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CRAZY PAGES

Chapter 10
CONSERVATORSHIP, 1988-1989

[Some of this chapter originally appeared in
Chuck's Newsletter #16, Fall 1989 and #17, Winter 1989/1990
and CRAZY PAGES chapter 8.]

Only the Craziest Wash Paper???
    In August 1988 I was in County Mental Health (CMH) for a stay that lasted more
than 2 months. My symptoms were insubstantial as far as I was concerned. I was brought
in by the cops because I was testing the paper pulp process in a laundromat. Newspaper
companies are not brought into the hospital, yet they perform the pulp process to a large scale.
    CMH held me while the staff and I awaited the evaluation that would determine
whether I was a candidate for a conservatorship. A conservatorhip is a situation in which
a judge of the Superior Court finds that you are, by virtue of a mental condition, "gravely
disabled", which means unable to provide for your own food, shelter or clothing, and/or a
danger to yourself or others. The judge appoints a conservator such as a social worker or
relative to take care of your finances and other matters of your life such as deciding where
you will live. Many of your rights are also taken away such as voting, driving, engaging in
contracts (including getting married) and possession of firearms.

Legal Mumbo, Legal Jumbo
    They need a lot of paperwork to keep you in the hospital. I call this "Legal Mumbo,
Legal Jumbo". My hospitalization started on August 5, 1988. On that date they issued a
Notice of Certification MH1760, or "Cert". It said,

"We, the undersigned, allege that the above-named person is,
as a result of a mental disorder...:"

The first 2 possible responses were x'd out as inapplicable:

"A danger to others" and
"A danger to himself or herself".

The remaining response was

"Gravely disabled as defined in paragraph (1) of subdivision (h) or subdivision (l)
of Section 5008 of the Welfare and Institutions Code."

    Then the Cert said, "The specific facts which form the basis for our opinion that
the above-named person meets one or more of the classifications indicated above are as
follows:" Their response was:

"Pt with no clear source of income. Pressured, disorganized requiring a structured
environment...."

"Pt" means patient. "Pressured" means talking too fast. They can say anything that they
want as long as it is sufficient to get you into the hospital.

Activities of Daily Losing
    Once you are there, there are a lot of activities to do, most of them dumb. My
favorites were painting a cup blue that said "Love" all over it, putting an eagle design on a
wallet and filling in a sheet headed A Book About Me. Excerpts (the parts that I filled in
are underlined):

"I would explain that my favorite things in the whole world are making
Love and making people laugh. Then I would write about my future plans.
I would say that I'd like to be a/an recluse or a/an song writer when I grow
up, and that I'd like to look like myself when I am older. I would tell my
readers that if I had one wish it would be for more wishes."

Escape Clause
    After 10 weeks in the hospital, I went to a group meeting with a psychologist
whom I had never seen before. It turned out to be about 7 ways to get out of here:

    1. taking care of all minor physical ailments (I had several)
    2. be charted as attending various groups
    3. be invited to attend certain groups
    4. being aware that the keyword for the doctors was INSIGHT
    5. being level
    6. being productive in my projects
    7. having a feeling of winning and exhilaration at meeting a goal

Lies for Judge 6 Eyes
    As described in chapter 8 on 1988, I went to Superior Court for my
conservatorship hearing. I had a judge who looked like he was ninety-years old and
seemed to have six eyes.

"It was a typical case of American blind justice"
--Arlo Guthrie, "Alice's Restaurant Massacree"

    While I was in CMH, the doctors had prepared a "Conservatorship Investigation
Report" on me to submit to the court to convince the judge that I should be placed on a
conservatorship. The CMH psychologist who authored the report, Dr. Jane Rand,
presented the Conservatorship Investigation Report on me and testified to its truth. I was
continuously outraged as I counted up lie after lie about me. I later obtained a copy of the
report and noted 14 lies and other distortions. One item was that I was observed to take
more than an hour to eat a peach. This was supposed to be an example of my being
disabled. When I visited San Diego as a tourist in 1975, I took 2 hours to eat bouillabaisse
and no one thought to lock me up.
    Two years after my conservatorship hearing, I was invited to speak about
conservatorships to a professional group of persons in psychology and law, called the San
Diego Psych-Law Society. I titled my speech, "Conservatorship: The Receiving End". I
focused on the Conservatorship Investigation Report. I read off each false statement that
was made about me, followed by saying, "That's a lie." At one time, I inadvertently burst
into song, realizing that my coda was the words to a Beatles song. I sang it,

"That's a li - i - i - ie."

I thought that my speech might bother Bill Miller, the head of the Office of the
Conservator but I was told that he wanted to have me come to speak to his people. As it
turned out, this did not happen but I took the offer as a compliment and felt good that they
wanted to hear the client side of the conservatorship issue.
    The old judge listened to the lies of the doctors' report and listened to my lawyer's
defense. The judge looked down at his paperwork, aided by his four pieces of glass for
reading close. He looked up in my direction and apparently could not see at a distance.
He asked which one was me. He then smiled and said about me, "He's smart. But he's
disabled." He put me on a conservatorship for one year, the standard amount of time. He
took away my rights to drive, to engage in contracts and to possess firearms. He did not
restrict my right to vote. He ordered that I live in a board and care home and that I
have a county social worker to take care of my affairs.
    To have one's rights taken away, to be treated as a child and to be told that one is
not capable of performing basic life tasks by oneself was humiliating to me. There was no
legal recourse. I had to accept it. I was outraged but kept it inside.

Board & Care - We're Bored & They Don't Care
    I stayed at CMH for several more weeks while they were waiting for a room to
become available at a board and care. My birthday was coming up on October 18 and I
asked if I could start at the board and care on my birthday. I definitely did not think of it
as a present to myself. I probably just wanted to make it easy to remember my start date.
When the day arrived, I was surprised that CMH had me go to the board and care
unaccompanied. They gave me directions by bus. The directions by foot after getting off
the bus were wrong and I went the wrong way up a steep hill. My experiences in the
board and care are detailed in a separate chapter. Following are details pertinent to being
on a conservatorship while in the board and care.
    Life was quite different in the board and care from independent living. The major
difference was being given one's meds and watched while taking them to be sure that one
did not "cheek" them or not really take them. The psychiatrist came to us every week
instead of going to her. My major complaint was that the doctor put me on Thorazine, a
major tranquilizer, as a sleeping pill. Her reasons were that she did not want me to keep
any "nightowl" hours and did not want me to be "putting thoughts together". As a person
with a well-functioning brain, I was outraged by this but I was unable to change her mind.
When you are on a conservatorship, you lose your right to refuse meds. When she gave me
double shots of Thorazine once, it turned me into a moron for 11 weeks. My memory was
severely stilted. When I recovered, I wrote up this incident for Chuck's Newsletter and sent
out 300 copies so that the mental health administration knew about the incident.

Social InSecurity
    I had to fight to get my Social Security benefits restored. Social Security was not
being cooperative. My Social Worker surprised me by telling me that she did not know
anything about Social Security and that I had to ask someone else. She was supposed to
take care of everything for me but was inept at least in this instance. Someone referred me
to the leading expert on Social Security in the county. This person was very hard to reach
on the phone but when we finally talked, he said, "I'm passing the buck and I'm passing it
to Senator Cranston. I called the Senator's office in San Francisco and sent them letters.
Eventually when I called Social Security to determine my status they said that they could
not do anything because my file was stamped "Under Congressional Investigation". That
made me feel that something was finally being done. I hoped that everyone in my position
does not have to resort to their Senator to help them get something that was a basic right
like Social Security. Finally my benefits were restored.

County Protection - Household Goods
    My household belongings were all put into storage by the county when I was
placed on the conservatorship. The county paid for the storage the first year. The storage
company told me that the rates were the lowest that I could possibly find because they
were a county contractor. I had a lot of belongings, furniture and 100 boxes of files. It
came out to $103 a month. They said that because of the low rates they had to charge me
$25 an hour for access time if I wanted to pull anything out of storage. Being on Social
Security, I could not afford to access anything except one time that I went to get my
typewriter for producing Chuck's Newsletter. Now five years later, my belongings are still
there and it has cost me thousands of dollars for storage for items that are not worth that
much. Fortunately, I have just recently had the file boxes pulled and placed in archival
storage which costs much less to access materials.

County Protection - Vehicle
    My Porsche 924 was thoroughly vandalized while under county "protection" while
I lived in the board and care. My latest tabulation was $3,600 in damage. At one point
the county offered $1,800 but I thought that that was unreasonable. There is a very small
chance that I can collect anything of this $3,600 now but I will be pursuing it. [I collected 0.]
    No one ever thought to ask if I needed help doing my taxes when I was on a
conservatorship. They probably think that people on a conservatorship do not owe any
taxes because they are below the poverty level and typically receive SSI, Social Security
or General Relief funds. I earned a good income during the first four months of the year
of 1988 when I worked at Rohr. I did not think to file my taxes while I was living at
the board and care - it absolutely never crossed my mind. A few years later, I was caught
by the IRS for back payment of taxes. I then paid them monthly for back taxes.

Rights Milestone
    After I had been on the conservatorship for six months, I found that some of my
rights that had been taken away could be restored by going to court. I thought that this
would be hard to do. However, at court my lawyer got my case heard ahead of about 30
others and briefly explained it to the same judge in about 30 seconds. The judge smiled
and said that he did not see why not and that he would personally send a letter to DMV
requiring reestablishing my drivers' license. That was the easy part. I then had to go to
DMV and be interrogated. They had a printout that said that my license was revoked for
psychiatric reasons and they wanted to be absolutely sure that it was OK to restore my
license. I did get my license back. I felt that this was a milestone on the way to get the
whole conservatorship overthrown in another six months when my year was up. I did not
retrieve my Porsche from storage then because I could not afford insurance and gas, the
usual reason why mental health clients do not have cars.

How Disabled Was I?
    In September 1989, the anniversary of my conservatorship had just passed. My
Social Worker, Kate Lynch, felt that it would be overthrown because I was really doing
well and she said that she could not prove that I was disabled. She was concerned that
once I left the board & care I might miss taking my medications.

During my year on the conservatorship,

• I was writing this book,

• I published 6 issues of Chuck's Newsletter,

• sent out about 400 resumes for jobs, and

• was on the Board of Directors of the Golden Hill
  Business Association.

I agree with Kate that I was not gravely disabled then and I also think that I never was.
    As I thought, my conservatorship was not renewed. I received the decision by
mail and did not have to go to court. Also I did not have to say the things that I had
planned to say in court on my own behalf about my accomplishments during my time of
conservatorship. I appreciated my conservator/social worker Kate Lynch and Public
Defender Jeff Elias for their work on this.
    A board and care is typically intended for people on a conservatorship. I decided
to continue to live there despite being off the conservatorship. My major reason was that
I hoped to get a full-time job which would enable me to get a better apartment than I
could if I just moved out while on Social Security. I did not want to move twice in a short
time. My other reasons were wanting to stay with friends I had made there and to stay in
familiar surroundings.

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