Intro to The Nuthouse Stories

I have a series of short, nonfiction stories about the time I spent as an employee in a maximum security forensic mental hospital, and at a second forensic facility for retarded offenders.

Preface

These stories are all true. At least, as true as I can remember them. Which is pretty true, except for the parts I fucked up. Like dates, including years. I f**k those up routinely; consider any timeframes in this work to be rough estimates. And names, but I’m mostly f*****g those up on purpose. I can’t tell you the names of the residents (that’s what we call the people who live there) because that would be against the law. I probably won’t tell you a lot of the names of the staff and/or employees, either, because I need some alibis for some of this s**t. My point is, the events in this book are all things that really happened, in my presence, here in the real world, involving real people. I did not ask for anyone’s permission to write any of this, because the people and events described here are stuff that happened to me, or at least in front of me. So really, this is all my story, and I don’t need anyone’s permission to tell it.

These stories will be much more interesting / useful with a little bit of background about where they happened, and the overall context they happened in.

First, the general points. The location for many of these stories is called the North Florida Evaluation and Treatment Center (NFETC). It is a maximum security, forensic mental hospital located just east of Gainesville, Florida. By “maximum security” I mean it has a big fence and security officers whose primary purpose is to keep those folks who are inside the fence, well, inside the fence. Even, and most particularly, if they do not want to be there. Which most of them don’t. By “forensic”, I mean that every person sent there is sent by a judge, as related to involvement in a criminal case. Meaning, every single person sent there was arrested, charged with a felony [any felony will do: they mix drug offenders, thieves, and unlucky protesters in with rapists, murderers, pedophiles, arsonists, and people who rip off Social Security checks by fraud (seriously, f**k those people)], and deemed by the judge to be 1) too crazy to prosecute, or 2) too crazy to convict. By “mental hospital” I mean, well, a mental hospital. Do you really need me to explain that part?

Actually, yes, you do. Unless you’ve been in one, either as a patient or an employee, there’s a very good chance that you do not know what actually happens in a mental hospital, much less a forensic one. Different ones have different features, ways, and categories of clients, but they all really tend to boil down to a few simple truths and a few big issues that keep travel agents from selling timeshares there. I had worked in one, off and on and in different capacities, for years when I wrote many of these. In that time, I’d seen a lot. Not everything, and new things happen all the time, but I’ve seen a lot. You know that expression, “there’s nothing new under the sun”? Well, it’s just an expression. And not a particularly accurate one, either. These people are straight-up inventing new s**t all the time, even when it looks or smells like it’s been around before.

It’s not like anything you’ve seen on TV or in movies. There have been some really, really bad (read: bullshit inaccurate) depictions of places like this, and some that were not as bad. A few were good, in that they did not add in stuff that isn’t real, but none of them have really captured how places like this really are; how they live, breathe, eat and s**t, like a separate, sentient organism. Watching these movies and shows adds little to the publics knowledge of places that do this kind of work. It would be like looking at a picture of a zebra and thinking, “Now that I’ve seen this, I understand zebras.” Then you talk to someone who saw a zebra once and think, “Now that I’ve seen this picture AND talked to this zebra-guy, I REALLY understand zebras.” If you really, really want to understand zebras, you don’t talk to the zebra-guy; you hang out with some lions. They get zebras, in a way that even other zebras don’t. Which is to say, in the most literal, carnivorous way possible. It’s time to hang out with some crazy-loving, fucktarded lions.

-A Primer on What Happens On The Way To A Forensic Mental Hospital:

Okay, first, a guy gets arrested. (I know, I know, girls get arrested, too, but this place I’m writing about only takes males.) He gets a lawyer. The lawyer gets suspicious that the guy is mentally ill, or was at the time of the crime. Often, the guy is across-the-street crazy and anyone who gets a whiff of him will know that this s**t is far from right. It’s a pretty important legal distinction, so try to follow along from home.

If the guy might be mentally ill in the present, the lawyer can ask the judge to order an evaluation of his competency, meaning his ability to understand what’s going on in court and to stick up for himself / work with his lawyer. Think of it this way; you can be mentally ill but still understand that you’re accused of a crime, to understand how serious the charge is, and what evidence they have against you. Even people who hear voices can, sometimes, talk with the lawyer about how to defend themselves, and what kind of plea bargain might sound good. Other guys, however, have mental illnesses that keep that from happening: the arresting officers are really lizard-people; the judge is a robot from the planet Alto; everything looks like a Youtube mashup of scenes from David Lynch movies, etc. That guy, in addition to being crazy, is Incompetent to Proceed with his case, because he can’t function in the courtroom.

This “evaluation” is done by a doctor. Ideally, it will go down like this: a board certified psychiatrist with years of experience in these evaluations and extensive training in forensics and psychiatry, and how they mix, will go to the jail and see the person. They will review all available records, including medical records of past treatment and jail records of any ongoing jailhouse-related issues. They will then interview the guards / correction officers, asking for their layman’s observations of the person’s behavior (with special emphasis on misuse of feces). They will then interview the person, assessing general mental functioning as well as specific legal criteria regarding competency. They will then go back to their office and write a comprehensive, detailed report of all they have learned, including recommendations about 1) if the person has a mental illness, 2) if that mental illness is interfering with their competency as described above, 3) if 1 and 2 can be treated / handled in the current setting, and 4) if the person is dangerous enough to themselves or others, because of a mental illness, that they need to be locked up in a place like NFETC for treatment. Notice that all of these questions are separate, and none is strictly dependent on the others to find its answer.

In reality, the quality of these reports varies widely. By “varies widely” I mean, “some doctors do a pretty good job, some do okay, and some would do more good by sending the court a f*****g Magic 8-Ball with instructions on how to shake it while they ask questions.” However, judges rarely hold these doctors accountable for the quality of the reports, or even question them very much. So, every report that has a “yes, yes, no, yes” answer pattern gets the guy sent off.

If the guy might have been mentally ill at the time of the crime, the lawyer can ask the judge to order an evaluation of his sanity, meaning his ability to 1) have understood right from wrong, or been able to control himself, 2) at the time of the crime, 3) as impacted by a mental illness. My favorite way to describe this is below.

“Imagine you have a guy, who hears voices that yell random stuff at him all day, and he thinks that the police want to kill him (probably for being awesome, because cops can be dicks like that, at least in this guy’s world). He goes by a store and sees a stack of beer cases in the window. He knows that, if he drinks enough of that beer, the voices will quiet down (voices love beer) but he has no money. So, he says, “f**k it, I’ma get me some beers” and he goes into the store and tries to walk out with the beer. The clerk tries to stop him, and he knocks the clerk down and runs out with the beer. That guy is crazy, and a dick, but not insane; he had 1 and 3, but not 2. He knew he was supposed to pay for that beer.

Now imagine the same guy, same setup, only this guy has voices telling him that he owns the store, and everything in it is already his. Including, and most especially, the beer part of everything. He goes in and gets his beer, and when he knocks the clerk down he’s defending his life from the evil cops and their clerk-shaped minions. In what passes for his mind, he did nothing wrong. That guy, in addition to being crazy, is insane.”

So, some of the same doctors from the section above get detailed to evaluate the person’s sanity. Mostly, this involves the records, especially the arrest report and any investigation reports from the police. If the doctor is really sharp, he or she might, you know, actually talk to the guy, do all that evaluating stuff. Then the doctor send in a report with his observations and his opinion of the guy’s sanity. If the doc says he meets all three sanity criteria (they can vary from state to state, but are pretty close overall) and the doc says the person is dangerous enough to themselves or others, because of the mental illness, that they need to be locked up in a place like NFETC for treatment, then off they go. Not Guilty, but by reason of insanity. So they’ll never go to prison for that crime, but they are far from free.

So they go. Incompetent or insane, they go. The criteria for getting out are the opposite of the criteria for getting in: get well enough to go back to court or to go back into the world. If the person is incompetent, there’s a five year time limit (in Florida) until the court has to say, “Okay, if he ain’t right enough by now, he ain’t a-gonna be” and they drop the charge and just lock him up like a non-criminal crazy person. If the person is legally declared insane (and there’s no other way to be declared insane; the word insane is a legal term, not a mental health one), there’s not time limit on how long that person can be held in treatment involuntarily. It’s up to the doctors and the judge. Even, and especially, if the person ends up spending more time in a nuthouse than they would have been sentenced to if they just got convicted and went to prison.

-A Primer On What Happens Inside A Forensic Mental Hospital

Each guy ends up with a unique, sometimes singular, experience of their stay in a place like this. Generally speaking, the timeline for their stay looks like this:

Get Admitted / Evaluated

I

I

Get Evaluated Some More

I

I

Get Treated*

I

I

Get Evaluated Some More

I

I

Get Used To Being In A Nuthouse

I

I

Get Treated* Some More

I

I

Get Discharged

These stories that follow are examples of specific events and incidents that happen during the time these guys are there. They all fall within this timeline, for the most part. They are hilarious, horrible, heartwarming, and pretty damned unbelievable. But remember, they’re all true.

*Where the magic happens. Very often with drugs, crafts, classes, basketball, violence, or some combination thereof.**

**And drugs. Did I mention the drugs? They’re pretty key in this.

Author's Note

This is intended as an introduction to a compilation of short stories on the topic. I will post two of these as samples. I am interested in publishing this compilation.