Silence means consent

Covelli, Robert Frank

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Silence Means Consent 1 of 2 It's not alright to ignore a 64 year old man's serious medical and psychiatric needs. They call us "inmates" or seriously mentally ill (SMI) "inmates," and somehow forget we are human people or rationalize away giving us the badly needed help and protection we need as unusually vulnerable patient/prisoners. The "pet-inmate" porter/workers run the place. They steal, overcharge and extort the worst mentally hurt of us while most staff's "pet-inmates" are the ones who clean, serve food, collect commissary slips, pass out commissary, pack up the property of those sent to segregation and other jobs the staff either should be doing or pretends it actually does. "Pet-inmates"-- the known threat to the most vulnerable. (I actually vomit at the thought of them!) As strong as I would like to pretend I am, in spite of feeling ashamed I need to ask for help from anyone, all I can think of after being ignored, lied to, manipulated and/hurt and injured so often is what is left of my body. If you have ever been beaten badly, deeply & physically hurt you may understand part of what I feel. When you've been physically injured so often, getting stitches, (having complaints ignored/emergency grievances shunned) you realize you are just an envelope of skin-- an easily penetrated envelope that holds together what's left of your life. What is worse than soft tissue damage-- no muscle tissue left to lose or damage any worse than it is now-- no trauma therapy at all to ease away some of the hurt from seeing "pet-inmates" do all the above and then get away with hounding 2 SMI men into suicide. 2 of 2 The plaintiff has sat next to a toilet filled with vomit so often had his weight go up and down so often, straining his heart and further weakening his body; has fell down so often, injuring his face and head and back, that he will readily admit his view of reality may be tainted by anything from frustration and terror to anxiety and a (dread) bone-deep despair. Many a night plaintiff has sincerely wondered if he should forgive all the named and unnamed defendants for letting him wither away; for letting him deal with the trauma of suicides (while dying slowly) and without trauma therapy or care of any kind; for letting him die so slowly that they are blind to their own deliberate indifference-- the scornful way they regularly reject his unending requests, complaints, please for help, emergency grievances, affidavits and notarized letters-- believing their non-actions are "reasonable" (reasonable silences/ignoring or shrugging off his serious psychiatric and medical needs,) due to their honest failure to see his ever so fragile humanity (the atrophy of massive loss of muscle tissue and other injuries) because of the fact they see him as an "inmate," a label they've used so often (in training as well as on the job site itself) that it has both dehumanized him and desensitized them. Has induced an apathy so pervasive that no amount of logic by plaintiff, (no amount of deductive reasoning by anyone labeled "inmate,") can ever hope to penetrate. If the defendants are deemed not at fault, if the derogatory term "inmate" is solely to blame, plaintiff prays the court will ban, forbid and prohibit the continued use of any such label as "inmate" so no one else is ever hurt or injured and/or has their obvious hurts and injuries ignored for so long. October 14, 2017 Dixon Robert Covelli Meant to be rewritten

Author: Covelli, Robert Frank

Author Location: Illinois

Date: June 11, 2019

Genre: Essay

Extent: 2 pages

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