Category: Homelessness

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Education Homelessness Lessons Medicine Nonfiction Policy Reflection Systems

Involuntary Commitment (VII).

This post is overdue by one year! It may help to review the third scenario and a primer on involuntary commitment before reading on.

Why the delay? Because I still wrestle with the question at the end of this post.

Recall in the third scenario the man, described as a chronic inebriate, who frequently tried to kill himself while intoxicated. He recently had slapped a woman in a laundromat and had thrown a can of soda at outreach workers. How would you apply involuntary commitment criteria here?

1. Does this person want to harm himself or someone else?

While intoxicated, he has said that he wants to kill himself and we know that he has, in fact, harmed other people: He slapped a woman in the laundromat and he threw a can of soda at some outreach workers. While these may be minor insults in the grand scheme of things, they still suggest that he is disinhibited enough potentially harm someone.

2. How imminent is this risk of harm to self or others?

Probably imminent. Since he is frequently intoxicated, he is frequently disinhibited.

3. Are these behaviors due to a psychiatric condition?

Maybe.

Is an alcohol use disorder a psychiatric condition?

Think about your answer again.

Though “alcohol use disorder” is listed as a condition in DSM-5, some would argue that it is not a psychiatric condition. They would say that it is a choice. They would also argue that the mental disturbance that comes from alcohol use is temporary while “true” psychiatric conditions do not have the same cause-and-effect phenomena that we often see with alcohol.

However, we also know that this man has reported auditory hallucinations in the past and, regardless if his alcohol use is a psychiatric condition or not, his intoxication is clearly affecting his ability to function.

At least that is how I formulated it.

Related: Will hospitalization help treat the underlying psychiatric condition?

Possibly. The likelihood that he can become intoxicated with alcohol in the hospital is very low (but not impossible).

What actually happened?

The man was going around in circles from emergency room to street to jail. The police wanted him admitted to the hospital because the only time the police weren’t picking him up was when he was sober, which was when he was in the hospital. The outreach team had housing for him (he could have moved in tomorrow!), but he was too intoxicated to accept the invitations.

There was a big meeting and we concocted a big plan: The outreach team would find and talk with the man in the park in five days at 11am. He would likely be intoxicated and belligerent by then. The police would meet us there. The police would help transport the man to the hospital on an involuntary order. The emergency department staff would admit him to the hospital, whether he agreed to or not. Once he received treatment in the hospital, he would be discharged into his own apartment, with hopes that he would stay off the streets and away from alcohol.

What could go wrong?

On the appointed day, we found him in the park.

“Hey hey hey,” he said, putting his arm around the outreach worker, a goofy grin on his face. He offered the 40-ounce can of beer to us. “It’s the first one. Half full. I’m an optimist.” He laughed.

My heart was starting to sink: Even though he slapped a woman and threw a can of soda at someone less than a week ago, he wasn’t doing anything right now that would warrant an involuntary hospitalization.

But the show must go on, right? Multiple people and systems were involved. We had a big plan. And going through with the plan would be in his best interests, right?

Right?

“So,” the outreach worker started, “what do you think about going to the hospital with us?”

He laughed. “I don’t need to go to the hospital. I’m fine.”

“The doctors can check your health, make sure everything is okay….”

“Naw, don’t need it. I feel fine.”

Indeed. He was buzzed, but that wasn’t a reason to go to the hospital.

He looked over our shoulders, smiled, and shouted, “HEY!”

Behind us were four men with broad shoulders and thick legs. We all recognized them as police officers, though they were wearing casual clothes. They nodded at us.

“Wanna go to that bar with me?” the man asked, pointing to the brick building down the street.

“Sure!” the police said, chuckling. “It’s 11am.”

The outreach worker and I stood by our car and watched them disappear into the bar. We said nothing. Still nothing had happened that would warrant hospitalization, voluntary or not.

Several minutes later, the police officers and the man emerged from the bar. The man was singing:

Hello!
Is it me you’re looking for?
’cause I wonder where you are
And I wonder what you do
Are you somewhere feeling lonely?
Or is someone loving you?

The officers started laughing. Everyone was having a good time.

The police led the man to a squad car and opened the back door.

“We’re going to the hospital.”

“F@ck no,” the man said, smiling, having no idea what was happening. My heart sank further.

“Get into the car.”

“No!”

“Look, get into the car—”

—and that’s when he spit at a police officer.

WHAM! It happened so fast that I couldn’t believe what happened. They threw him against the hood of the police car. Two officers pinned his arms down. The other two looked ready to strike him.

I wasn’t the only one who noticed. Pedestrians began to rubberneck. Some young men began to call, “What did he do? Why you doing that?”

“It’s none of your business. Keep walking. There’s nothing to see here,” a police officer barked.

“No, that ain’t right. Why did you do that?”

A woman with flowers in her grey hair and a flowing peasant dress around her thin frame approached.

“That’s police brutality, that’s what. We need to get rid of the cops.”

In the meantime, the police officers had handcuffed the man—for what? for what?—and placed a mesh bag over his head so that if he tried to spit again, the netting would catch it.[1. This mesh bag is called a “spit sack”.] They pushed him into the back of the car and closed the door.

The crowd on the sidewalk grew. Close to three dozen people started to shout and chant at the police officers.

The outreach worker and I got into our car. What was happening?

The ambulance the police had called arrived. A paramedic got out and, hands on his hips, talked with one of the police officers. His brow was furrowed and he was frowning. The officer shrugged, then pointed to our car.

The paramedic walked over and knocked on my window. I rolled it down.

“What did this man do? Why are we taking him to the hospital? Did he actually do anything that warrants an involuntary transport?”

My cheeks burned.

“No.”

The paramedic[2. God bless this paramedic. We need people like him to ask these questions.] glared at me. He then turned around and walked away.

The police and paramedics moved him from the back of the police car into the ambulance while the crowd continued to bristle. The ambulance honked as it tried to weave through the crowd.

After the police drove away, the crowd dispersed.

The outreach worker and I sat in our car in silence. My cheeks were still burning.

He was in the hospital for about two weeks. The first three days were against his will. He agreed to stay in the hospital for the remaining 11 days.

The outreach worker met the man when he was discharged from the hospital to escort him to his apartment. He attended AA meetings four days a week. He took his two medications every night. He saw his counselor every week.

He avoided the park. The police started calling our office: “We never see him anymore. Do you know what happened?”

I never saw the man again, though heard occasional updates from his psychiatrist. The man didn’t drink any alcohol for nearly a year. When he did slip, he asked to go to the hospital. The police never got involved.

Even now, I still ask myself, “Did we do the right thing?”

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Homelessness Observations Reflection

Continuity of Care.

The first time I saw him he was walking around the shelter with another man. His hands were buried in the pockets of his hoodie and his gaze was fixed on the ground. He looked shorter than his actual height because he was slouching.

He and the man walked laps around the shelter while they talked. His expression was hard: Eyebrows furrowed, jaw tight, lips curled into a slight frown. He moved across the tiled floor like a sleek fish gliding through the water.

“Hi,” I said, introducing myself. “Do you mind if we talk for a few minutes?”

His companion kept walking as he coasted to a halt. His stony expression softened; his eyebrows raised and wrinkles appeared at the outer corners of his eyes as he smiled.

“Sure. Thank you.”

He and I walked laps around the shelter for the next few days. His father beat his mother, his brother, and him. At the age of 11 he found his mother’s body after she committed suicide. His father disappeared for days at a time. When he returned, his speech was slurred, clothes were dirty, and exhalations were thick with malt liquor. He stopped attending school. He ran away from home. He slept in alleys and underneath bridges. The police picked him up on a variety of charges: Theft. Drug possession. Criminal trespass.

The second time I saw him he lying on a mat in the shelter. The stiff blanket was not long enough to cover his entire body; his feet with their long toenails poked out.

He pulled the blanket off of his face and replied, “Heroin. Couple days ago.” Pulling up a sleeve, he showed me the collection of tiny bruises on his arm. He closed his eyes. Beads of sweat collected on the pale skin of his forehead.

“I’ll be done kicking dope tomorrow.” He pulled the blanket back over his head.

The third time I saw him he was sitting on the floor in the shelter, his arms hugging his knees.

“I don’t make many promises. I promised her that I won’t kill myself. I keep the promises I make, so I didn’t do it. I really wanted to.”

He accepted the invitation and got up. He and I walked laps around the shelter. He had yet to talk with her, though he planned to see her tomorrow. The last time he used heroin was over six months ago, but he was also in jail for four of those months.

“You didn’t use anything in jail?”

He shook his head.

After a pause, he said, “You know, I’ve seen you downtown. You were with a guy, so I didn’t want to bug you.”

“Is that where you’re staying these days?”

“Yeah.”

“Outside?”

“Yeah.”

The fourth time I saw him he was standing on the sidewalk outside of a methadone clinic. The hood of his sweatshirt was pulled over his head and baggy jeans covered his long legs. His hands were buried in the pockets of his sweatshirt. The other man made a joke; he chuckled and wrinkles appeared at the outer corners of his eyes as he smiled.

I crossed the street. He was with a guy and I didn’t want to bug him.

The fifth time I saw him he had already passed me. Without realizing that I was reviving an old habit, I wrapped the long white coat closed as I looked over my shoulder.

“Smith!” the officer barked. “Stay where you are. Turn around.”

He stopped, turned, and looked up. We saw each other.

“Go back to your cellblock, Smith.”

He moved across the concrete floor like a sleek fish gliding through the water. Before he passed me, he nodded in recognition. I nodded back.

We both kept walking. I sighed.

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Homelessness Seattle Systems

Did You Nominate Me for Seattle Mag’s Community Service Award?

Hey, there’s a short blurb in Seattle Magazine about my work during the past two years:

Top Docs ’14: Community Service Award Winners

Scroll down to “The Bridge”. (If you want the source that “more than 60 percent of chronically homeless people in cities nationwide face lifelong mental health problems”, it’s here.)

Thank you to whoever nominated me! (Please tell me who you are.) It was an delightful surprise.

(In the meantime, I’m asking readers for help for post ideas on Facebook and Twitter. I welcome your suggestions.)

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Homelessness Observations

All Four Seasons.

Green leaves are budding from the trees lining the city streets. The branches sway from the weight of small birds, their throats full of song. The chill in the morning air melts away as the Spring sun warms the ground, beckoning the flowers to push through the damp earth. Pedestrians carry their umbrellas and weave around the puddles on the sidewalk.

Some of them do not see the soiled sneakers poking out from under the bundle of blankets heaped in the shop doorway. Some people cast a sideways glance and say nothing. They have places to go.

People turn the calendar pages and begin to wear white again as Summer breezes into the city. The air is thick with moisture and the asphalt radiates the heat of the sun. When shop doors open and the cool conditioned air whooshes outside, people wearing strappy sandals, twill shorts, and thin tank tops sigh with relief. Fireworks light up the sky, people have picnics in the park, and the kids catch fireflies at night.

The bundles of blankets have moved underneath the bridges and along the banks of the river. The shop owners, taking advantage of the longer hours of the season, throw away the flattened cardboard boxes they find near their doorways. These are entryways, not platforms for beds.

The arc of the sun shortens and fog begins to drift into the city. The once verdant trees now don red, orange, and yellow leaves. The Autumn rain begins to fall. Kids pile into school buses and adults board the train, all daydreaming about their summer adventures.

The bundle of blankets appear downtown again. The blankets get wet from the frost in the woods. Rectangles of cardboard, piles of blankets, and rolling suitcases collect under the awnings of buildings.

Old man Winter hobbles into town. Freezing rain and snow fall from the pewter sky. People hurry to the store to stock up on toilet paper, bread, milk, and canned food. Their breath turns to white mist as they mutter about the cold and prepare for several feet of snow. Smoke floats out of chimneys, readers snuggle with books, and the kettles whistle when the water boils.

The bundles of blankets poke out of cardboard forts dressed with tarps or garbage bags. The snow is already collecting on the corrugated roofs, which sag from the wet weight.

“If you see someone in need during the storm,” the newscasters say, “if you see someone who is homeless, call this phone number.”

The homeless are there all the time. They are there all four seasons.

Categories
Education Homelessness Policy Reflection

Commercial Sexual Exploitation.

I recently attended a presentation given by one of the founders of The Organization for Prostitution Survivors (OPS).

If you or your organization want to hear a compelling, educational, and thoughtful talk about commercial sexual exploitation, I encourage you to contact OPS.

The talk did not necessarily alter the way I go about my work as a psychiatrist, but it did challenge my assumptions about prostitution, highlight the different perspectives men and women have about sex (to be clear, the talk was not at all “anti-male”), and encourage me to reconsider the influences of our culture on commercial sexual exploitation.

I’ve included my notes and reactions from the presentation below. Any errors and lack of clarity are entirely mine.

The speaker (a man) began with a discussion about the social construction of gender. What does it mean to “act like a man”? The stereotype is that a “man” excels at sports, fights well, doesn’t show emotions (particularly sadness, fear, etc.), is dominant, and is skilled at and knows a lot about (heterosexual) sex.

Boys learn these stereotypes throughout their youth. Boys are eventually introduced to pornography, which may actually serve a means of male bonding (passing around a copy of Playboy, sharing links to online pornography, etc.). Pornography doesn’t teach boys how about sexual relationships, but instead offers flat, two-dimensional representations of women solely in the context of sex. Masturbation leads to orgasm, which is a potent reward for viewing women as sexual objects (instead of actual people).

The speaker then asked the audience for adjectives attributed to “good girls” and “bad girls”. The assumptions about “bad girls” are often the same for prostituted women[1. The speaker used the phrase “prostituted woman” instead of “prostitute” for the same reason that I use “man with a diagnosis of schizophrenia” instead of “schizophrenic”. Let’s please remember that we are talking about actual people here.] (they have multiple sex partners; they drink alcohol and use drugs; etc.). The words we use to denigrate women are synonyms for prostituted women: whore, slut, etc.

As a consequence, prostituted women become a legitimate target group for male violence. We somehow come to believe that it is okay for men to hurt prostituted women. They are, after all, “bad girls”.

The speaker discussed Gary Ridgway (the “Green River Killer”), who sought out prostituted women and murdered them. Nearly half of the women he killed were under the age of 18. The speaker asked why the media consistently describes these women as “prostitutes” and omits that nearly half of them were, in fact, “children”? What if we described Gary Ridgway as the “most prolific killer of children” in American history?

The speaker then described how a former pimp would find and select women (girls). His strategy was essentially this: If he spoke to a woman and she responded with any direct eye contact (even if she was flattered), he would walk away and end the “grooming” process right there.

Why? Because he knew that those women who made no eye contact with him already had life experiences that would make the pimp’s job easier. “Someone else has already beaten her down so I don’t need to do as much to make her work.”

The speaker then noted that researchers often wonder about the mental health of prostituted women… but why hasn’t anyone examined the mental health of buyers and pimps (mostly men)? Prostituted women often develop PTSD, which is unsurprising given the chronic trauma they endure while working. What is wrong with us as a society that we haven’t shown the same interest in what is “wrong” with the johns?

A discussion followed about the words we use to describe men viewing women. In the US, we often say that men “ogle” or “leer at” women. Those words have a “hubba hubba hubba!” quality to them; men who want an interactive, romantic relationship don’t “ogle” or “leer at” women. When was the last time you heard of a man “beholding” a woman?

One of the most striking points the speaker made was when he asked, “To the men in the audience: What do you do to protect yourself from rape?”

Silence ensued. Some men in the audience were perplexed.

“To the women in the audience: What do you do to protect yourself from rape?”

Many women answered immediately: “Travel in pairs.” “Keep my drinks with me at all times when I’m out.” etc.

Both men and women in the audience were stunned at the disparity of responses.

The speaker then discussed the issue of consent: Consent for sex should be an “enthusiastic yes!”, not something that requires negotiation. In prostitution, the exchange of money for sex is coercion. Economic coercion is never true consent.

The speaker also commented that buyers aren’t paying to learn the reality of the prostituted woman. If the girl is 16 years old and the buying man asks her age, of course she is going to say that she is 18. If he asks her if she has a pimp, of course she will deny it.

The speaker then challenged the audience to speak up even when someone tells a sexist joke against women. Doing so helps to construct a world of equality where women aren’t reduced to sexual objects. He commented that a sexist joke is on a continuum that also includes a man forcing his wife to have with him (“why did I get married if I couldn’t have sex with her whenever I wanted?”), paying a prostituted woman for sex, rape, and murdering women.

The speaker shared that prostitution “is like domestic violence on crack”. The cycle of abuse applies to both. He reported that prostituted women leave and return to their pimps between seven and ten times before leaving for good. It is often difficult for the women to leave because they often identify with their pimps due to something like Stockholm syndrome, though “trauma-bonding” is probably more precise. Prostituted women also frequently develop drug and alcohol problems as a means of coping with the ongoing trauma associated with the work. (Imagine getting into the cars of buyers multiple times a night without knowing if you will get hurt; imagine a pimp beating you because you did not bring back sufficient earnings; etc.)

The speaker also discussed the “bad date list”, which has historically been a paper list that prostituted women have passed around with names and identifying information of buyers who don’t pay, hurt the women, etc. He said that they hope to develop a “bad date” app because of the ubiquity of smart phones.

The speaker closed by discussing different models of managing prostitution in societies. He said that he is strongly opposed to legalized prostitution. He cited some data where states and countries with legalized prostitution often results in more sex trafficking and prostitution. He gave the example of Germany: The demand for prostitution has gone up since it has become legal, so Eastern European women are often lured and trafficked into Germany to work as prostitutes.

He expressed hope in the “Swedish model“: Sweden has taken the approach that women working in prostitution are victims and, thus, the selling of sex is not considered a crime. However, buyers, pimps, and traffickers are prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law. Some data suggests that, as a consequence, there is less visible prostitution and fewer women working in prostitution.