Take Them In, Make Them Worse

I am convinced that our "Behavioral Health Units" are not actually helping people get any better. I have visited three different BHUs - Los Gatos, Fremont and Santa Cruz to talk to patients requesting help, and these are not happy places. Even the Nurses and Techs that work there look like the patients. If it wasn't for the uniforms or which side of the desk they were on, I wouldn't be able to tell. I did not see ONE happy face in there. You ARE supposed to get better.

I've received reports of patients being discharged in the middle of the night and ending up in front of a stranger's doorstep. Someone obviously made up an address or something.

I bring this up as over the last two days there were two incidents:

Saturday at dinner time, I was leaving my house and saw a woman walking down the street, talking to herself. She wasn't talking into a headset or phone so it was clear she was talking to herself. She was pretty disheveled as well. I waited until she walked by before I drove off and as she passed me by, I could hear her swearing to herself and she then spat on me! A huge spray of spit. Just kept on walking. Considering the work that I do, I found this somewhat tragically ironic.

Sunday morning at Long's Drugstore, there was another lady in the store. She was swearing to herself and bitching about how psychiatric drugs are poison and not to take them. She wasn't talking on the phone either. Her appearance was poor and ragged.

My conclusion is that these two ladies had the unfortunate luck of needing help, got themselves into the hands of Psychiatrists who simply drugged them up and let them loose again, and it wouldn't surprise me if they were given shock therapy either. Made them worse.