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CAICA ARTICLE
Some things
are just wrong ...
By Isabelle
Zehnder
October 10, 2006
My experiences in
the mental health field are limited. I’ll be the first to admit
that. But I am a person who can see when something is wrong. When I
watched the video of little Abby, Jean Bowden’s daughter, I knew how
she was treated was “wrong” (click
here). When I read the
story of Matthew Goodman and how he died after being placed into
mechanical restraints for 16 months, I knew that was “wrong”
(click
here). When I learned about
aversives and that they are used on children, I knew that was
“wrong” (click
here). When I learned of a
little girl who was restrained for over an hour for gargling milk,
restrained again, and then died, I knew that was “wrong”
(click
here). When I learned of a
boy who was beaten, restrained, and killed in residential care, I
knew that was “wrong”, too. And there are a lot more “wrongs” I’ve
learned about over the past few years (click
here).
I worked in a
nursing home when I was 17. I worked the evening shift. After dinner
and finishing our rounds there was time when the patients slept that
we were allowed to play cards or do anything else we liked. We were
asked to walk the halls periodically. During this down time, I gave
an elderly woman (her name was Isabelle, like me) a back rub,
something she had loved but had not enjoyed for years. I was
reprimanded and forbidden to do it again because “she might get used
to it”. That was “wrong”.
 At
the same nursing home, a girl was kept in a cage. That too was
“wrong”. She could not speak and yelled throughout the day. I was
told to fear her and that she would hurt me if she got the chance,
that too was “wrong”. I walked carefully around her room, making
every attempt not to get too close to her “cage”. One day, I bent
down to get something and she grabbed me from behind. She pulled my
body and drew it against the front of her caged bed. I feared she
would bite me as they had warned. I turned my head so I could see
her and she looked deep into my eyes.
She released me
only to grab my hand. I thought for sure she was going to bite it
but instead she rubbed it with her other hand. Her eyes looked deep
into mine again. A connection was made.
That night I
volunteered to feed her dinner, something I had always dreaded
before. Her plate consisted of meat, mashed potatoes, and peas. I
asked her if she liked mashed potatoes, her eyes told me “yes”. I
asked if she liked peas and I knew she was telling me “no”. I walked
down the hall and told my supervisor she did not like peas and that
I wanted something different to give her. There were carrots in the
kitchen, could I switch carrots instead of peas.
She looked at me
as though I was crazy and told me to feed her the peas. She said
this girl has no understanding and will eat anything we put into her
mouth. Maybe that was true, but I knew she didn’t like peas. So, I
went back into her room and told her that I had to feed her
everything on the plate. I fed her a bite of meat, she ate it
nicely. I fed her a bite of mashed potatoes, and she ate that
nicely. Then came the peas … she knew I knew she didn’t like peas.
She gave me a look that said “don’t feed me those - you know I don’t
like them.”
Torn between what
I was told by my supervisor and what I thought I was reading from
the look in her eyes, I proceeded to feed her the peas. Within
seconds I was wearing the peas – she spit every last one out of her
mouth and at me. She had never done that before. Like Pat Amos of
TASH told me, she knew I understood her and she held me to a higher
standard.
As a
seventeen-year old girl, I did the only thing I could. I threw the
peas into the toilet and flushed them down. And you all know how
successful I was with that. Panic hit me as I stuffed toilet paper
into the toilet in an attempt to get rid of the evidence. When I
came back into the room her eyes lit up. She grabbed my hand and
held it as I fed her the remaining mashed potatoes and meat.
Sadly, I do not
remember her name. I wonder what ever happened to this girl who
everyone gave up on. If someone had spent time with her I believe
she would have led a decent and happy life. Instead, I’m sure she
lived out her days in the cage.
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