Wednesday, April 20, 2005
So I went to Berkeley Mental Health today. Let me tell you, those people don't know shit. So I got there and told them that my social worker had said that I had to get seen. I explained that I had seen an intake worker about 5 or 6 weeks ago. The guy at the desk asked me the intake person's name and called her, and checked with the dude next to him, and I guess they couldn't find me in their system. So he had me sit down. As I was leaving the front desk, the guy behind me is saying, "I saw you, I saw you in Redondo Beach." Obviously he is not speaking to anyone who is in the room. I sit down and that guy continues with his occasional outbursts.
A young white worker (ok, really he is most likely a student) comes out and talks to a black guy who is sitting in the corner. I guess he is telling him about an anger management class that he wants to put him in. The guy starts talking about how he hasn't been able to get his bag back from John George (county mental hospital). At this point the worker should have used active listening and said, "I hear/understand that you are concerned about your bag, but I am not able to help you with that. I think that an anger management class might help you to look beyond your anger and work proactively to get your bag back." Instead he just tries to talk through the guy about the class, and the guy gets madder and madder and they go outside. They keep coming back and forth, as the worker goes inside to check on things or whatever. At one point when the guy was sitting in his corner of the waiting room, he said, "It must be easy being white." I said, "It's not." I really would have liked to talked to this guy, and told him about how he should hold them accountable for giving him appropriate care. When I was leaving, the guy was outside with the worker, saying that if he was in a class with a bunch of wife beaters, some people would really get hurt. I thought that was really cool of him. Sometimes I think I could be a mental health care provider, since obviously I can do it better than these losers.
The guy who was talking to himself or some invisible person kept getting louder and louder- I kept looking at the desk to see what their reaction was. The receptionist was on the phone at one point, maybe getting that guy's provider.
Eventually the guy who had been sitting next to the receptionist calls me up and explains that they haven't even opened up a case on me (I should have said, "Well, open one!!" but maybe I don't want it to go on record that I think/act that belligerently...then again that would be a way to get their attention faster). He said he would open one tomorrow, tomorrow morning, in "fact," and that the process (he implied the paperwork) would take a week or two. Bullshit. He said the waiting list is 20 people. That doesn't sound like so many. If they don't have enough money to care for these people they should get an intern and write some fucking grants.
The worst part of all of this was that I was having a minor anxiety attack the whole time. When I was leaving the house, I had discovered that the brakes on my extra bike (the one that doesn't have the headset falling off) are unhooked. I tried a few different methods to fix this, but nothing worked. I even called my bike mechanic, who now lives 60 miles away. So it kind of looks like someone had unhooked the brakes as they were trying to steal my back wheel. I actually have the thingie to make it so you can't steal the wheels on that bike, though, so the brakes were just unhooked. Maybe it was just the bike falling in the garage at some point that caused the brakes to unhook, but I dunno- the brakes are FUCKED. And I can't get them fixed and I need to have an extra bike, and...
email me at haydees@gmail.com
A young white worker (ok, really he is most likely a student) comes out and talks to a black guy who is sitting in the corner. I guess he is telling him about an anger management class that he wants to put him in. The guy starts talking about how he hasn't been able to get his bag back from John George (county mental hospital). At this point the worker should have used active listening and said, "I hear/understand that you are concerned about your bag, but I am not able to help you with that. I think that an anger management class might help you to look beyond your anger and work proactively to get your bag back." Instead he just tries to talk through the guy about the class, and the guy gets madder and madder and they go outside. They keep coming back and forth, as the worker goes inside to check on things or whatever. At one point when the guy was sitting in his corner of the waiting room, he said, "It must be easy being white." I said, "It's not." I really would have liked to talked to this guy, and told him about how he should hold them accountable for giving him appropriate care. When I was leaving, the guy was outside with the worker, saying that if he was in a class with a bunch of wife beaters, some people would really get hurt. I thought that was really cool of him. Sometimes I think I could be a mental health care provider, since obviously I can do it better than these losers.
The guy who was talking to himself or some invisible person kept getting louder and louder- I kept looking at the desk to see what their reaction was. The receptionist was on the phone at one point, maybe getting that guy's provider.
Eventually the guy who had been sitting next to the receptionist calls me up and explains that they haven't even opened up a case on me (I should have said, "Well, open one!!" but maybe I don't want it to go on record that I think/act that belligerently...then again that would be a way to get their attention faster). He said he would open one tomorrow, tomorrow morning, in "fact," and that the process (he implied the paperwork) would take a week or two. Bullshit. He said the waiting list is 20 people. That doesn't sound like so many. If they don't have enough money to care for these people they should get an intern and write some fucking grants.
The worst part of all of this was that I was having a minor anxiety attack the whole time. When I was leaving the house, I had discovered that the brakes on my extra bike (the one that doesn't have the headset falling off) are unhooked. I tried a few different methods to fix this, but nothing worked. I even called my bike mechanic, who now lives 60 miles away. So it kind of looks like someone had unhooked the brakes as they were trying to steal my back wheel. I actually have the thingie to make it so you can't steal the wheels on that bike, though, so the brakes were just unhooked. Maybe it was just the bike falling in the garage at some point that caused the brakes to unhook, but I dunno- the brakes are FUCKED. And I can't get them fixed and I need to have an extra bike, and...
email me at haydees@gmail.com
