arm for the blood-pressure cuff, lifting her tongue for the thermometer, etc..

He began speaking to her extremely condescendingly, but I knew he didn't know who I was so I chose to keep my mouth shut. He began "Now Juliet, are you going to behave for me this time?" She was still being perfectly cooperative. He continued "You don't want this to get physical again do you? You aren't going to act like you did last week, you saw how that ended for you!" and with his last statement I opened my mouth. I questioned first "do you realize I am her daughter?" He shook his head no, then decided to jump to his own defense, "you didn't see it! She was a wild woman!" I cut him off "and she is being perfectly fine now. I understand she can get belligerent, but you are trying to instigate her to action!" "I am not!" he retorted. With my smirk and head wobble I began my speech "if I am here right now and you are speaking to her this way, what are you doing to the family-less patients here? I do believe you are the reason my mother had 2 black eyes last week, I was suspicious of that, but now I know!" His supervisor came out to intervene and "deescalate" the "situation." He explained the tech was new and please forgive his indiscretion. I refused forgiveness and demanded he be fired, the supervisor looked at me blankly and said "no!" I requested his supervisor, whom conveniently was on vacation, and a contact number. I called numerous times and was never contacted nor informed whether the tech still works there. I cannot let go of what my mind tells me happens to those patients that don't have family willing to intervene.

It is extremely difficult balancing having my mother around when I have 4 children myself. I often worry, and am blatantly told by some, that her being around my kids will damage them somehow. I never choose her over my children, when an incident beyond control takes place, thankfully there have only been a few. My children love and accept my mother. My older two understand there are issues that play into the often strange advice that comes from her, but they have a tremendous understanding of how delicate our minds truly are. They are fully aware of how grateful they should be for their minds and ability to think. The twins adore my mother, and while sometimes they know she does silly things, she meets them at their level and they have a kinship with one another. If it weren't for my being unwilling to forget my mother, I don't know what would have happened to her.

Yes, "letting her go" would realistically be "simpler" for me, but deep within me I cannot do it! I rarely receive thanks from my mother, but when I do it is touching. My heart hurts for those like my mother defenseless and in our justice system. They have no one fighting for them, no one in their corner, and are often "demonized" by local media. They receive no fair trial, because so many have used "insanity" pleas, and accept whatever heavy-handed judgement is deemed. They sit in prisons, often being taken advantage of by other inmates, and waste away. No visitors, no letters, no commissary money, nothing. Those that make it to hospitals for their sentence often end up in indigent care where "techs" are a dime a dozen and provoke their illness.

I am currently working on getting my mother's official police incidents, papers, etc... I have help from a family member that is an attorney and she has been such an amazing gift! Truly I hope my mother will not die in a prison in Georgia, but the possibility remains. The next time you see a "demonized" criminal whose actions seemed unreal, they may have been. They may be like my mother.