Page 2/The Battalion/Tuesday, April 28, 1987
Opinion
Texas mental health care
a one-way street
Spring breaks
have been about
the same for me
since my junior
year in high school ■■■
— a week-long ritual
friends, beer
Scott
Redepenning
the more economical route of visiting a
friend from Southwestern University,
whom I hadn’t seen in awhile.
Well, at least I tried to.
Guest Columnist
of sun, surf,
breakfasts, 7-Eleven din
ners and general mental inactivity. This
year was different.
He was in school at this time, and was
also doing a psychology internship at
Austin State Hospital — one of Texas’
public mental-health institutions.
Because of a severe lack of funds
among the friends, this year’s expedi
tion was called off, and instead I went
It wasn’t my idea of the most exciting
thing to do during spring break, but I
couldn’t help being a little curious about
what it was like in a mental hospital, so I
went along with my friend.
He asked permission from the hospi
tal administrators for me to follow him
around for a day to see what it was all
about. Not a chance. They just smiled
politely and instead offered to give me a
tour of the place.
bothering them at all? Somehow, I felt
this tour wasn’t designed to give me the
whole picture, and I would walk away
thinking all is well at ASH.
Well, all is not well at ASH.
Something didn’t seem right about
this. Why would they go out of their way
to give me a tour, when I could observe
my friend’s duties for a day without
I finally got in by volunteering to
work on my friend’s assigned ward for a
couple of days. That couple of days is
the closest to being in prison as I ever
want to get.
The problem lies at the very baseoi
the whole system. By law, every citizen is
entitled to mental health care if needed
That’s why we have public hospitals It
ASH — for those who can’t afford pn|
vate help. But what’s written in the law!
and what’s practiced in Texas are vastltl
different.
I don’t know why the word “health” is
in mental health institution. Austin
State Hospital does about as much for
mental health as nuclear fallout does for
hair growth. To begin with, the furni
ture is shoddy. But, that didn’t really
bother me. What bothered me is that
each patient is treated like a piece of
that furniture — either sat on, moved
around or ignored.
I learned from a Southwestern ps\[
chology professor that Texas ranks5dili|
among the 50 states in the quality of iis|
public mental-health care, and
watching the staff at ASH, 1 didn’t hatel
much trouble believing it.
n
The patients are on a point system.
They get points for various accomplish
ments like good conduct, proper
grooming and class attendance. When a
patient is lucky enough to accumulate a
certain number of points, he is afforded
the great conveniences in life, like get
ting to visit the hospital’s second-rate
store. But if a patient doesn’t act just
how the staff wants him to he loses
points.
It’s not that the staff members aret
bunch of dictators devoted to the
pression of the patients; they just lx.
lieve this system works. They’re
keep their distance from the patieni
not to get involved. If a patient’scoi
lion changes, they just change hisdi
of drugs. It seems they think drui
alone can cure these people.
pstj
Well, it doesn’t take a Ph.D. in
chology to see this just isn’t true,
not increase the patient’s close of si
instead? Sure the drugs lielp, butthi
people need someone who w
them, someone who will listen tot!
someone who will at least try toundei
stand them — they need a friend
It’s the perfect system to keep the pa
tients in line. They perform before the
staff to get points as a dog would before
his master to get a biscuit.
In the two days I was at ASH, 1 made
many friends. It was easy.
But I did find a glimmer of good in
this system. It does get patients into the
rapy classes, and after sitting in on a few’
of these, I found they can help a little.
Be
for
careful what you
you might get
wish
it
In one class, each participant drew a
picture of how he sees himself and
passed it on to the next person. That
person would then add or subtract
something from the picture depicting
how he sees the original artist, and pass
it on. The teacher of the class (a college
intern) got one picture on which the pa
tient had drawn himself in a gloomy set
ting with tears running down his face.
She drew a smile over his frown, and
wrote beneath, “I am a neat person.”
Some of them helped ease thesid
feeling I got from the whole ordeal
These patients know what’s going oi
and they’re doing what they can toge [
better. But for most of them, fmafral
their sullen faces will haunt meforquilt
some time.
There’s no
way. Texas is
reason it should be
i great state, and Texani
are proud of it. But the patients in
state mental hospitals are Texans
and the way they’re treated isnothingio 'ock,' ” he s
be proud of. We pay taxes to put
in these hospitals, but the governtneu [j>
isn’t spending enough of this money
give them a good chance at gettingbad
out.
Carolyn
Garcia
Guest Columnist
When you want
something for so
long that it be-
c o m e s a 1 m o s r
dream-like to even
think of it, its materialization can be
most unnerving.
I wanted it. No, that’s too modest. I
prayed for it. And when I got it, I
thought it would kill me.But somehow 1
managed to survive my first career-re
lated job interview and actually come
out of it unscathed.
All college students — at least the
ones I know, which for all practical pur
poses in my world are the only ones that
matter — look forward to their first real
job interview with something like the
emotion related to a long-awaited
Christmas present.
The closer it gets, the mofe you antic
ipate it.Not to say, of course, that the va
rious secretarial jobs I used to pay my
way through this fine institution of
higher learning weren’t real — they just
didn’t fall on my list of REAL jobs.
A REAL job is something one spends
four — or in the case of many of my
journalist friends — six or more years
planning, studying and almost starving
for.
The big day came.I stood looking into
my bathroom mirror — the picture of
confidence was reflected back at me. I
had my best suit on — it actually still fit
— hair in place, make-up Vogue-perfect
and briefcase tucked confidently under
my arm. I was ready to take on the
world. Or at least the managing editor
of the Bryan-College Station Eagle.
Then a strange phenomenon took
place somewhere between my house’s
doorknob and the steps of the newspa
per building.All the confidence I had so
carefully summoned had evaporated.
What was left behind was not a pretty
sight.
The newspaper is only 7.2 miles from
my house — yet for some reason un
known to me, I left my house 30 min
utes early.
I wanted to impress him by not being
late — reporters are never supposed to
be late. But 30 minutes early! No, that
would never do. That was much too
early — too eager. I headed for a safe
haven — somewhere 1 could calm my
nerves and try to convince God to give
me back the confidence I had so careles
sly lost somewhere. I turned to Dairy
Queen! It seemed to be the perfect
place. And, most important, it sells
Coke. I was starting to loose my grip on
life.
1 discovered that it’s amazing how fast
one can drink 83 cents worth of cold,
fizzy brown liquid at that hour of the
editor and I even liked the same author
— how lucky could I have been?.
He told me to call him in a month to
see if anything “developed.” That’s it. I
knew I had blown it. But, hoping
against hope, I penciled on my calendar
to call him one month to the day. But
every journalism student at A&M must
beg him for a job, I thought. I don’t
have a chance.
He called me two-and-a-half weeks
later to offer me a job.
When the patient saw this, it was as if
she’d drawn the smile directly on his
face. It may not have been much, but it
was a great example of what one person
can do for another’s mental health. And
all it took was a little care.
morning. Carolyn Garcia is a senior journalism
There I sat in my car — the radio ’ ma j or w staff writer for The Battalion
and the Bryan-College Station Eagle.
playing much too loudly. Of course, the
stupid radio was doing nothing for my
nerves, but the song was something
familar — something I was sure of.
As I sat there I had the most bizarre
thought. I have never hyperventilated
in my life — in fact, I’m not even sure I
would know that was what was happen
ing to me if I ever actually did hyper
ventilate. However, I found myself
thinking how comforting it would be to
have a paper bag in my possession —-just
in case.
I now had 15 minutes. I figured that
was adequate time to drive 2.5 miles,
find the ladies’ room (for what seemed
the 100th time that morning), and pre
sent myself to the managing editor’s sec
retary a cool eight minutes early.
Perfect. Now if I could just pull it off.
I actually made it without having a
major accident. That seemed to be the
longest 2.5 miles I’ve ever had to drive.
I was sure I would be late.
I missed my mark by one minute. I
gave the secretary a fake calm smile at
the seven-minute mark.Once the inter
view was underway, I was beseiged by a
whole new set of self-induced traumas.
Was his joke that funny? Did I laugh too
much? Am I sitting up straight? Was
that answer good enough? My God, if I
blow this he’ll never interview me again.
I should have waited three or four more
months until I was really ready! Why
did I let my professor talk me into this?
Looking back — as we all know every
thing looks more logical that way — the
interview was actually a big success. This
But at ASH, care is what’s lacking the
most. I realize most of these people have
a reason to be at ASH; they’re mentally
disturbed. And I know they can’t be
given all the freedoms enjoyed by the
mentally sound, but if they’re ever
going to become capable human beings,
they must first feel like human beings.
And at ASH, they just aren’t given the
opportunity to feel this way too often.
Texas needs to get its priorities
straight. Traditionally, when the
hands out allowances, human services
hasn’t been a favorite child. We
enough to build ourselves some!
ful highways, but with the amount were
spending on public mental care
path to the hospital is a one-way street
Pavement before people. 1 wonderif
that’s in the Texas Gonstitution some
where.
Scott Redepenning is a senior jour
nalism major and make-up editor
for The Battalion.
About Aggie manners — Sept. 23,1938
“The Aggies are positively un
couth.” This was a remark overheard
in a show at Bryan after a particularly
repulsive exhibition had been made
by students of A. & M. The statement,
condemning as it was, is all too often
true.
Social customs, usually, are dictated
by the behavior of groups high in so
cial standing by the actions of individ
uals in these groups, and by popular
opinion. Even the groups in the lower
social strata attempt to imitate the ac
tions of their more highly educated
and supposedly superior countrymen.
Popular opinion, then, is a power
ful factor in determining social cor
rectness and in forming judgments of
groups. By this line of reasoning it is
logical to assume that college students
enjoy a position not attained by the av
erage citizen. That is, they have the
privilege of helping to form social cus
toms while conforming to those pre
viously set accepted. -
Aggies, because of their gregarious
nature, sometimes do not conform to
accepted standards and by failing to
do so cannot measure as high on the
social scale as university students
should.
A notable example of nonconfor
mity in Aggies is the rowdiness many
of them display in neighboring the
aters. Undoubtedly, most of this is
caused by freshmen and some by well-
meaning, but unthoughtful upper
classmen. But such behavior is inexcu
sable even in those groups. Level
headed upperclassmen could put an
end to rowdiness and unnecessary
noise in theaters by a simple explana
tion of the importance of proper be
havior. If such an explanation were
not sufficient, then perhaps more
forceful means could be employed.
Attitudes formed by visitors observ
ing a few Aggie rowdies detracts from
the glory of going to A. 8c M. and is
highly detrimental to the school and
its former students.
We do not advocate stilted manne
risms — they might tend to destroy
self-expressiveness — but surely, no
Aggie likes to be spoken of as being
uncouth, ill-mannered.
The point, then, is: Behave as you
have been taught and do as you know
is right!
The Battalion
(USPS 045 360)
Member of
Texas Press Association
Southwest Journalism Conference
The Battalion Editorial Board
Loren Steffy, Editor
Marybeth Rohsner, Managing Editor
Mike Sullivan, Opinion Page Editor
Jens Koepke, City Editor
Jeanne Isenberg, Sue Krenek, News Editors
Homer Jacobs, Sports Editor
Tom Ownbey, Photo Editor
Editorial Policy
I’he Buttctlion is a non-profit, self-supporting newspaper oper
ated as a community service to T exas A&M and Bryan-College Sta
tion.
Opinions expressed in The Battalion are those of the editorial
board or the author, and do not necessarily represent the opinions
of Texas A&M administrators, faculty or the Board of Regents.
j'he Battalion also serves as a laboratory newspaper for students
in reporting, editing and photography classes within the Depart
ment of Journalism.
The Battalion is published Monday through Friday during
Texas A&M regular semesters, except for holiday and examination
periods.
Mail subscriptions are $17.44 per semester, $34.62 per school
year and $36.44 per full year. Advertising rates furnished on re
quest.
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POSTMASTER: Send address changes to The Battalion, 216
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77843-4111.
Mail Call
Lady wears a bow
Those tell-tale tags
EDITOR:
This letter is in response to Karl Pallmeyer’s recent
comments on bowheads. I am sending Pallmeyer a few
ideas to ponder:
1. A correction should be made to your list of clubs at
which to find bowheads. No self-respecting bowhead
would be caught dead at the Rox-z. Everyone knows a
bowhead’s natural habitat is Rocco’s.
2. Not all bowheads are greek.
3. Black-patent-leather shoes and training bras will
come back in style before your haircut.
4. Your ideas about oral sex and bowheads should be
changed to your dreams about oral sex and bowheads.
Amy Bening ’89
EDITOR:
Karl Pallmeyer, you were way off the mark in hoping
that the fashion trend of wearing bows on the head comes
to a quick end. There is one quite valid reason fof fashion
conscious women to continue wearing them: they serve as
a warning beacon to unwary guys like us. When we see
some girl wearing her “bitch tag,” we automatically know
that we don’t have the money, th expensive cars or the
“yes dear” personalities to suit h< so we steer clear. Of
course, this isn’t true in all cases, but since we’re tradition-
minded Ags, we’re quite willing to stereotype and avoid
them all. After all, if they’re wearing a label, why not give
them one? Great column, Pallmeyer! We especially loved
the part about Corona beer and greek-lettered sweatshirts!
Randall Carter ’87, accompanied by two signitures
irefighters at I
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Fire Protectu
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