🔵 By Timothy Brunner. Photo by lauragrafie.
Pennsylvania’s State Prison system uses a classification system for an inmate’s mental health status. Various letters are assigned to denote the level of attention an inmate is given for mental health assistance or treatment. An “A” code is given to someone with no history of intervention for mental health episodes and is considered highly stable. A “D” codes is assigned to anyone from a PTSD sufferer to a schizophrenic. One of the main determinates in such designations is medication: What was taken and how much.
This code is what decides whether or not you have access to the psychology department of the prison to attempt to address the state of your mental health. “C” and “D” codes are routinely called in to meet and talk with trained psychologists. Meanwhile, “A” and “B” code inmates are not seen, even upon request, unless there is a so-called credible risk of self-harm.
Since suicide is not a conceivable risk with me, I am left to figure out my issues on my own. That is what I am trying to do: Figure myself out on my own. So many self-help books operate on the principle that to completely transform your life all you need to do is change your perspective. Now, I totally understand how powerful a change of perspective can be, but not when it comes to emotions. I am repeatedly asked to change what I believe about my feelings so that I can accept a different reality.
I asked a question of a friend some time ago that I will pose again here, albeit in a far less controversial manner: Why can a person born as a biological male, later decide against that physical reality that they are a woman, and have the latter accepted as true? I am not asking the right or wrong of the choice, but the process in determining it’s acceptance as an emotional reality. If this person’s feeling is what cements their reality, why am I repeatedly told that my reality is wrong because I believe and feel the wrong way about it? I am told to change my beliefs because reality is immutable, yet physical reality can be denied for the sake of a politically sensitive issue and forced on everyone else.
Double standards are unacceptable to me. This line of thought began for me because I have been mired in a pit of loneliness for a long time. In mentioning this to a friend I was told that I am not alone because they are there for me. My mother is there for me, but she hasn’t visited me in over six months. My sister is there for me, too, about every two or three months when she answers her phone for me. The friend who said they were there for me hasn’t contacted me but once in over 18 months. With so many people “there” for me, I must be lost because I cannot find where “there” is.
No, I am not saying anyone is obligated to me. I am simply saying that my feelings regarding loneliness are not an issue of perspective. This is a concrete reality of a lack of reciprocity in my life. This is a fact that my belief cannot change. Instead of lying to myself about it or hiding from it, I face and accept it. This has been causing me issues lately because I don’t want it to be so.
I am in the midst of trying to change the trajectory of my life. I mentioned the psychology department because many times I just need to talk through things and I will see my way out in my own convolutions. The easiest way for me to accomplish this is by writing. Yet, I can only write for the sake of the connection to others that such an act brings.
Take that connection and you might as well take my paper and pen. Then I will be truly alone and will become lost.
The reality that I face is always going to be largely of my own making because all of history is a fiction… The past is what we believe about what has happened. But that doesn’t make it any less real. If a person’s physical reality isn’t enough to overrule what they believe their gender to be, then my feeling alone cannot be overruled by having people around me.
If there is no connection, there is nobody there.
Sometimes it is enough to know someone is listening, so, if anyone is reading this, I thank you. I know it is difficult to empathize with my sufferings for a cornucopia of reasons, but a patient doesn’t need a doctor to have cancer to treat them. I certainly wouldn’t want a schizophrenic treating others with the same condition.
I just need someone outside of me to see me. That means it has to be someone I can show myself to honestly. That will not happen in here, so, barring an outside friend, I am alone in that. Just walk with me, friend, I will find myself through the connection we share as long as that connection is there.