I have a trigeminal autonomic cephalgia disorder (often called cluster headache) with pain so bad it can cause suicide attempts and psychosis. It’s commonly listed on the top five most painful conditions list and roughly one in ten sufferers attempt suicide at least once. Due to the severity of my disorder, I had a bad run in with a sheriff and healthcare team following my first, and hopefully only ever suicide attempt.
They didn’t know what was wrong with me, just that I was trying to shoot myself and couldn’t finish because the gun jammed. Instead of sending me to the hospital to treat the pain with high flow oxygen, they put me in an involuntary psychiatric hold. I never realized how easy it it is for a normal citizen with a job, normal life, kids, and home to find themselves in a dangerous mental institution fighting for their life.
Even though they were part of the same hospital and medical system that treats my disorder and allergies, they never checked my medical history. If they had, they would have seen the cluster headache disorder and my asthma and allergy history and known what to do.
I’m anaphylactic to milk, peanuts, and shellfish, severely intolerant to sulfites, and have celiac. I eat a very, very special diet. I lost six pounds in one week under their “care.” They tried to feed me peanuts on three separate occasions, fed other inmates peanuts while in the same room with me, tried to give me vegetables with butter, and on and on. I spent an entire week eating nothing but whole fruit and dry steamed veggies. I was so weak by the time my family got me out.
They never once administered high flow oxygen for my cluster headaches, so I suffered severe, excruciating, untreated pain. And then they tried to dope me with pharmaceuticals without knowing my physical and medical history which I tried to tell the doctor, but he never once took a medical history from me, let alone asking about my condition and actually trying to treat me. Just held me like I was in a prison as if suicide was a crime and I deserved the physical torture of untreated cluster headaches and starvation for my crime.
They also didn’t have proper medication to treat my asthma. My mother had to spend nearly 800 dollars to send the facility my COPD inhaler.
People don’t get better at these places. They survive them. I’ve seen criminals get better treatment in jail than I got in that mental institution. I’ve also seen criminals get worse treatment. Our jails need food reform too. People with allergies die all the time in our jails. People with celiac get worse. And it costs us trillions in healthcare and tax dollars.
This WILL be reformed. It’s not optional for this administration or the next. I hope they make this a priority, but if they don’t, I will. It WILL be reformed. Now that I’ve seen what can happen, I can’t unsee it, and I can’t sit idly by while they kill innocents in mental institutions or torture prisoners who can’t defend themselves and can’t survive the junk food poison they hand out like pig slop.
It’s medieval, and it’s ending.