The Writers' Circle

There was never any consensus, no agreement, just eight writers diagnosed schizophrenics assembled in a process group facilitated by me. Mitch O’Donald at the Community Mental Health Clinic. There are a lot of reasons why this process group won’t work and how writing is not part of the therapeutic model, but I have never been one to go along with the status quo.  

When you ask most people to describe a person with schizophrenia most of the response place the person somewhere between a raving lunatic as described in Pink Floyd’s Dark Side of the Moon album to a mass murderer and while Roger Waters dedicated Dark Side of the Moon to former bandmate Syd Barrett who had schizophrenia, the fact is most people who suffer with severe and persistent mental illness are more apt to be a greater danger to themselves.  Many times the person can no longer cope with their mental illness since it is completely absorbing and exhausting, because your mind will not turn off as it is bombarded with stimuli both real and delusional.   

I became a counselor and case manager by accident after earning my degree in education, I was unable to find a regular teaching gig.  One of my friends worked at the Center and told me to go ahead and apply.  I did and was surprised when I was called in for an interview.  The director of Adult Operations was a square jawed granate chunk of man who had thirty years of experience in the field and was retiring to a ranch in New Mexico.  He looked at me with the same look Clint Eastwood had made his career on and asked me, “So what do you know about schizophrenia?”  

I sat there unable to respond, because I wasn’t even sure what it was.  I had studied literature for four years.  He crossed his arms which made him appear like a statue.  I could not lie, so I said, “Not a damn thing, sir.”

He nodded, handed me a book on schizophrenia and said, “Give me a call if this is for you.”  The next day I called and got the position on the Independent Adult Team where the patients or clients, as we called them, lived independently in the community.  One of the conditions was that they had to follow a treatment plan that included medication management, therapy, and attending at least two process groups.  Process groups were run by counselors like me with the objective of engaging the member in social activities that would engage them in social interaction since isolation was their worst enemy.  

The first thing I was tasked to do was to facilitate a process group and since I had spent four years learning the art of Literature, I decided to start a Writer’s Group.  The reaction to my idea was to say the least underwhelming to complete rejection by some of the more experienced teammates who had years of experience dealing with our clients.  The week before one of the more notable clients had waited for her children to come home and while they were having a snack, she shot the three of them in the back of the head, because she felt she was sparing them from the devils in her apartment that was trying to get them.  

At my first meeting, I had one member attend, Emily Rogan who poisoned her cat that she loved and doted on and put the feline’s stiffened corpse in the blanket the cat had slept in.  Three weeks later after complaints from the other tenants about the odd smell, the police did a welfare check and found the remains of the cat.  When they asked her why she had killed her cat, Emily responded that the cat asked her to.  In Emily’s bedroom were over a dozen stuffed animals sitting at small desks in front of a blackboard where she held class for them since she had been a teacher before having a break where she held her entire class locked in her classroom because there were devils running through the hallways of the school.  

Emily was followed by the rest as each week a new writer would show up for the group.  We had a room with a dozen personal computers the Center got on a grant and so I would do the group in this room where they could write using a Word Document.  

Norm Chivall is channeling the spirit of Walt Whitman, dresses as Walt did in the later years of his life when he was apt to wander the woods wearing nothing but he received at birth and Norm is likewise prone to do as Walt would do resulting in several arrests for indecent exposure.  

Natalie Snowden has displayed many behavioral traits of arrested development as she dresses as a ten year old despite her current age of fifty eight.  She likes to make silly rhymes about boys and their gross ways while wearing a pink ribbon in her hair that appears to have been there for quite a while. 

Amber Richardson nearly murdered her child in a psychotic rage when she went off her meds.  Rachel was just twelve, but Amber saw her own daughter as a woman who had stolen her husband.  As it turned out all of it was a disillusion since Amber was sixteen when her boyfriend knocked her up with Rachel, but in her mind she still felt that she married the loser and her developing daughter was stealing him from her with her female wiles.  Child services took Rachel from Amber who grieves for the loss of a child she nearly murdered.  In my estimation, Amber is one of the better writers in our group.  

Todd MacAnually thinks he is the second coming of Elvis Presley with his hair always just so and his leather jacket that his aunt gave him for his birthday.  He wants to write a hit song and make a fortune.  He also thinks he is from another planet where the inhabitants are superior to the human race he is left to deal with and keeps telling everyone at the center, “One day they will come and take me back home.” 

Clive Talon is a Native American who comes from a long line of storytellers, but his story deals with playing a game of Russian Roulette and watching his best friend blow the top of his head off with his father’s .38 police service revolver.   He is quiet and reflective, but does not possess the composition skills to capture his family that each of them take turns telling their stories down at the Native Center in town.   

Ann Lynn Byington was actually a published author.  In 1974 she published a book about the birds native to the area and it received a decent review claiming she was definitely the expert of state.  She had a break in 1976 where she tried to do a swan dive off of Krebell Towers which was the tallest building around at fourteen stories high.  A policeman named Howard Stover managed to talk her down even walking out onto the ledge where she was getting ready to fly.  Well, that’s what she told him that God wouldn’t let her fall and He would raise her up with the angels.  Howard Stover was given an accommodation medal while Ann Lynn got to spend a sizable part of the Centennial in a psych ward.  

Last but not least, Owen Krowonoski a Russian immigrant who said that all Russians are born crazy and that’s why God gave them vodka.  He was the quintessential Mad Russian who would rather talk than write.  At twenty seven, he was worldly wise and when he was lucid was perhaps the smartest member of the group.  

Three months later, I told them we could publish a writing journal of some of their writing.  For the rest of the time for our group, everyone of them did not stop talking excitedly about what they would contribute to the publication and I sat back and simply listened and felt smugly satisfied.

“You are opening a Pandora’s Box.” Our team chief Melissa Connelly said at our staff meeting.

“Pardon.” I shook my head.

“I will chalk it up to your inexperience with the therapeutic community, but this writing thing is asking for disaster.  You do know these people have no sense of self or any idea of follow through.  They can talk like Shakespeare, but when it comes down to it, their work, if publicized, will embarrass them greatly.  It is my job to make sure we build them up as much as possible.  So, I don’t feel you should publish their work.” She glanced around the table at the rest of the staff who sat there silently staring at their hands folded on the table in front of them, “If there is no further discussion, let’s move on to the next item on the agenda.” 

“I have further discussion.” I raised my hand.

“No, no you don’t.” She shook her head and proceeded with her agenda.

After the meeting Hickcock cornered me, “Don’t worry, she gets kind of set in her ways.  There have been mistakes in the past that have left her wary of things that might awaken the demons inside of the clients.  

“I don’t see what harm writing can do.” I shrugged.

“You haven’t been here long enough to know about  some of the things that happened.” He said out of the side of his mouth, “We don’t wish to have them repeated.

No one was willing to tell me some of the problems encountered in the past.  I continued to have the group at the usual time, but then about a month later, I was told the computer room was no longer available to my group.   Other counselors had requested the room and she had crossed my name out on my usual Wednesday slots and then filled their names on the schedule.

“What happened?” I asked when I had them show up and found Hitchcock’s basic keyboarding group in the computer room.  Since conference room one was open, I walked them there.  They could see that I was upset with what had happened, so Lynn started the group by saying, “It’s not the first time.”

“What do you mean?” I asked her.

“She doesn’t like creativity.” Todd sniffed and sneered like Elvis. 

“We had this art group one time run by a counselor who is no longer here, but she said our art was not appropriate.” Amber was twirling her ponytails and snapping her gum.

“Yeah.” Norm grunted.

“Well it would have been alright if you hadn’t drawn nude women.” Natalie snapped.

“Well, art is in the eye of the beholder.” Norm snorted indignantly.

“Yeah, but you drew smut.” Ann Lynn snickered, “I’ll bet you are writing about graphic copulation.” 

“Am not.” Norm put his hand on his notebook so no one could grab it from him.  

“We should be able to express ourselves in our writing.” I stated.  My idealistic perceptions were still quite naive since most of them had been told to comply with our directives or in other words they were expected to behave and behave meant they had to trade the essence of who they were to receive treatment, because who they were was a threat to the community in the past.  Clive who was sitting there like he always did in group, but he had participated in violent crimes before he was incarcerated and assessed to be paranoid schizophrenic with violent ideation.  Ann Lynn was a published author who in a psychotic rage nearly killed her now ex-husband because he would not pick up his dirty socks.  Norm liked to sit at the mall and reach into his baggy pants to fondle himself when little girls would pass by.  He had also been picked up a number of times for indecent exposure.  Emily had made the front page of the newspaper when they did a strip search of her upon admissions to the state psychiatric hospital.  She claimed her religious and personal rights had been violated retaining a public defender from the National Alliance of the Mentally Ill or NAMI.  While administration claimed routine procedure was followed upon her intake, the civil rights groups protesting outside the courthouse made a lot of noise that embarrassed the hospital in negative publicity.  Having read her writing, I found Emily was obsessed with that incident that she said scarred her for life.  Amber had arrested development and saw herself as a ten year old daddy’s girl.  She liked the company of older men who she would call daddy as they bought her candy treats, toys and stuffed animals for her sexual favors.  

“You don’t understand them like I do.” She said after calling me into her office, “I have talked it over with Rick the director and he feels as I do that your writing group is a bad idea for a lot of different reasons.”

“I disagree.  They should be able to express what they are feeling like real writers do.” I defended my group.

“You do not have the experience I do with some of these people.” She looked at me as if I was as psychotic as they were and for a moment I felt, perhaps she was right. “Each of them are or have acted on their psychosis that put themselves or others in danger.  They may seem harmless to you, but that can change in an instant.”

“Maybe if they had an outlet, a way to express themselves, they could deal with their mental illness.” I felt as if I was fighting a losing battle.

“You’d think that, but no.” She just shook her head. “You have three members who, according to their behavior patterns, will be admitted to the hospital by the end of the month.  Norm has already been going to the park regularly and it will just be a matter of time before he channels the ghost of Walt Whitman and gets arrested for indecent exposure.”

“If he channels Whitman, maybe instead of acting out, he can write about it.  Walt was one of the greatest American poets.” 

“Who liked little boys.” She sneered. “There are laws in this community that must be adhered to and our clients don’t do that well.”

“If they can learn to express their feelings…”

“I’m not so sure you really want that to happen.  It could be frightening.” She stood up, “Now if you’ll excuse me, I have other things I must attend to.  You need to end the group this Wednesday.”

It was a long walk back to my office down the hall. And I sat there looking out the window for nearly an hour.  Was I opening a door that was better left unopened and once the genie was out of the bottle, would there be any way to stick the cork back in?

Wednesday was a heavy day.  Each of the members wandered in the door in good spirits for the most part carrying their notebooks, ready to write, ready to create, but then I began, “I am sorry to inform you that this will be our last meeting. I have been told to discontinue the Writers’ Circle.”

All of them started talking at once, most in sharp cutting tones, even Clive had something to say.  Finally Ann Lynn spoke, “I had a feeling that this would be the result, but can we ask for one thing?”  She looked around at the other members who were shaking their heads in solidarity.

“What is it?” I asked

“What if each of us turned in one piece of writing and we had it published like you promised in the beginning?” She looked around at the others who now spoke their approval at her idea.

“But they said that we couldn’t do that.” I reminded her.

“We will all chip in and publish it down at that print shop in town.” She suggested.

“We will pay.” Todd concurred.

“I will meet you on Friday and we will go there and put in an order. Can each of you have your writing ready by then?” She asked and when we went around the group, each member agreed which was the first time this ever happened in this group.  

“Alright if we all agree and my career here may be shortened, meet me on Friday.” I smiled.

When the group was dismissed and she saw each of the members in a good mood, she approached me, “Did you tell them?”

“Oh yes, I told them.” I smiled and nodded which perplexed her at why we were all in a jovial mood.   

I met Ann Lynn as planned and within an hour our Writers’ Circle was being published.  We ordered thirty copies, one for each member of the group and the rest to distribute around the facility waiting rooms. Each of the members took a few to take to all the waiting rooms we had one our facility waiting rooms. At our next staff meeting, she sneered at me. “You disobeyed me.”

“I did not.  The members chipped in and published Writers’ Circle and wanted to share it with everyone.  Pretty sane gesture.” I nodded.

“You may think you are clever, but I know that will cause a great deal of turmoil.  Some of them may go off their treatment plans and it will be because of you.” She slapped the table with her open hand.

As it turned out our publication was a hit among the patients and staff.  Some of the writing was a bit crude, but the door had been opened.  

Writers are a strange breed to begin with, because it takes courage to hold up a mirror on the world without regard to what is in the reflection.