Friday, January 6, 2012

Speaking of the Truth

I want to give a little information about me.

Hi, my name is Unbroken, I am mentally ill, and I was sexually assaulted in a hospital in the state of Virginia.

Why do I introduce myself this way? Because I have the right too. There is not a reason in this world I should have to be afraid to say any of those three things above.

I am unbroken because I refuse to allow what has happened to me defeat me, I am mentally ill which is something I didn't ask for nor did I cause of my own bad choices, and I was sexually assaulted which also happened that I didn't ask for nor did I cause because of my own bad choices.

All of which has had an an extreme difficult impact on my life. I feel if I began this blog on the idea of how I had my rights revoked from me based on lifes unfortunate circumstances then I atleast owe the public my incidences, reasonings and perceptions as to why I feel the state of Virginia has wronged me and made me feel as though I am not worthy of the same rights as others. I ask you to only have an open mind, open heart and realize that mental illness does not equal stupidity, does not warrant stereotysm, or deserve lesser opportunities in life. All of which I have personally seen the state of Virginia do to its population of the mentally ill.

This will not be easy to write as it takes a bit of digging into uncomfortable feelings and the trauma associated with it, I am putting myself out there, but it is necessary, people don't like to see and hear ugly things, it is indeed ugly, and if it is ugly to you, then times that by ten and you will experience what it was like for me. If you have or ever were a victim of a sexual assault, then you will soon know you are not alone in how you felt.


Here is my situation.

I went to the hospital one day because I was having suicidal ideations, was not comfortable feeling alone and had went on the advice of my doctor to go in voluntarily. I went into the ER, and the ER did find it to be necessary I seek help on their psych ward, so I was voluntarily admitted at that point. Upon entering the psych ward, I had a female nurse whom escorted me to the triage room they had there on the ward, this is where they basically, search your clothing, check for any injuries, get your vitals and this is the point you are asked to undress and put on a gown, you are in only a gown and underwear at the point of leaving this triage room.
She then took me to my room, it was a room containing two beds and in between was the portable computer they would use to gather all the necessary intake information they would need on me this process can take a couple to a few hours.
The nurse started off collecting this information while I sat on the bed supplying it. But then about a half an hour into it came the care taker, he seemed bouncy, goofy, and talkative, he took over from there and the nurse left.
He was asking questions that was fairly normal I had been through this several times before and so everything seemed normal, I was giving him all the information he was asking for, home adress, phone number, medicines, allergies, it all seemed typical. Then he asked me to stand up, he said I needed to undo my gown, so I did, he said he needed to have a look, I looked around and I said, isn't she supposed to be in here? He said no, she doesn't have to be in here for this, I said, ok, looking around because I was nervous.
He said your gonna have to remove your gown, I looked at the door...he said remove your gown please...so I did, he said, nice, and he smiled and he reached up and fondled my breasts...and he felt down around my waists and came back to my chest, I said don't do that please! He said I'm sorry is that uncomfortable, I said yes!
He said ok, you can put your gown back on, I said I need to go to the bathroom, he said well you have to leave the door cracked a bit, I knew that was procedure, it was for patient safety, so I did.
I did used the toilet and I got up, washed my hands and went to come out and he stepped in front of me and pushed me back in, he said look what I have here for you...I said what are you doing?? He said go ahead, go ahead and touch it, he had pulled his erection out of  the front of his nursing pants and grabbed my hand, and I balled my fist up and he rubbed his penis all over my fist, I said STOP! He said what you don't like that, I said no, let me out of the bathroom please?? He said you can't tell anyone, I said I won't now let me out! He let me out, again apologized and said not to tell anyone. I felt pretty trapped and like well if I did say anything he would say it wasn't true and they would believe him over me anyway.
The nurse was coming in and out of the room periodically and I would look at her, look at him, and everytime she would come in there he would do whatever he could to shut her up and get her out of the room.
I wasn't in the position to do much of anything, I was naked, in a gown, defenseless pretty much and I have experienced their seclusion room before and all I would have had to do was get mad or irrate and I knew I would be right back in there given forced shots and so I was scared of that happening too. I was seriously trapped.
I had to have an EKG done, which is also procedural thing. In which he felt necessary for him to perform as well. So again, off came the gown and he once again fondled my breasts..I took his hand off of me and I said please quit! He just said oh yeah, that's right I'm sorry. Like this was a joke to him. He was the only one laughing, because I wasn't.
I was getting mad and worried that he wouldn't stop.
I had gotten a call from my husband out in the hallway, I went out and took the call but my husband wasn't too happy I was in there to begin with and his intent was to pick arguements and this wasn't helping because I wanted to tell him so bad what was going on, but he was mad and we argued and he hung up on me, besides that the care taker was hovering like a hawk anyway as I was speaking to my husband on the phone. My chances to tell were extremely limited.
I headed back to my room.
A little later on, it had gotten dark outside and nearly completely dark in my room, as the light over my bed wasn't working, and I was lying down, he had come back into my room, whispering, mumbling something and I had turned over to find him leaning on my bed, he had pulled out his erection again, grabbed my head and pulled me by my hair towards him and I put my hand out to push away from him...he had forced himself on me...I don't need to be more detailed than that..at this point I imagine you know what happened.
I know I felt totally disgusted, I was mad, crying, spitting, and trying to clean my mouth out...he violated me and I was nearly throwing up on my gown.
He got startled, maintenance knocked on the door, he pulled his pants up and ran to the door, with it slightly cracked he spoke through the door, then gathered himself together then came out and I could hear them saying, is there a patient in that room? We have an order to fix the lights, he told him he must have the wrong room, and I could hear him say, well he had a couple more things to take care of but he would be back. So I just laid there crying, not the kind of crying that says I'm hurt so much as the kind of crying that I just wanted to die. He came back in a little bit later and said his shift was almost over, he was sorry if he hurt me, but he would check on me later and see if I was ok and left his phone number, I swear he had built some sort of a phony relationship he thought he was having..I don't know how many more times I could have said no, or stop, or quit! I went to the door after he didn't come back for a little bit..I waited, and waited..I saw the nurse in the office and so I went out, looked around made sure he wasn't there..went up to the window and I pecked on the window, motioned for her to come out...and I said, is he gone? She said who, I said the male nurse, is he gone? She said yes he has gone home why? I said because he left this...she said what is it? I said it's his phone number, she said how or why did he leave this with you, I said he wanted me to call him, and I said, I will never call him, I don't want it, and he sexually assaulted me! She said OMG, are you ok? She said lets go in your room and talk about this, I said I don't want to go in there! So they put me in another room and we talked about it, she said I would have to get a P.E.R.K test done, it is a rape kit. So they took me to the ER department to get that done, I will never forget, when they brought me up there in a wheel chair, the looks on their faces, the ER nurses standing together, the whispering the looks like disappointment and disgust at me..I felt like a criminal for having suggested someone in their hospital did something like this, it was devastating, embarrassing and totally traumatic to go through. When being put in the room and on the bed, the sheriffs officer that was at the door acted angry, like he had better things to do, and just mean...I will never forget these things.
Afterwards I was taken back to the ward, I was soo tired, it had been over 24 hours, they gave me tranquilizers as soon as I got back to the room and a couple hours later the investigater was there, I wake up to a nurse telling me who he was and that he wanted to speak to me, I am so tired, so drugged that I could hardly keep my eyes open to see him and I remember thinking, does this have to happen right this minute??
I remember he said to me, that they had video surveillance, that they were waiting for the test to come back and that they would help me, and the would get back to me.
While I was in there my husband was informed of what happened, he was extremely upset!! Lets just say he had his own ideas for justice to be served and quickly.
Once I had been released, it was a week or so and the investigater called and needed us to come to the sheriffs office, in which we did, they wanted a dna sample from my husband in which he cooperated fully and supplied. At that time they did inform him that the caretakers dna was found on my gown.
So we were at that point pretty confident they had enough to go after the caretaker that had violated me.
However I kept calling for updates, and a month or two later and I get a letter in the mail stating they went ahead with a "true-bill" hearing and decided they didn't have enough evidence to go forward with a trial.
Here I am devastated all over again. I wanted, and more than deserved my day in court with him, I wanted him to look me in the eye and face what he did. And now I won't have that chance, my rights just wiped right away.I called the investigater to ask why? Why would they have a true bill hearing and not let me be a part and give my input? Adult protective services were there, everyone was there but me, how come as a mentally ill person I got no legal representative on my behalf whatsoever? I asked then, well what happened to the video surveillance, he said what video surveillance, I said to him, you said when I was in the hospital that you had plenty of video accounting for him going in and out the room as many times as he did and that it would be helpful, he said that they must have lost those, I said what? no now come on? I said what about the dna? he said being it was on the gown we can't prove how it got on the gown..my heart sunk to the ground there is no way they had all they did and all of a sudden they can do nothing! I needed resolve to this, I needed to know how and why someone could assault someone in this state and just walk right away. At first I thought it must be because I am mentally ill, I had heard alot from someone who knows mental health and has worked in the field of VASA, (victims against sexual assault) for 15 yrs, and through her experience she had never seen the law support victims of sexual assault, stated to me that if she was raped tomorrow she would never report it to this state. She had seen so many women try to stand up to their attackers in this state and either the trial itself was too hard to endure because the woman is put on trial more than their attacker is, and it has led to suicides, or a vast majority of women not even reporting to begin with. So she said that it was best not to put myself through that, she didn't want to see me hurt even more than I was already. So I decided to persue at another level, I contacted the local news, I wanted someone to have to take accountability for what happened in that public facility. That caretaker had only lost his job, that was the only thing that happened to him. That was a very lenient price to pay for doing what he did, it would be nothing for him to be hired at another facility and I was also afraid of what he would do to someone else. The local media decided against airing my story because they were afraid of a lawsuit from this hospital for slander or libel. Forget about justice for someone, they jumped on the business corrupted bandwagon and again, I am left defenseless against this institution. From the get go I hadn't had an ounce of support for my situation, no one on my side, not even one single legal representative to help me through this ordeal. And might I add that Adult Protective Services was indeed involved as well in this investigation and still chose to push this hush hush under the rug. As time went on, I did my best to heal from this, I took up mixed martial arts classes to ensure that the next time I'm put in a vulnerable situation I am more than prepared to defend myself if need be. It has since become a lifestyle for me. I adore every bit of it, it taught me alot about determination, self worth, and healing and balance.
Over time I would get involved in some other endeavors as well, I proceeded to use this experience as a learning experience also, but more so to figure out how these things are allowed to happen.
I discovered over time also that there is a business aspect to this. I learned that the local hospital actually pays the courts/police departments for alotted time needed for their assistance for mentally ill that come in that need an officer by their side, also for TDO (temporary detainment order) processing and in order to keep the tab of the local police forces the hospital tosses some money their way in the form of "contributions", as a way to say, thank you for helping us maintain. In regards to that they have local even state police to use at their disposal whenever needed, to include commonwealths attorneys, adult protective services, social services, judges, you see, this is all a network.  So when UNBROKEN gets sexually assaulted in their local hospital on their territory, and she is mentally ill, it really is no problem to get rid of this problem for them. How easy it was for them to "make the problem go away", so unbroken couldn't get a lawyer, unbroken couldn't get assistance, and unbroken couldn't get justice. Instead the commonwealth's attorney got rid of or allowed the tapes to disappear, and everyone else just followed suit. This area hospital can't stand bad publicity, just simply couldn't possible have a mentally ill person, smear their name/reputation, unfortunately, for them, this isn't the only corruption behind their doors that Unbroken has seen, she has seen psychiatrist sign off on scripts for a nurse that nearly overdoses patients, she has known other psychiatrists and therapists leave their facility due to said corruption as well admittingly so by them, she has seen that everytime there are a certain number of litigations built up against their facility they change their name and the interior of their building, she has seen abuse within this facility that should have the State of Virginia in there shutting their doors for good. And as if all that wasn't bad enough, they deliberately set out to hurt me, they use my medical record to use against me, it is flagged within my medical record stating, "accused one of our staff of sexually assaulting her", and used that also when I have been transferred to other hospitals within the state of Virginia, as if to say, I am to be blamed for what happened to me and "they" are the victims. However magically, the state does nothing to this facility. They tried to break her, and to this day, she is...unbroken.

No comments: