The Sioux San Hospital, an Indian Health Service facility, in Rapid City, South Dakota. Photo by Colorado National Guard Medical Detachment / Flickr
Just another crazy breed Lakota
Two weeks in an IHS mental health program
By James Giago Davies Every honest hearted person keeps two lists, the things they do well, and the things they don’t do well. Second List could fill this writing, and we are often so busy beating ourselves up over it, we forget to be grateful for First List. Both of my lists have changed through the years, and they keep swapping listings, which can become worrisome as we age. There was a time I could run very fast and jump very high—not anymore! My three sons would consider my ability at either to now be on Second List. All my physical skills are noticeably diminishing. The average professional baseball player peaks at 28. They have two centuries of meticulously kept statistics to prove that. Teachers used to compliment me on my memory. “You have amazing retention, Jimmy,” they would say—not anymore! My wife and kids are plagued by my bad memory. Can’t remember where I put my wallet, can’t remember where I put my watch, where I put the car keys, what promises I made. I sometimes have to write imperative to-do stuff on the back of my hand or I will forget it seconds later. At this very moment I have freshly forgotten half a dozen relatively important things I should probably be doing. The average person starts losing their memory at 28. To compensate, my brain has been stockpiling information, filing it away in relevant context, and I’ve honed my critical thinking skills. I’m way smarter than the 28-year-old me. There are two immediate problems about being way smarter. You start noticing your own stupidity, and it’s an all day job correcting it before it stupids up my life. This cuts into the time I used to zealously devote to noticing other people’s stupidity, and after 30, you start noticing other people’s stupidity at an ever increasing, alarmingly accurate rate. That’s when you voluntarily check into Sioux San for a 30-day in-patient mental health evaluation. You are only 36, so still stupid enough to think this program can actually work. You expect the other in-patients to be as messed up as you are, and they do not disappoint, but they prove to be the only sane people to talk to, because the nurses and therapists are all laboring under the same shared delusion, that they can actually help repair your mental health, that any critical part of their misconceived program actually works. You walk up to two big, beefcake Wasicu contractors who are remodeling the day room, because they’re talking baseball, and you love talking baseball, but they cringe away because you are a crazy. When nothing remotely crazy comes out of your cake hole, they see that as proof you are extra crazy, and you have to laugh, because the fact you notice this stupidity, and they do not, is the main reason you are in this program. The Wasicu therapists make you sit in a big circle with all the other Lakota crazies and talk about your problems. Problem is, the questions they ask reveal more about their problems and misconceptions, not yours. Pretty soon one asks how you have been responding to medication, which in this case is just aspirin. “Is it making you nauseous?” Head Therapist asks. “I think you mean is it making me nauseated,” you say. “It means the same thing,” Head Therapist says. “No, nauseated means I feel sick, nauseous means I make other people sick. Am I making you sick right now?” “No.” “Then I’m not nauseous, am I?” We are bunked up four to a room, and next morning Head Therapist rushes in with a dictionary, determined to prove me wrong about nauseous, in front of all the other crazies, of course. I ask him why he would do that, and why was he obsessing over nauseous so much that he would roust me out of bed to defend himself. “Ironic part is,” I tell him, “you might actually have become nauseous, or are we now going to argue over the definition of ironic?” An expert evaluator is brought in and I sit in a cubby hole examination room with him, and he asks me questions, and jots down notes as I answer. I realize he is not smart enough to be evaluating another person’s mental health, regardless of what Wasicu degrees prove he is, but he is not alone—no mental health professional is smart enough. They study human behavior without factoring in the programming evolved in the ancestral environment; programming intended to optimize phenotypic interaction with the ancestral environment. That’s blatantly unscientific. I meant to tell him that, but didn’t want to rudely interrupt his bad science, and by the time I got an opening, I had forgotten to say it, that damn Second List again. What did I get out of that mental health visit? Well they cut me loose two weeks early, saying there was nothing wrong with me, but really, it was because, for them, I had actually become nauseous. I did find out I was allergic to aspirin. Nowadays, I focus as much as I can on my First List, and it is a modestly short list, and it says don’t call people you love names, don’t hit women, don’t rationalize when you can reason, and do your best to love and tolerate the intolerant people you want to hate the most. I find when I spend quality time honing my First List, it always critically shortens my Second List. You are far better off honing that skill, then checking yourself into Sioux San mental health programs. (James Giago Davies can be reached at skindiesel@msn.com) Copyright permission Native Sun News
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