Another sad commentary on Michigan's mental health centers: OUR STATE PRISONS!

For the past 20 years I’ve been troubled by the manner in which mentally challenged inmates have been treated at Michigan’s only prison for women. We MUST demand more and better training for caregivers in all of Michigan’s correctional facilities. 

I’m not going to come to any conclusion with this piece. This time, I’m going to let one of my friends behind bars, a whistleblower and a suicide watch observer, tell the story. 

Jane has suicidal ideation. and has been dealing with it all her life. She finally reached out for help in the last few years. 

Jane was moved to a unit that her therapist and psychiatrist were well aware triggered these thoughts…the administration is well aware as well. The day after they moved her she saw her psychiatrist. She was very honest about where her thoughts were. He concluded that she had to see her therapist once a week until these thoughts past. 

That was the beginning of January. BOTH her psychiatrist and therapist left days later. She never saw anyone. she started staying in her cell because the thoughts were turning into seeing herself hanging. So, no chow hall and she stopped going to med lines, much needed meds. She wrote mental health and begged to be seen. She wrote the warden and informed him again of her mental health diagnosis. Nothing. Then she wrote a kite and told mental health she didn't want her medication or therapy anymore. 

In March they called her over there. That's when they informed her that both her therapist and psychiatrist were gone. She told the new lady her thoughts, what she sees. This therapist says she's going to see her once a week until she's stable. It has been almost three weeks. She hasn't seen her since. 

Jane stopped coming out of her cell, stopped medication, stopped everything.  

Around here if you cry for help you’re either ignored or put in a room without clothes or therapy. 

Right after Jane begged for help Angela committed suicide in segregation. Jane told her therapist that she was jealous because she didn't have the courage that Angela had.

Jane was doing good. she was finally coming out of that huge trigger that set her back so far.

She was honest with the people who could have helped. Instead, you have to threaten your bunkies, throw boiling pop on your peers, and then they might help you. But, when it’s something as small as allowing her to live in a unit without a banister so she can come out of her room without seeing herself hanging from the upper level banister, they don't care. 

The administration really believes they are more knowledgeable about mental health then mental health is. Then we have another Angela 

Jane just wanted to learn how to stop wanting to die and wake up wanting to live. she was doing that. 

Our administration and mental health need to work together. This story shows you just how little they care whether we live or die. 

With a slight modification to Bob Pierce’s quote: 

“Let our hearts be broken with the things that break God’s heart.”