Not Your Pawn
Thursday, March 6, 2008 at 07 pm | In Holy Crap, Lies and Spin, Now You Know, Treatment Advocacy Center, current events, health, mental health, mental health system, psychiatry |Tags: Borderline Personality Disorder, BPD, Cindy Powell, disposable people, doctors, lies, Oregon, standard of care, stigma, suicide
Cindy Powell was a 51-year-old woman who had a hard life. She was an abuse survivor living in dangerous on-the-edge poverty whose mother, her entire support system for the past several years, had recently died. Ms Powell was, understandably, in significant emotional distress. She had a diagnosis that was theoretically enough to get her mental health services, but unfortunately for Ms Powell, the psychiatric label stuck to her and her records was “Borderline Personality Disorder.”
If you haven’t been around the block a couple of times, you might innocently assume that this diagnosis has to do with symptom clusters and how best a person bearing the label can be helped in her distress. The fact of the matter is that a diagnosis of “Borderline Personality Disorder” is shorthand for “untreatable pain in the ass.” [Don't believe me? Hear it from a psychiatrist.]
Three days before her death, Cindy Powell drove herself to the emergency room to have multiple self-inflicted wounds stitched up. She stated that she wasn’t suicidal, so the hospital didn’t choose to hold her. Could they have held her? Yes. I can tell you from direct experience that an ER doctor, in Oregon, faced with any kind of self-harm behavior, can decide a person might be a threat to herself, get another doctor in the ER to sign a paper with him, and Cindy Powell would have been sitting on the psych ward. She didn’t want to be held, and the hospital didn’t want to hold her, so she was sent home.
The next day, Ms Powell overdosed on her psychotropic medications and apparently drove herself to the Emergency Room again. She was “discovered” in the waiting area just before six that evening, out cold and breathing shallowly. She was treated, and a day later was awake and speaking. What she said was, “I have nothing.” She expressed a desire to die.
Ms Powell was told she would be transferred to a local psych unit, and spent several hours telling the nurses and her doctor that she didn’t want to go there. Her doctor wrote: “She, I think, really is very manipulative wanting only to be taken care of, but refusing any direct care claiming that she wants to kill herself.”
She was just claiming that she wanted to kill herself. Natch. Cindy Powell was a “Borderline,” so the idea that she would actually kill herself was, pfft!, not even a consideration (though people with that diagnosis do kill themselves, in large enough numbers to alarm anyone with a beating heart).
That may be why, when she was being transferred to the other hospital, no, zero precautions were taken. She was on her feet, fully clothed… and perfectly capable of escaping the people ostensibly “guarding” her during the transfer. They didn’t follow when Cindy Powell ran away, ran upward, to the balcony from which she threw herself — to her death. No doubt this was just another bid for (undeserved) attention.
You can read the whole horrifying story in Ms Powell’s local newspaper.
But wait. It gets worse. Our pals and neighbors at the misinformation machine known as the Treatment Advocacy Center, an organization dedicated to stripping people with mental-illness labels of our civil rights, decided Cindy Powell would make an excellent pawn for their game. In an entry titled “Cry For Help Ignored,” TAC linked to the above newspaper article, but didn’t bother themselves too much about the actual facts of the incident.
TAC’s main point was this: Because Powell said she didn’t want to kill herself and told a nurse that she never had a desire to hurt anyone else, St. Charles’ staff couldn’t keep her, Henderson said. Three days later, Powell committed suicide.
While not precisely a lie, it does rather conveniently overlook the fact that Ms Powell was, in fact, in hospital care when she killed herself. Furthermore, she was taking her medications and actively seeking help, calling the local crisis line several times in the last days of her life, and before that attending therapy sessions at the local mental health bistro. [One wonders what "direct help" her ER doctor thought she was refusing.] TAC focuses on the fact that Ms Powell was sent home after she had sliced up her arms, insinuates that her life would have been saved if only it were easier in Oregon to hold people for psych evaluation against their will.
This kind of misinformation and spin is typical of TAC, but in this case it’s especially low. If TAC would really like to “eliminate barriers to the timely and effective treatment” of mental illness, maybe they should start with questioning why a woman crying out for assistance and blatantly and admittedly suicidal, because of her label was scorned as being merely manipulative and “cared for” with such distaste and incompetence that she killed herself in a hospital she’d come to voluntarily for help.
Cindy Powell was a human being who lived and suffered and died tragically. Cindy Powell was not your pawn, Treatment Advocacy Center. Shame on you.
Alison at Charlottesville Prejudice Watch has something to say about this, also. Thanks to her for keeping an eye on TAC and calling bullshit on them quite frequently.
Go in peace, Cindy Powell.
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This is a brilliant post. Thank you for addressing this. I’m going to link to it and hopefully send more readers your way.
Comment by thememoryartist — Friday, March 7, 2008 #
[...] If you read nothing else today, read this post at Roses on the Moon: Not your Pawn. [...]
Pingback by Stigmatized to death by the mental health profession « Why Can’t the Past Just Die ? — Friday, March 7, 2008 #
[...] Not our pawn? That’s what you think Patient. One of those disgruntled patients is at it again. Why are we allowing these patients internet access? We need tougher commitment laws, so we can keep the internet safe from these dangerous people. [...]
Pingback by Cry for help ignored « Fascism Advocacy Center — Friday, March 7, 2008 #
you know what kills me the most about this story? not that cindy powell died, but that her life was so miserable that she felt she needed to die. and that this life, or some parts of it, some parts we know about, didn’t have to be this miserable. like the part about being treated like shit by hospital personnel who are supposedly there to take care of people. what i mean by “take care” is, um, you know, pay attention to them; make them better; make them feel better.
there are valuable people and then there are throwaway people. a (((hug))) to all the throwaway people of this world.
Comment by ama — Saturday, March 8, 2008 #
I know, ama. Everything quoted in this article written or said about Ms Powell specifically by the medical people who were supposedly helping her, and should have been helping her, drips with disdain. It’s the lot of the “Borderline,” and to a lesser extent of all psychiatric patients. Do they think we can’t tell what they think of us? Or do they think it’s somehow helpful to treat desperately unhappy people badly?
Or do they think?
Comment by Rose — Saturday, March 8, 2008 #
“Do they think we can’t tell what they think of us?”
I think they do think that. Ever watch them have conversations about you as if you can’t even hear or comprehend what they’re saying? Then there are those that speak slowly and loudly as if you don’t understand English.
“Or do they think it’s somehow helpful to treat desperately unhappy people badly?”
Assuming we’re actually unhappy and not just getting off on manipulating them for attention, right?
Comment by thememoryartist — Saturday, March 8, 2008 #
Right. I forgot. It’s been so long since we’ve been in hospital ourselves, I’ve blocked out the memory of being treated like a very young, not-so-bright child.
Did you see in the article where someone speaking generally said that it wouldn’t be helpful to her to be hospitalized? That’s Pacific-Northwest-speak for “We don’t want a goddamned Borderline screwing up the mileu.” I can’t tell you how many times I’ve heard that line, always applied to some poor woman they want to toss out on her ear. It’s transparent, but I guess it makes them feel better, like they give a rat’s ass what’s good or bad for her.
Usually they reserve it for the women who want to stay, though. Which I suppose is why she said she didn’t want to stay (she drove herself there twice in three days; obviously she wanted some assistance). Just jumping through the hoops they put up in front of her. If she’d said she wanted to stay, she’d have been back home again in ten minutes. How screwed up is that?
Comment by Rose — Saturday, March 8, 2008 #
Did you see in the article where someone speaking generally said that it wouldn’t be helpful to her to be hospitalized? That’s Pacific-Northwest-speak for “We don’t want a goddamned Borderline screwing up the mileu.”
Yes, I did. Same here in the Northeast. If she hadn’t asked for help, they wouldn’t have sent her home the first couple of times.
Comment by thememoryartist — Saturday, March 8, 2008 #
this is terrible. A glaring example of how trained professionals with the “right” knowledge could have prevented her suicide but didn’t. it makes me think about the people who actually go into this profession? Do they understand the struggles of the patients or even want to?
Hi btw. I followed a link from memoryartist. Hope this article creates the kind of awareness that will prevent such tragedies in future.
Comment by darkmuze — Wednesday, March 12, 2008 #
I barely have words, this post gets me so emotional. Would you consider getting this in real quick tothe BLOG CARNIVAL AGAINST CHILD ABUSE? We really need more awareness on this and I appreciate your advocacy. Sorry it’s last minute–the deadline is midnight tonight. But it only takes a few moments and it’s really easy. Details at my blog. Thanks in advance!
Comment by marj aka thriver — Wednesday, March 12, 2008 #
Darkmuze, I only wish people in a position to change things could actually HEAR people like us. We’re preaching to the choir, here, and we know it.
Marj, I just submitted the post to the “carnival.” I’m not sure it fits in well with the Spring-ish theme, but I like the concept. Thanks.
Comment by Rose — Wednesday, March 12, 2008 #
Oh! I am sooo glad you submitted this post to the carnival. It’s beautifully, sensitively and insightfully written. What a wonderful way to raise awareness and honor Cindy’s life at the same time.
Comment by thememoryartist — Thursday, March 13, 2008 #
I just googled my old girl friend, and I am impressed by the sensitivity of some of your comments, but appalled by the crasness of so many others.
Cindy was the most gentle women, who suffered so much more than was revealed in the local paper.
She was violently raped at a very young age, 11 or 12 and as the result of the physcial injuries she sustained, underwent a totally hisotorecemy as a result.
In her 20s when I first met her, she was the most kind and gentle person…loving animals particularly, like her cat Charlie, and if kids were around she was so attentive, knowing she could never have her own.
She was married for a while but later it ended, and I discovered after my own failed marriage, (12 years for her, 14 for me),
that she was back in town.
That was just 3 years ago, and after a couple of dates, she said she had met a devout Mormon man and they were moving to Salt Lake City.
If you think mental illness is somehow self- inflicted, you are very wrong.
My dear friend called out many times for help,
I am crushed that when she came back here, she did not call me. I will never understand this ending.
It is profoundly sad.
Dave Stalker
Bend, OR
Comment by Dave S. — Thursday, March 13, 2008 #
Mr Stalker,
I do NOT think mental illness is self-inflicted. I think Ms Powell’s problems were ‘inflicted’ upon her in exactly the same way rape and surgery were inflicted upon her, with dispatch and cruelty. And I’m aware from personal experience and observation that the “mental health system” can also be quite briskly cruel. It’s pretty obvious that this was the case here. Even the bland quotes from medical professionals in the Bend Bulletin article are distressing, because we know the “code” being spoken, and what Ms Powell’s final hours must have been like under the weight of that scorn and indifference.
It is sad. It’s angering. And it’s far too common, though the perpetrators don’t usually have to witness the outcome first-hand.
We are so sorry for your loss. Thank you for commenting here.
Comment by Rose — Thursday, March 13, 2008 #
Mr. Stalker,
I’m so sorry for your loss. Ms. Powell’s suicide came to folks’ attention because the Treatment Advocacy Center used her story in a post on their blog to push their forced treatment agenda and this blog and my blog and Why Can’t the Past Just Die all responded to that cynical use of this tragedy for a political agenda.
None of us think mental illness is self-inflicted. We are all trauma survivors, both in the mental health system and out of it.
The comments about borderlines are about the way the mental health system generally treats people, usually women, who have been given that controversial and suspect psychiatric diagnosis. It is often used as an excuse to not offer help, not treat the person with respect and turn them away when they ask for help from the mental health system. And most people who get the diagnosis are child abuse survivors who are further traumatized by their experiences in the mental health system.
Again, I am so sorry for your loss.
Comment by hymes — Friday, March 14, 2008 #
dear dave,
my deepest sympathies. you must be in awful pain. just know that cindy’s pain is now over. i hope you can find a measure of relief in this knowledge, though i’m sure it won’t make up for the loss of a dear friend and wonderful person.
all of us who write and comment here are gentle people who have suffered terrible lives. cindy is one of us. we mourn her like a friend.
all the best to you.
Comment by ama — Friday, March 14, 2008 #
[...] guess. This edition includes Zoe’s post about Cindy Powell (and TAC) from earlier this month (Not Your Pawn). The other entries are very interesting, so click over and have a [...]
Pingback by Blogging Against Child Abuse « Roses on the Moon — Friday, March 14, 2008 #
Dave: Thank you for having the courage and compassion to comment here. I am so sorry for your loss. Not only do I NOT believe that mental illness is self-inflicted, in probably more cases than not, it is inflicted BY OTHERS through severe trauma.
Rose, thank you so much for sugmitting this so quickly and supporting our BLOG CARNIVAL AGAINST CHILD ABUSE. Details about the carnival are at my blog each month, as I maintain this carnival. Thanks all!
Comment by marj aka thriver — Wednesday, March 19, 2008 #
[...] Just found a number of other bloggers’ posts on this story, too. Here’s my favorite: Not Your Pawn. Please read it. All this stigma surrounding “personality disorders” needs to end. [...]
Pingback by Please Help Me « Paragraphein — Tuesday, April 8, 2008 #
read the newspaper article. the quotes from the medical professionals who ‘treated’ her at the end of her life are fucking horrible. do they beat the compassion out of people in med school or did they just have none to begin with?
Comment by Jen — Sunday, June 22, 2008 #