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It’s hard to know when standing by your principles results in you being labeled crazy.  It’s even harder to know what to do when you live by your principles, and as a result, are deemed crazy.  Principle turns into crazy fast, and that word gets strapped to your chest cause you stand up for what you think is wrong; for standing by your principles.

When the story of your life is rooted in principle, and it continues to blow up in your face, you are forced to call into question how you will survive.  You find yourself at a crossroads where principled becomes crazy.  Or does it?

Here we go, here’s the story…

A couple years ago my book, Inside the Insane, was published.  It is a tell all book about the on goings inside the psych wards of Harbor UCLA and Augustus Hawkins – LAC/USC psych wards.  When the Department of Mental Health (DMH), my employer, found out about my book they immediately removed me from my position as a case manager and discharge planner for the mentally ill.  I was told I had to meet in headquarters to receive my punishment.  I could not step foot on any county hospital property, and was involuntarily put in a desk job doing data entry in the basement of headquarters, and read policy and procedure binders starting from 1970 to the present.

I wrote the book cause there are things happening in psych wards that demand attention. At the time, I didn’t think of the repercussions, but, even now I have no regrets for whistle blowing on Los Angeles County.  Why?  Cause I’m principled.  I put the truth before myself which often times gets you in trouble.

I took the basement job thinking I was being investigated by the County to see if I broke HIPPA policies.  I sat there with what I like to call a non-job doing absolutely nothing all day.  Months went by and I had zero contact with anyone.  I would email my human resources contact for updates on this “investigation” and got nothing.  No update, no reply, nothing.

So, I took matters into my own hands.  My principles got the best of me, or so I think.  I hired attorneys to go after the County for retailing against me for freedom of speech, freedom of press, for freedom to tell the truth.  And SLAP.  I was banished from my job and quite frankly, myself.  I sat in that basement for months on end wondering why I was living in a world where such injustice can occur.  People would hear my story and say I was courageous and I just responded with a blank stare.  Courageous?  For what?  For telling the truth and standing by my word?  For being principled?

Since when do we live in a world where your principles backfire in your face? We live in a world where people are scared to come forth and challenge the system.  Whether it’s the government, or your corporate job, or whatever job you happen to have, you have a choice, and I made a choice.

The minute the County got papers stating I was ready to sue for retailing against me, I finally got a meeting with the District Chiefs to discuss how they were going to “handle” it.  In other words, shut me up.  I remember sitting in that room with the board of the Department of Mental Health and representatives of HIPPA and thinking, they are so full of malarkey that I wondered if I was going to be stuck for life trying to fight my way to tell the truth. But it never crossed my mind to drop my principles, cause it’s something that is ingrained in you.

The County put me in a position where I had to hire representation cause if not, they were just going to keep me in that holding cell and hope I wound fold. Pray that I would quit.  And my principles kept me there till one day, I cracked.  I lost myself.  I didn’t lose my principals though, but found myself spiral into a deep depression so took a leave of absence.  Principle and depression caused me to walk.  I wasn’t going to be a sitting duck anymore in a dark cubicle with zero access to humanity.

I found myself with no job, no income, no justice, nothing.  I was tired of being a pawn in the politics of the County, hence, my decision to hire attorneys to fight my right to write.  To manifest what I found wrong in the psych wards in Los Angeles.

So, they strategically offered me another job with the County.  Sounds so bizarre.  You stuff me in a basement doing nothing but read binders of policy and procedure manuals which is not “work,” it’s a punishment.  A sick punishment.  And now I am being offered another job with the County?

This raised a flag in my mind.  Weird.  But, when I thought about it, it was a way to make the County not look guilty of the wrongdoings I discussed in my book.  What do they have to hide?  Everything.

Now, here’s the kicker.  I was offered a job working with the mentally ill, again.  But out of all the jobs in the County they offered me a job that turned out to be a dumping ground for anyone that was being disciplined by the county.  They turned around and did the exact same thing that I went after them for. I showed up to work to find individuals that had done something or other that was a reflection of their principles. They were being disciplined for an act that challenged the system.  An act that was rooted in personal principle, and honesty that the County was not willing to swallow.

After all the legal jargon and battle I found myself back where I started.  I was back in a disciplined position in another effort for me to leave the County.  And once again, I stood my ground on principle cause I am not going to be sequestered or silenced or slowly drowned to the point where I quit.

I am not a quitter, I am a vessel of truth.  The truth is rooted in principle and I look around and see other people suffering for their convictions.  What does this mean, where does that lead us?

Down a bad path.  Now I am stuck in a position similar to the one I had in the basement where my mental health is being challenged cause I am not willing to drop what I believe.  I am not willing to stop fighting for the rights of the mentally ill to have a voice.  And when I say the mentally ill, I include myself.  But is it mental illness to stand by your passions again and again despite being bogged down and punished? Does being principled equate to being insane?  Given the circumstances, it just might be in this world.

So, what is the answer?  So I continue to fight a war that seems to be against myself when I know it’s not cause I stand alone?  And the funny thing is, it’s not pride.  Pride fell out the window months ago.  Now it has become a whole new battle.

How do we survive in a world that seems to fall to suppression?  A world that is afraid to step outside the norm; to cause waves.

The challenge becomes sticking to your guns on what you believe is right.  But at what cost?  I don’t want to fall into another depression and have to lose my hair cause my psychiatrist puts me on a medication to attempt to balance the situation.  Medication is not going to curb my fight to be heard.  Medication is not going to change my principles.  Principle is a bitch.

I know my struggles with the County will never cease.  I have no future with a government job, and the government will make sure I don’t.  Yet, I am not willing to kill my honesty.

But when principles meet pain in your situation, is it only a matter of time before you shelf your principles?

Then what?  What’s left?  I become one of them?  I become defeated?

Or, am I defeated already and my inability to drop my convictions only drowns me and results in utter madness.

I don’t know, but, I’ll tell you this, fighting and falling and getting back up takes courage and blind faith.  If you stop standing by what you believe and let the opponent suck you dry, our heart runs dry.

Stand up, stand strong, not like you have a choice anyway when you’re rooted in principle but, since when does being principled carry ramifications that cause you to be called “crazy?”

If being principled sets you apart from the masses and makes you deemed crazy, so be it.

So, that’s the story.  I challenge you to take a good look at your life, and how your principles have affected your life or, maybe turned on you.  Don’t turn on yourself.  You know what’s right, what’s real, what’s important.

Erica

 

JOURNAL ENTRY IN THE BASEMENT – 2011

I’ve made only one mistake along my journey of truth.  I didn’t or have not written enough of what has happened or, how it has affected me along the way.

It is always the principle.  It’s the principle of the situation as people say.  Or plainly said, it’s the principle.  I’ve said it. I’ve cried in it.  I’ve tried to pump it up to mean something and that’s when the word becomes that word.

Principle has no duties, no liability, no obligations… it’s just this happy outdoor idea that sounds like I’m doing it better or, at trying to when principle is not a work among the followers.

Principle is a word that will lose itself

Lose its right

Lose everything it’s about

Cause few are ready to stand for it.

-eml

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And they are apparently too stupid to realize how easy it is to ensure they are called out for their bad behavior.

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    Last reviewed: 3 Apr 2013