This man was solely responsible for the torture of patients on his unit
and he was chief of the W-1 unit of adult psychiatry at HOCC aka New Britain General Hospital in central connecticut in 2014, when I was hospitalized there for approximately a month. During that month he and his staff repeatedly brutalized me, including having guards strip me naked and restrain me, they laughed even as I said that they were enjoying the rape, spread-eagling my limbs into the restraint cuffs without even trying to cover me. This happened multiple times but when I informed the “doctor” what they had done, he hotly denied it, and called me a liar. But I was not and am not a liar and all I can say is, he was fucking the wrong person, because I hope to make his life the hell that he made mine… and I intend to do so by telling the truth, as loud and often as I need to. Because the truth not only will set me free, it just might one day teach monsters like Balkunas a badly needed lesson.
Done at Care Bed in St Johnsbury VT in Nov 2014 Pamela Spiro Wagner
In truth, if you came here to find out how not to live a regulated life, by which I mean one not bound by routines and self-made Rules with a capital R, I may disappoint in what follows. Why? Because while I trust that my life, lacking as it is in almost all “regulated structure”, has a “mind of its own” and in that sense as much purpose as any other, I confess that this free-spirit eschewing of everything and anything routine is less by choice than by temperament.
Not that I have not tried, mightily, to instill in myself the values of routine, attempting to establish even one single habit that might tame a few of these impulses to spontaneity that don’t in fact help me. Okay, phoebe, be specific, name one! Well, in point of fact, i do not eat, sleep or even brush my teeth on any routine or scheduled or regulated basis….This is not troubling to me in terms of the first two: i live alone and have no intimate relationship, so when and where I sleep or eat is really nobody else’s concern. But my mouth is full of dental work that cost a mint, so the fact that I do not brush my teeth…period, let alone on a regular or scheduled basis could be seen as a problem. If it were not for frequent dental visits and a family who at least saw to it that my teeth were taken care of, I might be lacking them altogether.
But if my title above enticed you, you did not come here to read about my lack of dental hygiene or the drawbacks to living as I do, free of routines. One might see me as either free-spirited or run-amock, depending on how you perceive my life-style of spontaneously going with the flow and hoping for or anticipating the best outcome. As I said, this is not entirely by choice, as I seem to thrive (mostly) on doing things on a “what do I feel like doing now?” basis, rather than according to any schedule. Temperament? Most likely…though I can say that I was not always this way, or so comfortable with being and living the spontaneous life. As a child I was known as the Neatnik, the one whose room was meticulous all the time, and who knew where everything was placed or kept, down to the toothpicks in my antiqued-in-6th-grade-secretary-desk, lower left hand drawer, upper right quadrant, in a handmade box, next to the pen nibs in another box…(you see what I mean?)
if i used to be neat to an extreme and thrived on order, what the heck happened? I shake my head, wondering about the transformation myself…it may be that I was wrongly “typed” as the stoic, neatnik child, when my true nature was much more free wheeling. I know my parents had to pigeonhole each of us, their children, in order to “make sense of us” but did so on the basis of what they wanted to see not on what was there by nature. But maybe, too, there was a change as I grew up, either temperamentally or as a kind of rebellion, and assertion of who I really am.
Most or many people I know could not live as I do, and would neither want to or find it comfortable. I cannot seem to live any other way. But I will also say that if you are comfortable with routines and schedules, go for it. Find out who you really are and not who your parents decided you were, way back when. You can’t do more than survive, which is to say, you can only THRIVE when you know and are true to yourself and to what your needs and feelings are.
Sometime I will write about Nonviolent Communication and how it changed my life. Talk about not being spontaneous! This is a system and a tool for resolving interpersonal conflicts as well as developing a better self-rapport, and while you can learn to use it spontaneously , at first it feels rigid and constricting and even artificial. (But so what? I mean, baking bread is artificial, and so is using any electricity or a boat to ferry you across a river…what isn’t?). But those skilled in NVC are also some of the most accepting, tolerant and loving people I have ever met…so even if I do it on more or less spontaneous basis, i aim for such a state of being.
Not sure why link is not working but if you click on it you will get to Disability Arts Onljne, from there go to magazine, then click on newest reviews. The second one in, so far, should be about O-rings and Cathode Rays, that is to say, the review.
i will try posting this address which may copy and paste better than the link does.
When people think of Robert Frost and quote his poem “Mending Wall” they use this in support of fence making: “Good fences make good neighbors…” but rarely have they read the poem all the way through. Here is the heart, I believe, of this poem , at least insofar as it pertains to physical walls:
this is the fact sheet that I obtained from senator Elizabeth Warren,s website.
The Over-the-Counter Hearing Aid Act of 2017
Approximately 30 million Americans experience age-related hearing loss, including over half of adults between the ages 70-79.1 Yet only a small share of Americans with hearing loss – around 14 percent – use assistive hearing technologies, primarily because they cannot afford to buy costly hearing aids.2 Hearing aids are not covered by Medicare or most private insurance plans, and out-of-pocket costs for a single hearing aid average $2,400 – far out of reach for many consumers.3 As a result, individuals living in poverty are substantially less likely to have access to hearing aids than those with higher incomes.4
Complex hearing aid regulations exacerbate this problem by restricting the availability of hearing aids. In 1977, the FDA imposed a set of special regulations on hearing aids, including a requirement that individuals obtain a medical evaluation or sign a waiver of that evaluation before being allowed to purchase or use a hearing aid. After an extensive review, the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine found “no evidence that the required medical evaluation or waiver of that evaluation provides any clinically meaningful benefit” and recommended “removing this regulation to serve consumers’ best interests.”5
Both the National Academies and the President’s Council of Advisors on Science and Technology (PCAST) have also recommended making some types of hearing aids available over the counter – similar to the way in which basic reading glasses are available without a prescription. PCAST’s analysis of the hearing aid market concluded that “consumers find it difficult to shop for the best value.”6 Hearing aids are typically sold “bundled” with fees charged for evaluation, follow-up, and adjustments to the device, even though many consumers never use these services.7 Allowing hearing aids to be sold over the counter will expand consumer choice, open the market to innovative hearing technologies, and drive down prices so that millions more Americans can access affordable hearing aids.
The Over-the-Counter Hearing Aid Act of 2017
The Over-the-Counter Hearing Aid Act of 2017 implements recommendations from PCAST and the National Academies to help the millions of Americans affected by hearing impairment. The Act:
• Makes certain types of hearing aids – those intended to be used by adults to compensate for perceived mild to moderate hearing impairment – available over the counter.
• Removes an unnecessary and burdensome requirement that consumers obtain a medical evaluation or sign a waiver of that examination in order to obtain an OTC hearing aid.
• Requires the FDA to issue regulations containing safety and labeling requirements for this new category of OTC hearing aids.
• Maintains existing safety, labeling, and manufacturing protections and applies them to OTC devices in order to ensure that OTC hearing aids are held to the same high standards as other medical devices.
• Requires the FDA to update its draft guidance on Personal Sound Amplification Products (PSAPs), consumer electronics products that may use similar technology to hearing aids, but are intended for use by individuals with normal hearing.
“In India when we meet and part we Often say, ‘Namaste’, which means: I honor the place in you where the entire universe resides; I honor the place in you of love, of light, of truth, of peace. I honor the place within you where if you are in that place in you and I am in that place in me, there is only one of us." ~~Ram Dass~~
