Welcome.  I trust you are here because you’re interested in the issue I have put forth.  That is the issue of human rights abuses in the psychiatric system, especially those involving children.

Yes, they still happen today.  Some are illegal, like forcing a child to shower in poo.  Nonetheless, things like that still happen.

Others are legal, or nearly so.  Restraining kids is still used as a punishment technique, in some facilities, for example.  That remains legal until someone dies, like happened at Cleo Wallace in Denver, in 2003.  Then, a few administrative measures are put in place and life goes on.

(Other human rights abuses, like involuntary medication, are specifically supported by the law. That is an issue for another blog post.)

Instances of child abuse happen separately and independently all over the country, indeed the world, even where supposed supervision of facilities exists.  One must ask why all these instances of child abuse occur.

I submit the problem is institutional.  No joke or bad pun here.  It’s not funny.

In these institutions, the kids know how little power they have.  They know that any infraction could result in swift and harsh response.  They know that staff members who have absolute control over them can consider complaining about conditions an infraction.

Most of these kids know that to not comply, or to speak up, can be considered defiant behavior.  Their choice to stand up will be, as the program would put it, modified.  If the child resists this modification, he or she will likely be physically forced to comply.

These institutions perpetuate a culture of violence, where force is the language of authority.

The kids know this, so they often won’t speak up.  They are too afraid.  These most vulnerable of our children will accept their conditions.

Those who do speak up are used to having their situation fall on deaf ears.  Many will express their frustrations through acting out or other behaviors that are less than mature.  They do this, in part, because they are told that their complaints have no merit and that they deserve what is happening to them and need to accept that.

Taking responsibility for their mistakes, which would be a rather adult thing to do, becomes akin to accepting that they deserve to be mistreated.  As such, it is resisted.

Often, these kids aren’t even permitted to share their own histories with each other, as rules prohibit sharing “War Stories,” or stories of previous experiences in the system.  In the rest of the world, oppressed populations keep their history by sharing their stories verbally.  In these facilities, and even the day or outpatient programs they support, I would suggest this cognizance of oppression is exactly what the prohibition on “War Stories” is meant to prevent.  (Though it would be worded differently.  Perhaps it is intended to prevent social reinforcement of defiance or a black-and-white us versus them mentality.)

These kids learn silence through force.  Their silence is bought at the point of a needle or, perhaps, at four points of restraint.

This is an issue that can affect anyone.  It can hit suburban families as easily as wards of the state.  Even loving parents can't prevent it.

When a child is deemed to need treatment, the parents often have no choice but to go along.  If they don’t child protective services can become involved.

Did you know that parents have been prosecuted for refusing medication or institutionalization for their children?

Did you know kids have been taken away from their parents for resisting this system?

Is it not ironic that child protective services can compel a family to send a child to a place where that child is then abused?

Sure, many of these kids do have problems.  Many, I suppose you could argue, have earned being locked up in a hospital.  I’d be tempted to argue that no one deserves that, that most have done nothing to earn the conditions they can be placed in, but the simpler truth is that these facilities do not produce “better” kids. When kids are hospitalized against their will, they become bitter.  When even the parents can't refuse, all are betrayed.

These facilities produce drugged up kids.  They produce kids who have experienced institutional abuses and disdain authority.  They produce kids with a broken will and a bitter heart, but they rarely produce improvement from the perspective of those they treat.

I know this first hand.

Sure, some will grow up to kick ass and make movies, but many will be scarred for life by the system that was supposed to be helping them.

“I am interested in madness. I believe it is the biggest thing in the human race, and the most constant. How do you take away from a man his madness without also taking away his identity?”

    -- William Saroyan

Emily Dickinson (1830–86).

Complete Poems.  1924.

Part One: Life

XI

MUCH madness is divinest sense

To a discerning eye;           

Much sense the starkest madness.           

’T is the majority           

In this, as all, prevails.

Assent, and you are sane;           

Demur,—you ’re straightway dangerous,           

And handled with a chain.

“It is only too true that a lot of artists are mentally ill- it's a life which, to put it mildly, makes one an outsider. I'm all right when I completely immerse myself in work, but I'll always remain half crazy.”

    -- Vincent van Gogh

Ultimately, I believe this world is full of untold stories crying out to be heard, and if I have any purpose on this earth, it is to tell them.  My desire is to turn socially aware filmmaking into not only my job but also my life.