Showing posts with label Cherokee Mental Health Institute. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Cherokee Mental Health Institute. Show all posts

Excerpt--February-April 1969: Driven

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The Long Road to Cherokee
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(Cherokee, Iowa)

Driven:
To the institution. I remember this part in black and white. The police car threaded up a hill, wheels crunching the ice. 

Excerpt moved to Memoir Madness

Excerpt--February 19, 1969: The Institution

*
(The Cherokee Mental Health Institute: Cherokee, Iowa)


Sometimes

when you walk

under a tree,

it can be just as annoying

to have a leaf fall on you

as a fly to land on you.

–Jennifer L. Semple




A battery

of psychological

tests reveals

that the patient

manifests some

“mild acting out tendencies

which is consistent

with past behavior.

It is probable

that the inclination

to conflict with social

convention will persist

but genuine anti-social

behavior is contraindicated.”

–Evaluation of Jennifer L. Semple, by R. Lowenberg

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Excerpt copyright 2008 - present, Jennifer Semple Siegel.

Text may not be reposted or republished without permission.

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Excerpt--The Institution: The First Five Days (February 19-23, 1969)

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Cherokee Mental Health Institute, where the author was incarcerated
______________________________________________________________

(Cherokee, Iowa)
On admission, the patient was alert, anxious, depressed and appeared immature with a poor self image. On the ward, she was noted to be quiet and cooperative in the ward routine. She was slightly depressed but showed no sign of anxiety at the time of the interview. She expressed extreme hostility toward her guardians who are her grandparents. She admits to experimentation of drugs. Consciousness was clear; she was well-oriented, and there was no disturbance in memory. She showed fairly good ability to counting and arithmetical calculations. Abstraction ability was good. Her insight and judgment are not impaired. Her conflict, as noted in the diagnostic staff note, appeared to be external rather than intrapsychic.
–Dr. Mariano A. Favis, Jr., “Initial Summary: Mental Examination”

Excerpt moved to Memoir Madness

Excerpt--Other Patients in the Institution: Perky Penny

*

I don’t know why Penny’s* here in the first place--she’s been here over a year--and she keeps flip-flopping between Wards 2 and 4--maybe it’s because she’s mouthy and sassy and takes no lip from the staff. I call her Perky Penny.

Excerpt--Other Patients in the Institution: Carrie the Cutter

*

(Cherokee, Iowa)

February 1969

I’m worried about Carrie*, a 15-year-old girl I have befriended. She shuffles between Ward 2 (wacko unit) and Ward 4, depending on her behavior. She’s on 4 now, but I’m afraid she’s headed back to 2 very soon.

Excerpt moved to Memoir Madness

Excerpt--Other Patients in the Institution: Joyce

*

(Cherokee, Iowa)

February-April 1969

If Penny is a lost kid dumped into the institution and Carrie a bonafide wacko, then Joyce* is just plain scary.

Other Patients in the Institution: D.J., The Mighty Sage

*

February - April 1969

I meet a new friend today--it’s kind of cold, a cruddy day, but I have to get out of that stuffy ward and take a walk, get away from Carrie and her wild escape stories.

Excerpt Moved to Memoir Madness

Excerpt--The Institution: Proving My Sanity

*


Staff meeting today. About 30 or so doctors and nurses sit in on this gala affair. More like the gallows. I’m not sure why they have these meetings--I feel like a bug stuck on a pin, struggling for life.

When Carrie had her staff meeting a few months ago, she ran out in the middle of it, and ended up on locked ward for two months.

Excerpt Moved to Memoir Madness

The Other Patients in the Institution: Anna on the Lam

*


February - April 1969

What a wild weekend. Anna, a chick who was admitted shortly after me, and her boyfriend Benito, took off from the hospital on Saturday. I knew that they were planning an escape, but I didn’t say anything to the staff. I figure it was their bag--they would have to suffer the consequences, whatever that might be.

Excerpt Moved to Memoir Madness

Excerpts from Memoir Madness: Moved to MemoirMadness.com


Excerpt--A Short History of The Cherokee Mental Health Institute

*
Cherokee Mental Health Institute, August 2004.
_____________________________________________________________________
Summer 2008

(York, Pennsylvania)



In late September 2004, I gathered my laptop, notes, photocopies of old letters to and from my ex-husband, Cherokee Mental Health: 100 Years of Serving Iowan’s (Cherokee centennial book), maps of Iowa and Cherokee, and the August 30 issue of the Chronicle Times. I carried them to Skopje, Macedonia, where I spent October 2004-May 2005 cranking out a 700-page draft.

Outtake: Mental Health Records, Patient #29109 (Appendix C)



Jennifer Semple's representation of Melanie Wilkes (from Gone with the Wind), painted during Occupational Therapy (O.T.) in the Cherokee Mental Health Institute. After she married Jeff Brown, she added "Brown" to her signature (It is possible that the painting was originally unsigned and that she simply signed it later).
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May 2002. After rereading the letters between Jennifer and Jeffrey, Jennifer googled Cherokee Mental Health Institute and found a link for inquiries; she e-mailed, requesting how she could obtain a copy of her records. A few days later, some release forms from Health Information Services were sent to her. After signing the forms and releases, Jennifer wrote the following letter to the Release of Information Clerk:


May 17, 2002

Ms. ______________
Health Information Services
Cherokee Mental Health Institute
2151 W. Cedar Loop
Cherokee, IA 51012

Dear Ms. __________:

Thank you for forwarding the appropriate forms to me for my signature. I’m not quite sure how extensively my records were kept (I was a patient only from February through April 1969, and I was not on any drug protocol), so I’m not quite sure exactly what I need in terms of records. Of course, I would want to know my intake case history, diagnosis (beginning, on-going, and ending), specific tests performed (mental and physical) and their results, progress reports and plans, physical status, exit case history, etc.

I also have one question that has been unclear to me for the past 33 years: who signed me in? In other words, who decided that I should be admitted?

Dr. Favis was my main psychiatrist/psychologist (I don’t remember his first name); Mr. Benson was my social caseworker (again, I don’t remember a first name).

I understand the costs involved, and so I look forward to your e-mailing me at__________with this information.

Again, thank you for your help.

Sincerely,

Jennifer Semple Siegel
The records totaled 12 pages; Jennifer sent the $1.00 per page fee, and her records arrived in late May, 2002.

As she read over her records, she was struck by two realities: (1) how much she has forgotten about that time and (2) how the records themselves seem trivial (at least from an outsider’s viewpoint) and repetitive, as if the hospital staff were somehow baffled by the girl’s presence. It was almost as if she did not fit into any of their prescribed slots. She wasn’t a psychopath, a manic-depressive, a depressive, a catatonic, a criminal, an incompetent; furthermore, her records suggest that if she were depressed, it was situational, not something innate within herself.

Jennifer’s doctor, in his assessment notes, says, “This patient was referred by the police matron in Sioux City because of use of drugs and paranoid feelings about family.”

Jennifer recalled why she felt paranoid about her family. Her grandparents, who had adopted when she was nine, lured her back to Sioux City, where they confiscated her mail, monitored her phone calls, and limited her contact with friends who did not pass their rigorous standards. The girl’s initial summary continues, “The patient is relatively free of hostility, except for the anger she feels toward her grandparents in response to their lack of understanding and sympathy, and their inclination to be over-directive and over-restrictive.”

In her psychological testing evaluation, her lack of diagnosis seems to be confirmed: Jennifer “is apparently not particularly subjectively uncomfortable, neither manifestly anxious nor depressed. She has a mild self image problem which is both derivative of and productive of construction of social relationships.” On the other hand, the evaluation from her WAIS, HTP, RIS, MMPI, and Rorschach tests reveals that she manifested some “mild acting out tendencies which is consistent with past behavior. It is probable that the inclination to conflict with social convention will persist but genuine anti-social behavior is contraindicated.”

While the psychological tests may have offered some insights to her personality traits, Jennifer did not reveal much information to her doctor at Cherokee. She remembers deciding that she would keep a low profile and reveal minimal information about her background. In the initial summary, under “Mental Trend and Content of Thought,” the report notes, “...she could not remember anything about her true parents.” Jennifer, however, did remember her parents, particularly her mother, an alcoholic who would get into violent fights with her stepfather.

It is true that she barely knew Robert C., her natural father, although, to this day, she has a letter from him to her grandparents, dated August 9, 1952, in which he explains why he and her mother should make their separation permanent. She almost feels sorry for him.

Jennifer may have revealed more than she recalled. Still, she felt that they could not keep her in the institution if she did not reveal too much about her past, for example, an incident with an older boy when she was eight. This was to be a secret to be kept inside until much later in life. However, the section under “Summary and Evaluation” hints that perhaps Jennifer did confide in Dr. Favis, her psychiatrist: “The patient had several traumatic experiences in her earlier life...” but Dr. Favis does not go into any specific detail, other than to reiterate her mother’s several marriages, divorces, and chronic alcoholism.

Her records do suggest a reticence to talk freely. She remembered babbling a lot during her therapy session, even enjoying them, but not saying much of substance. She would talk about Jeff (noted erroneously as “Don” in her records), her plans to head to the east coast, have some fun, perhaps get a job, get married, have children–pretty much live an ordinary life. She certainly didn’t accomplish much head work in those sessions.

Jennifer asked Dr. Favis not to put her on any medication. When he asked why, she said, “I’m in here because of drugs; why would you want to give me more drugs?”

Dr. Favis nodded. “I see your point.”

Jennifer knew then that at least one person in this godforsaken place listened to her, thought what she had to say was important. The truth was, she had seen how lethargic the other patients were and didn’t want to be logy like them; she wanted to stay up late at night to write letters, watch T.V., and think without having to deal with the other patients. Whatever drugs they prescribed knocked patients out by 8:00-8:30, and with the exception of the ward clerk, a girl about her own age, she had the ward to herself.

Perhaps Jennifer harbored a natural aversion to psychiatric drugs, given her own psychedelic experiences, some of which had been frightening. The research reveals that Jennifer had reason to be afraid, for mental institutions were still places were problematic people were warehoused and drugged. In 1954, the drug Thorazine, a drug she recalls being mentioned by other patients, was embraced by mental hospitals all over the world because of its profound tranquilizing effects (Psychiatric Drugs: Thorazine)

Other drugs prescribed then included antidepressants, such as iproniazid (an MAOI developed in 1956), imipramine (a tricylcic anti-depressant), valproic acid and carbamazepine (both mood stablizers), and ibogaine (for withdrawal symptoms). Lithium, of course, was an old standby (Psychiatric Drug).

Dr. Favis agreed not to prescribe drugs; perhaps he had already come to that conclusion himself, given that she was designated as a screening center patient (which she did not know at the time). Her records suggest a fairly normal 18-year-old girl with some self-image problems and anger issues, but not someone who would benefit from the psychiatric drugs of the day.


During O.T., she completed at least two oil paintings: a representation of Melanie Wilkes from Gone with the Wind, and an old man who looked somewhat like her grandfather. She kept the Melanie portrait–which she still has (see the photo at the beginning of this post)–a waif-like creature who resembled more of a flower child than a southern belle from a historical novel. She gave the old man, who featured some clown characteristics, to Dr. Favis as a thank-you present.

Other than his kindness, Jennifer doesn’t remember much about Dr. Favis, even his first name. According to her letters, he was Filipino. Perhaps he was Asian, but he may have been Latino–he spoke with an accent. He was short, thin, with horned-rimmed glasses, and a mass of straight shiny, thick hair, and a sallow complexion. She never saw him without his white coat. This memory may or may not be an accurate one, but this is what she remembers about him. In 2002, she learned from her records his full name: Mariano A. Favis, Jr., M.D.

When Jennifer Googled him by his full name, she found nothing. A current urban legend says that if a person does not appear on Google, he or she does not exist, but, surely, a man of Dr. Favis’ caliber would be everywhere. She tried his first initials, which is standard publication protocol in the sciences and found one relevant entry: a 1978 letter to the editor in the American Journal of Psychiatry, titled “Psychopathology of the Team Concept.” (135: 1117-1118). Of course, he must have done his most important work before the web.

As Jennifer delved deeper into the letters, she experienced an epiphany: Dr. Favis was probably one of the most important people of her life. He literally held her fate in his hands, and he could have abused that power. Jennifer was not an easy patient; she often acted up and out, sometimes playing annoying pranks, other times mouthing off to the staff. She often refused to get up in the morning, skipped O.T., and consistently challenged him, social workers, and nurses. She was often “written up” by the staff. Yet none of her records reveal any of those things. Perhaps he understood that she didn’t belong there, and he wasn’t about to prolong her stay just because she was acting “adolescent.”

She wonders where he might be now, and where he went after Cherokee, and, more important, why Cherokee in the first place. She would to think that it was providence that had sent him to this place. But, she knows better; even she isn’t that egocentric.

Does he even still remember her?

Doubtful.

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"Snippets Here and There" is copyright 2008, by Jennifer Semple Siegel.

Text may not be reposted or republished without permission.

___________________________________________________________



Outtake: The Politics of Paperwork (Appendix B)


The first page of my court papers (Click on photo for larger view.)
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I expected barriers in getting the documents I needed for my work, but, in the end, the process was fairly painless, requiring some minor fees, and in the case of the court documents, showing my U.S. passport (which shows my full name) to the Sioux City courthouse to prove my identity, given the confidential nature of my records. The current clerks and officials at the Woodbury County Courthouse and Cherokee Mental Health Institute were extremely courteous and prompt in providing me with the documents that I needed. Given my experience 35 years ago, this was a pleasant surprise.

I assumed that the court documents and hospital records would offer “profound” formal descriptions and carefully prepared insights about my case and incarceration. In short, “cover your ass” stuff.

The reality: the court papers are harried intake sheets, sloppily handwritten and prepared, suggesting an impatience to dispose quickly of this problematic misbehaving, drugged-out, troubled child who was causing difficulty for the court system.

The court papers total 10 pages, the two “Mental Health Institute, Cherokee, Iowa, Subsequent History” pages essentially blank except for short notations regarding patient number, reason for commitment, and eventual discharge. The rest of the papers, thrown together willy nilly, were filled with Swiss cheese holes; a good lawyer, not available to me, could have taken the legal system to task and won “acquittal” for me.

The hospital records, covering two months, total 12 pages: initial summary, mental status examination, social history report, psychological testing, and final summary. Nothing profound at all, nothing bewildering to report–no evidence of my chronic bursts of anger, adolescent pranks, and unwillingness to follow hospital rules.

Why should I have been surprised at the routine tone of these documents? For were not their preponderance of importance only in my own mind? Wasn’t I just another quasi-juvenile case clogging the judicial system with the minutiae of growing up?

* * * * *

Jennifer, the girl, had been home from California about a month. She realized immediately that coming back to Sioux City (at her grandparents’ prodding) had been a colossal mistake, a trick to lure her back on their turf. They must have realized that controlling the girl would be more difficult in Hollywood, California, where the girl had friends and places to hide.

She decided to leave Sioux City and take the Greyhound bus to York, Pennsylvania, close to where Jeffrey Brown lived. She liked Jeff–he had been a good friend in the short time they had known each other–and she had been disappointed when he left L.A. to spend Christmas with his family. She could not understand the kind of loneliness that comes when a young man is close to his family and lives far away from them.

Before he left, he tried explaining his ties to his family, how their luring him back to Pennsylvania was not a trick, but a calling, a yearning–a worried, but profound love; he was a wanted, cherished child, not an afterthought. He was not a child to be taken in because one had no choice but to care for (for all intents and purposes) a motherless child. His mother Jeanette yearned for her oldest child in a way that Jennifer could never conceive. In later letters, Jeanette would reveal how Jeff’s absence had caused her terrible psychological and physical pain–an inability to eat or sleep until her son was safely home.

Jennifer wondered if her grandparents felt that way about her and if her anger and obsession with running away caused them great pain and agony because they felt a hole in their lives with her absence, or was it simply guilt that reached back to the girl’s mother’s generation, her problematic childhood, and current alcoholism? Jennifer would never know.

Still, Harley and Olive Semple did not want Jennifer to leave Sioux City; they wanted her to stay, get psychological counseling, train to become a dental hygienist, settle in Sioux City, get married in the Catholic Church, have children, attend Mass every Sunday and Holy Day, and not make waves or embarrass them in any way, especially in front of their friends and family.

Jennifer had no idea what she wanted, only that it didn’t exist in Sioux City and did not include dental hygienist training. Perhaps a new life in York, Pennsylvania, with Jeff Brown would satisfy that wanderlust, that obsession to somehow escape a mundane life in Sioux City. She had no idea what she would do in York–or even exactly where York was located on the map–or how Jeff Brown really felt about her invading Pennsylvania, but she would figure out details later.

Jennifer went to the downtown bus depot and bought a one-way ticket to York.

Cost: $43.00.

She carried a small travel bag with her, which held her diary from high school and a few letters from Jeff and other friends. If she had a change of clothes, she doesn’t remember–those items seemed minuscule, obtainable anywhere.

She does remember her grandfather following her around town to the bus depot, hiding behind department store columns, his raincoat and hat with feather in brim giving him an Inspector Clouseau look. Did he really believe that he remained unseen?

After Jennifer bought her ticket, Harley Semple confronted her, and, with surprising strength for a 68-year-old man, held her arms so that she couldn’t move without pushing him to the floor.

She often wondered how her life might have changed had she pushed her grandfather away and, without looking back, boarded that bus. Would he have been injured, or, worse yet, died from his fall (instead of dying five years later from an ailment resembling Lou Gehrig’s disease)? Would she have ended up in Cherokee anyway or in jail, perhaps, charged with murder?

Something in the girl–a form of love, maybe–stopped her from pushing her grandfather away and breaking for freedom.

Instead, she said, “Let’s see what the police have to say.” She had nothing to fear, after all; she was of age and, legally, had done nothing wrong. Surely, when she told the police that she was now grown up and quit using drugs, they would let her go. They had no reason to keep her, right?

As she stepped into the police station, walking distance from the bus depot, she immediately realized her mistake.

In 1969 Sioux City, there was no sympathy for an 18-year-old girl who had admitted to using LSD, uppers, and marijuana, then vaguely known as exotic, frightening drugs used only by beatniks and bums. She was simply viewed as incorrigible and disobedient, and, therefore, in the wrong. As Jennifer explained her situation to Opal Casey, the police matron in charge of Woodbury County juvenile delinquents, the girl felt that something unpleasant was about to transpire. The law would not be on her side.

The significant Supreme Court decisions limiting involuntary commitment would not be decided until Humphrey v. Cady, 405 U.S. 504, 509 (1972), which ruled involuntary civil commitment to a mental institution as “a massive curtailment to liberty,” and O’Connor v. Donaldson, 422 U.S. 563, 574 (1975), which ruled that there is “no Constitutional basis for confining such [mentally ill] persons involuntarily if they are dangerous to no one and can live safely in freedom” and that the presence of mental illness “does not disqualify a person from preferring his home to the comforts of an institution”--too late for the girl.

Her only protection, then, was Specht v. Patterson, 386 U.S. 605, 608 (1967), which offered legal protection at the mercy of the court system itself: “...involuntary commitment to a mental hospital, like involuntary confinement of an individual for any reason, is a deprivation of liberty which the State cannot accomplish without due process of law.” Even a neophyte can see how a lower court might interpret that Supreme Court decision to fit its agenda.

But, back then, the girl knew nothing of any Supreme Court decisions that tried to protect her rights.

At the police station and during the conversation with the police matron aligning against the girl’s constitutional right to freedom, the girl sunk into despair. After that, her actual memory betrays. A look at the girl’s court documents reveals that Opal Casey, with the help of Harley Semple, filled out an information sheet, requesting the court to commit Jennifer L. Semple to the Cherokee Mental Health Institute. This form contained the basic information one would expect: name, address, phone number, employment, parents’ names, etc. and the following passage:

To the honorable Commissioners of Hospitalization, Woodbury County, Iowa. Request Commitment [of Jennifer L. Semple] to M.H.I. [Mental Health Institute]. Transportation by Sheriff. Your Informant respectfully represents that the above named person now in said County is afflicted with Mental Illness and a fit subject for custody and treatment in the Mental Health Institute at Cherokee as he/she therefore asks that the necessary steps be taken to investigate his/her condition as the law provides in such cases [signed] Opal Casey, Informant, State of Iowa, Woodbury County.

Tellingly, the information sheet continues,

I, the undersigned, do solemnly swear that the matters and things alleged in the above information to which my name is affixed, are true as stated, each and all, as I verily believe. [signed] Harley Semple Opal Casey, Informant [the grandparents’ address and phone number remain intact]. Subscribed and sworn to before me by Harley Semple Opal Casey, the affiant, this 19th day of Feb., 1969. WITNESS my hand and official seal the date last named. [signed] Maurice Flanagan, Clerk, By [Deputy clerk line left blank].
All of her life, the girl, now a middle-aged woman, wondered who was responsible for committing her. Her grandparents adamantly denied signing the paperwork, and she found out the truth, albeit still somewhat ambiguous, on August 23, 2004, when she received photocopies of her court records.

The crossed out name of her grandfather suggests that he desperately wanted help for his granddaughter but (1) did not want to be seen as “the bad guy” by acting as the official informant, or (2) he could not afford to pay the hospital bill.

Perhaps both reasons are valid.

Imagined conversation between Harley Semple and Opal Casey as she fills out the paperwork:

H.S. –Jennifer needs help, I’m afraid. I don’t know what to do.

O.C. –You could commit her to Cherokee for observation.

H.S. –Seems rather drastic, but what choice do I have? She’s so angry, and the drugs...she scares me.

O.C.(Sighing as she scribbles in his name on the information form.) –These kids today... (Shakes her head.) Don’t know what’s good for them, what with all these strange drugs and immoral ways. What is the world coming to, anyway?

H.S. (Scratching his forehead.) –If she gets wind of this, she’ll despise me...

O.C. –You’re doing the right thing.

H.S. –I don’t know if I can do this. (Pauses.) Who’s going to pay for this, anyway?

O.C. (Taps her pen.) –I’m afraid you’ll be financially responsible, Mr. Semple.

H.S. (Wringing his hands.) –I don’t know. We can’t afford hospital bills; my wife and I are on Social Security and barely making it now. This would kill us financially.

O.C. (Takes in a deep breath and sighs.) I can’t tell you what to do here. It’s your decision.

H.S. (Scratches his chin.) –Can’t you sign as informant?

O.C. (She sets down her pen and steeples her hands.) –I don’t know the girl. I see she needs help, but, to what extent, I can’t say for sure. It’s really your word against hers.

H.S. (Places his face in his hands.) –Oh, God, I’d rather die than betray her. (Pauses, as if he’s formulating a thought.) It’s not the money, really. If I thought committing Jennifer would help, I’d do it in a blink and worry about the money later. But she doesn’t trust me as it is; this would kill anything between us.

O.C. (Picks up her pen again and scratches out “Harley Semple,” and scribbles in her own name) –This is between us, Mr. Semple.

H.S. (Brushes his hair back with his hand.) –Thank you.

Thus, with the scratch of a pen, the girl’s grandfather acceded both financial and legal responsibility to Woodbury County, Iowa, a decision that probably dogged this decent man to the end of his days.

* * * * *

A hearing was held on February 19,1969, to determine the mental state of the girl. The court appointed one Clay H. Jensen, Esquire, as the attorney representing the girl’s interest. Dr. C.F. Berkstresser, “a Regular Practicing Physician,” was appointed/ordered to examine the girl to determine her mental state. The “Appointment of Physician–Mental Illness” form ordered the physician

to visit or see said person and to make a personal examination touching the truth of the allegations [of mental illness] of said information and touching her actual condition.

[The physician] will therefore proceed at once to make such examination and forthwith report thereon to said Commission at this office as the law requires in such cases...

The girl has no memory of a Sioux City physician examining her, but she can’t discount the possibility entirely. She does suspect that if an examination was done, it was cursory–that the paperwork was filled out without an extensive and fair examination.

But the form, signed by Dr. Berkstresser, states,

GENTLEMEN: In pursuance of your appointment and the accompanying instructions under date of 2/19/69, I have this day seen the person named in said paper as mentally ill, and have made a personal examination in her case, as required by law, and I hereby certify that in my judgment said person is mentally ill, and a fit subject for custody and treatment in the Mental Health Institute. I also certify that I have stated correctly the answers I have obtained from the best sources within my knowledge, and from my own observation, to the questions furnished, which questions, with answers thereto are hereby are hereto appended. WITNESS my hand this 19th day of Feb. 1969, [Signed] C.F. Berkstresser, M.D.

In a careless, sloppy hand, Dr. Berkstresser filled out a questionnaire, which included the following questions and answers:
Q. Relatives or ancestors mentally ill or afflicted?

A. No [Nothing about the girl’s alcoholic mother].

Q. Was patient ever addicted to intemperance in any form?

A. No.

Q. Alleged cause of mental illness?

A. Was in California; Past 6 months. 2-3 trys [sic] of Pot per week for 2-3 weeks, “Bennies,” has been here in Sioux City 6 weeks. Yesterday went to police & ask for help–to prove her adoption. Grandparents Father & Mother. That they no longer have anything to say about what she does.

Q. Number of attacks?

A. 7.

Q. Duration of attack?

A. 6 months.

Q. Previous attacks, date and duration?

A. & 2 months here.

Q. Treatment, if any, with PARTICULARS AND EFFECT?

A. No.

Q. When were the first symptoms of this attack manifested, and in what way?

A. When her grandparents brought her back at the rooming house request. [St. Francis DePaul]

Q. Does the disease appear to be increasing, decreasing, or stationary?

A. [None]

Q. Is the disease variable and are there rational intervals? If so, do they occur at regular periods?

A. [Scratched out and unintelligible]

Q. On what subjects and in what way is derangement now manifested? State Fully.

A. Incorrigible. Feels everyone except the hippies are against her.

Q. Has the patient shown a disposition to injure others?

A. No. [The O’Connor v. Donaldson, 422 U.S. 563, 574 (1975) Supreme Court ruling would have stopped the commitment process here.]

Q. Has suicide ever been attempted?

A. No. [O’Connor v. Donaldson, 422 U.S. 563, 574 (1975) applicable here, too.]

Q. If so, in what way? Is the propensity now active?

A. [Not applicable]

Q. Is there a disposition to filthy habits, destruction of clothing, breaking of glass, etc.?

A. No.

Q. Did the patient manifest any peculiarities of temper, habits, dispositions or pursuits before the accession of the disease?

A. No.

Q. Any predominant passion, religious impressions, etc.?

A. No.

Q. Has the patient been subject to any bodily disease, epilepsy, suppressed eruptions, discharges of sores, or ever had any injury of the head?

A. No.

Q. Has restraint or confinement been employed? If so, what kind and how long?

A. No.

Q. Previous hospital treatment?

A. No.

Q. Condition when discharged?

A. No.

Q. Character or type of mental illness?

A. Paranoid Reaction. Everyone is against her.

Q. Habits?

A. Poor. [Contradictory?]

Q. Physical condition?

A. Good.

Q. State any other matter supposed to have a bearing on the case.

A. No. [Could be just a scribble.]

Based on the profound information gleaned from the physician’s “examination,” the following order was entered:

Physician’s Designation of Authority

I, the undersigned Physician appointed in the within case, by authority of Section 229.11 of the code, do hereby designate and authorize Co. Sheriff to convey the within named patient to the Mental Health Institute at Cherokee and deliver him/her to the Superintendent thereof, securing his receipt for such delivery as required by Code Sec. 229.11. [Signed] C.F. Berkstresser, M.D.

The hearing. The girl knew immediately that the legal deck was stacked against her, her fate having been determined the minute Opal Casey scratched out her grandfather’s name and scribbled in her own.

Her memory is vague, but she does remember sitting in a dark room, around a mahogany or walnut conference table, at least a dozen pair of eyes on her, this incorrigible girl now overpowered by the system that has just accused her of being anti-establishment and disobedient.

“Why bother?” she thought as her so-called lawyer, Mr. Clay H. Jensen, stared at her with naked disapproval, his watery blue eyes disgusted with this incorrigible girl who would dare to question authority. An elderly man (as she recalls) with white hair and wrinkles, he belonged to a generation born in the previous century, so far removed from her carefree, swinging 1960's--his signed statement, then, was surely ironic:

I, CLAY H. JENSEN, attorney, appeared on behalf of subject patient [Signed] Clay H. Jensen.

Various people, including her lawyer, asked some silly geography questions, particularly interested in knowing what states one must travel through to get to Pennsylvania.

They also asked about past drug use; Jennifer answered truthfully. When they asked if she currently used, she answered “no,” also the truth.

However, “no” did not fit the parameters of the paperwork.

The court determined that the girl should go to Cherokee Mental Health Institute for screening. Diagnosis: Mental Illness.

So what might one surmise from the legal paperwork?

Perhaps if the girl had competent legal representation, her counsel would have blasted holes through the paperwork, and Jennifer would have avoided two months of involuntary confinement.

But she was young, and even as she rebelled on one level, she still believed in absolutes, the power of the establishment and her own helplessness against it.

The system and its workers were older and more experienced than she, so they were able to impose on her their will by manipulating the law to fit what they believed what was right for the girl and all young people who would buck social norms.

The commitment laws of the time could not protect her; once a court deemed a person unfit, she could essentially be held hostage in a mental institution indefinitely. Moreover, the doctors, psychologists, and social workers could take their own sweet time conducting their tests on the patient.

The 1972 and 1975 Supreme Court decisions came too late for her.

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"The Politics of Paperwork" is copyright 2008, by Jennifer Semple Siegel

This text may not be republished or reposted without permission.


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Outtake: The Politics of Memoir

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Jubilant Jennifer and Jeff together, Spring 1970
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Article moved to Why I Write.
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"Jennifer Juniper," Donovan Leitch, 1968 (YouTube)

Jefferson Airplane

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Jefferson Airplane: "White Rabbit" and "Somebody to Love"

Jefferson Airplane performing live both "White Rabbit" and "Somebody to Love" on the Smothers Brothers Comedy Hour. More
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