The Advocate [excerpt from WIP *Within the Box*]
Spoiler alert: if you're in Amateur Writers of Long Island you should not read this yet.
Excerpt from my work in progress, Within the Box
---
A scenario in which Derek Turner, the main character, has been unexpectedly detailed on an involuntary basis. Derek (me, 1st person) is in this place because I agreed I had, as they put it, difficulties engaging and relating to other people to the degree I wished to do so. The reason for that was that I'd just recently come out. But not as something anyone had ever heard of. The term "genderqueer" didn't exist in 1982. The institution wasn't to my liking and after giving it my best try, earnestly, I had finally decided it was not for me and asked to leave, as I was a voluntary patient. Instead I was whisked away to a seclusion room. I'm locked in isolation with a specific nurse (Angela) assigned to me. Now finally someone shows up to support my effort to leave.
---
The outside door buzzes and swings open. A compact man with black-rimmed eyeglasses in a business suit and carrying a briefcase enters, escorted by facility orderlies who remain at the door as he walks on in.
“Derek Turner?”, he calls out. I wave. He comes over. Hands Angela and me each a business card. “I am with Texas Mental Hygiene Services. I’ll need some privacy to confer with my client, ma’am, so if you could wait outside?” Angela disappears through the door.
“Robert Tally”, he says, and shakes my hand. “How are you holding up?”
“I’ve had better days, but worse ones too. I just want to get out of this place. I sure am glad to see you! No one will tell me anything!”
“Well, first things first”, he tells me, and takes out a one-page document from his briefcase. “This is a 72 hour letter, which officially notifies Elk Meadow of your intent to leave. The law says that voluntary patients can’t be held for longer than that unless a court hearing finds that they need to be converted to involuntary status. Do you understand what I’m saying so far?”
“I’ve heard about 72 hour letters, but they’ve always told us in here that we could leave at any time, don’t they have to make good on that if they promised us that?”
“Unfortunately, no. What’s in the law is that they can hold you 72 hours. That’s from the time you make it official, which this document does, once we file it. Now, they can contest it, and they’ve indicated that they will. So this forces them to file a motion to contest your release and put you on involuntary hold. Let me know if I need to explain any of that before we go any further.”
“I sign this and you submit it, and then if they don’t file a motion, they have to let me go after 72 hours. But they’re saying that they will, they’re going to try to keep me here against my will.”
Robert Tally nods.
“Why? What’s their excuse for saying I can’t leave?
“I’ll get to that in a moment, but I want to cover the procedural stuff first, I want you to have a clear understanding of how this all works. An observational period is required in any contested release where the facility requests an involuntary hold. The hospital is going to argue that they’ve had you here and therefore the required observation has already occurred, and they’ll submit their impression of you. We will try to convince the judge that there should be a separate and independent observation, for the sake of neutrality, and that would be at a public state-run psychiatric facility.”
“I always thought being locked in a state hospital meant you get pumped full of Thorazine and stuck in a corner to drool”
“Well, they won’t tolerate any nonsense or clowning around, that’s for sure, they’re understaffed and don’t have time for any of that. But they don’t have a vested interest in keeping you locked up, so if you keep your nose clean for 72 hours, they’d probably say they don’t see any reason you should be retained involuntarily.”
“Yeah, okay, I can do low profile and obedient, if they don’t automatically shoot everyone up with drugs.” I swallow. I’m not good at low profile and obedient.
“The standard we have to concern ourselves with officially is ‘danger to self or others’. To hold you on an involuntary basis, the law says you have to be determined to be a danger. Unless they have any justification for saying you’ve attacked people or threatened them, that’s usually going to be ‘danger to self’.”
“I’ve read my chart, I swiped it and read the whole thing, at least how it was at the time, and it says I’m paranoid schizophrenic. And it’s full of notes saying my behavior is inappropriate, but nothing about self-harm. I did do something that they might try to make sound like was more dangerous than it actually was, I climbed up through the acoustic tiles into the ceiling crawl space. I was looking to see if that could be a way out.”
“They always introduce chart notes and they’ll always try to make the case that the patient lacks good judgment and will make bad decisions and be a danger to themself. Plus, the doctor will say ‘Well, I am a highly trained professional psychiatrist and my opinion is that this person will harm themself if we don’t hold on to them and treat them in here’, you can count on that happening. But the state has limited resources, so that’s your best bet, that the judge doesn’t see any reason to waste them on someone who isn’t really causing any problems.”
I sign the 72 hour letter and date it. Talley shakes my hand and departs.
-----
My first book, GenderQueer: A Story From a Different Closet, is published by Sunstone Press. It is available on Amazon and Barnes & Noble in paperback, hardback, and ebook, and as ebook only from Apple, Kobo, and directly from Sunstone Press themselves.
My second book, That Guy in Our Women's Studies Class, has also now been published by Sunstone Press. It's a sequel to GenderQueer. It is available on Amazon and on Barnes & Noble in paperback and ebook, and as ebook only from Apple, Kobo, and directly from Sunstone Press themselves.
My third book is deep in second draft, and I'm seeking more beta readers for feedback. It is provisionally titled Within the Box and is set in a psychiatric/rehab facility and is focused on self-determination and identity. Chronologically, it fits between the events in GenderQueer and those described in Guy in Women's Studies; unlike the other two, it is narrowly focused on events in a one-month timeframe and is more of a suspense thriller, although like the other two is also a nonfiction memoir. Contact me if you're interested.
Links to published reviews and comments are listed on my Home Page, for both published books.
-------
This DreamWidth blog is echoed on LiveJournal and WordPress. Please friend/link me from any of those environments on which you have an account.
--------
Index of all Blog Posts
Excerpt from my work in progress, Within the Box
---
A scenario in which Derek Turner, the main character, has been unexpectedly detailed on an involuntary basis. Derek (me, 1st person) is in this place because I agreed I had, as they put it, difficulties engaging and relating to other people to the degree I wished to do so. The reason for that was that I'd just recently come out. But not as something anyone had ever heard of. The term "genderqueer" didn't exist in 1982. The institution wasn't to my liking and after giving it my best try, earnestly, I had finally decided it was not for me and asked to leave, as I was a voluntary patient. Instead I was whisked away to a seclusion room. I'm locked in isolation with a specific nurse (Angela) assigned to me. Now finally someone shows up to support my effort to leave.
---
The outside door buzzes and swings open. A compact man with black-rimmed eyeglasses in a business suit and carrying a briefcase enters, escorted by facility orderlies who remain at the door as he walks on in.
“Derek Turner?”, he calls out. I wave. He comes over. Hands Angela and me each a business card. “I am with Texas Mental Hygiene Services. I’ll need some privacy to confer with my client, ma’am, so if you could wait outside?” Angela disappears through the door.
“Robert Tally”, he says, and shakes my hand. “How are you holding up?”
“I’ve had better days, but worse ones too. I just want to get out of this place. I sure am glad to see you! No one will tell me anything!”
“Well, first things first”, he tells me, and takes out a one-page document from his briefcase. “This is a 72 hour letter, which officially notifies Elk Meadow of your intent to leave. The law says that voluntary patients can’t be held for longer than that unless a court hearing finds that they need to be converted to involuntary status. Do you understand what I’m saying so far?”
“I’ve heard about 72 hour letters, but they’ve always told us in here that we could leave at any time, don’t they have to make good on that if they promised us that?”
“Unfortunately, no. What’s in the law is that they can hold you 72 hours. That’s from the time you make it official, which this document does, once we file it. Now, they can contest it, and they’ve indicated that they will. So this forces them to file a motion to contest your release and put you on involuntary hold. Let me know if I need to explain any of that before we go any further.”
“I sign this and you submit it, and then if they don’t file a motion, they have to let me go after 72 hours. But they’re saying that they will, they’re going to try to keep me here against my will.”
Robert Tally nods.
“Why? What’s their excuse for saying I can’t leave?
“I’ll get to that in a moment, but I want to cover the procedural stuff first, I want you to have a clear understanding of how this all works. An observational period is required in any contested release where the facility requests an involuntary hold. The hospital is going to argue that they’ve had you here and therefore the required observation has already occurred, and they’ll submit their impression of you. We will try to convince the judge that there should be a separate and independent observation, for the sake of neutrality, and that would be at a public state-run psychiatric facility.”
“I always thought being locked in a state hospital meant you get pumped full of Thorazine and stuck in a corner to drool”
“Well, they won’t tolerate any nonsense or clowning around, that’s for sure, they’re understaffed and don’t have time for any of that. But they don’t have a vested interest in keeping you locked up, so if you keep your nose clean for 72 hours, they’d probably say they don’t see any reason you should be retained involuntarily.”
“Yeah, okay, I can do low profile and obedient, if they don’t automatically shoot everyone up with drugs.” I swallow. I’m not good at low profile and obedient.
“The standard we have to concern ourselves with officially is ‘danger to self or others’. To hold you on an involuntary basis, the law says you have to be determined to be a danger. Unless they have any justification for saying you’ve attacked people or threatened them, that’s usually going to be ‘danger to self’.”
“I’ve read my chart, I swiped it and read the whole thing, at least how it was at the time, and it says I’m paranoid schizophrenic. And it’s full of notes saying my behavior is inappropriate, but nothing about self-harm. I did do something that they might try to make sound like was more dangerous than it actually was, I climbed up through the acoustic tiles into the ceiling crawl space. I was looking to see if that could be a way out.”
“They always introduce chart notes and they’ll always try to make the case that the patient lacks good judgment and will make bad decisions and be a danger to themself. Plus, the doctor will say ‘Well, I am a highly trained professional psychiatrist and my opinion is that this person will harm themself if we don’t hold on to them and treat them in here’, you can count on that happening. But the state has limited resources, so that’s your best bet, that the judge doesn’t see any reason to waste them on someone who isn’t really causing any problems.”
I sign the 72 hour letter and date it. Talley shakes my hand and departs.
-----
My first book, GenderQueer: A Story From a Different Closet, is published by Sunstone Press. It is available on Amazon and Barnes & Noble in paperback, hardback, and ebook, and as ebook only from Apple, Kobo, and directly from Sunstone Press themselves.
My second book, That Guy in Our Women's Studies Class, has also now been published by Sunstone Press. It's a sequel to GenderQueer. It is available on Amazon and on Barnes & Noble in paperback and ebook, and as ebook only from Apple, Kobo, and directly from Sunstone Press themselves.
My third book is deep in second draft, and I'm seeking more beta readers for feedback. It is provisionally titled Within the Box and is set in a psychiatric/rehab facility and is focused on self-determination and identity. Chronologically, it fits between the events in GenderQueer and those described in Guy in Women's Studies; unlike the other two, it is narrowly focused on events in a one-month timeframe and is more of a suspense thriller, although like the other two is also a nonfiction memoir. Contact me if you're interested.
Links to published reviews and comments are listed on my Home Page, for both published books.
-------
This DreamWidth blog is echoed on LiveJournal and WordPress. Please friend/link me from any of those environments on which you have an account.
--------
Index of all Blog Posts