Been There, Done That

Greetings and Salutations:

I just now saw this movie on cable television.

I actually lived through similar experiences, when I was a teenager committed by the local juvenile court to Big Spring State Hospital, in Big Spring, Texas, and later, to Dorothea Dix Hospital, in Raleigh, North Carolina.

Much of what the movie portrayed did occur in the institutions where I literally grew to adulthood.

There were innumerable parallels between reality and the film.

Yes, as I was being transported from the hospital in El Paso, Texas, to Big Spring State Hospital, I remember being handcuffed, shackled, and chained by a Texas State Trooper, and wondering why?

Being a kid, I was impressed that anyone thought I was so dangerous!

Back in those days, neither mental patients, nor juveniles had "rights", or if they did, nobody knew about them.

I was subjected to repeated electric shock treatments, and it was even worse than what's shown in this movie, or in the movie, "ONE FLEW OVER THE CUCKOO'S NEST".

I was used as a human guinea pig for experimental psychotropic drugs.

Yes, "patients" were beaten and brutalized by hospital personnel.

Inmates also beat, terrorized, and robbed each other.

Yes, the "wards", or dormitories, were very spartan, much like what was shown in that movie, and the furniture was quite similar.

Yes, we rarely, if ever, saw a doctor, and yes, I wondered about the lack of treatment in a so-called "hospital"?

Yes, many individuals, who had no families or resources, simply disappeared in the maelstrom.

Because I acted like a typical teenage boy, I was considered to be a disciplinary problem, as I and other teenagers who had never committed any crime, ended up locked in a maximum security unit with criminals.

In Big Spring, Texas, teenagers were given high school classes, but at Dorothea Dix, there was no provision for continuing my education, so it stopped.

Yes, as a result of my meeting with a chaplain for personal counsel, I later heard a rumor that the Governor of North Carolina had ordered an investigation into why juveniles who had not committed any crime were being locked in with hardened criminals from the state prison.

During the long, nightmarish years I spent there, my only friends and closest associates were deviants, perverts, violent psychopaths, and career criminals.

You can only imagine the cumulative effect the combination of all these aberrant conditions had on my psyche and emotions.

When I was nineteen years old, I was finally released, and I looked and acted like the character so accurately portrayed by Billy Bob Thornton in the movie, "SLINGBLADE".

What saved me?

First, after hitch-hiking around the country, I wound up in Portland, Oregon, where I became a convert in The Church of JESUS CHRIST of Latter-day Saints.

The young men and young ladies in the church befriended me, fellowshipped me, and helped me, by physically taking me by the hand and teaching me how to talk and walk like a normal human being.

Even though my formal education ceased years earlier, I was always a voracious reader of every type of book I could get my hands on, regardless of the subject matter, and so, when I took the G.E.D. test at Portland State University, I passed it, earning my equivalency to a high school education.

Secondly, the United States was involved in a very unpopular and controversial war in Viet Nam, with many young American males deliberately avoiding military service.

Having been classified by my draft board as unfit for military service, I wrote a letter to the President of the United States, Lyndon Baines Johnson, requesting reclassification.

I was reclassified fit for military service, but still was denied enlistment in the United States Marine Corps, or any of the other branches of the Armed Forces.

So, I volunteered to be drafted, which automatically put me at the head of the list, and automatically put me in the United States Army.

Those were the really big breaks I needed to put my past behind me and go on to a better life.

I traveled the globe, learned to play guitar, began composing songs (both lyrics and melody), went to college, married (but later divorced, with no children), and after military service, was employed as a police officer, firefighter, and paramedic.

I also acted on stage in local community theatre plays, and was even mentioned in a couple of rather obscure military history books.

Today, I'm retired, a disabled war veteran living at the Old Soldiers' Home, with my own personal Internet blog, and enjoy participating in local events with my Scottish clan.

Heavenly Father has richly blessed me, and I am very, VERY fortunate!

Thank you.

John Robert Mallernee
Official Bard of Clan Henderson
Armed Forces Retirement Home
Washington, D.C. 20011-8400