I'm Back

 "I'm back"

Hal Pepinsky, pepinsky@indiana.edu, "peacemaking" at pepinsky.blogspot.com

                                                                     March 31, 2014

   On Friday, the psychiatrist in whose care I was put discharged me from the 2nd floor mental health unit at OSU's Harding Hospital, pointing out that I had done precisely 30 days of the 90-day involuntary commitment I was given in exchange for refusing to let myself be forcibly injected with thorazine when I had volunteered to go there to calm down from a manic episode.  On the bright side, my 30 days passed quickly, filled with good memories and new friendships among loving, well-trained staff and patients alike.  I am now simply asking my primary care physician to wean me from a high dose of a milder anti-psychotic (theraquil, 300 grams) and a blood pressure medicine (coreg) that is artificially lowering a naturally low metabolic rate.  On the not-so-bright side, my wife and daughter were severely traumatized by what I consider an unlawful conversion of voluntary commitment to involuntary status.  I am not interested in legal redress; I consider the primary psychiatrist's treatment of me to be past history.  I have promised the staff that I will do what I can to help them literally clean the air they work in and grant them the discretion they deserve--the freedom from pointless bureaucratic rules--so that they can do the jobs they are so superbly qualified to do.
   Among other pleasures of my stay in the ward, 2 Moroccan devout Muslims invited me to recite shahada with them as witnesses.  I was already Jewish (my father's side) and Christian (my mother's side) by birth, and now I am Muslim too, regarding Moses, Jesus and Muhammad as prophets in their own time, pronouncing the word of the one God--the God I call the force of love that binds us together, equally.
   So many good things happened during my stay, so many were the interesting and uplifting patients and staff I lived among, that I can scarcely begin to enumerate them in this blog.  I have emerged from the experience even freed from my addiction to coffee, substituting herbal tea, probably for the rest of my life.  My wife, our daughter, and I are finalizing the announcement of a dinner May 10 celebrating the life of my mother, who died peacefully last November 25.  Life is good, Alhamdulillah.    love and peace, hal