Gavin Ellis 11.50-12.00 Tuesdays.
( 1.00 New Earth Time.)
http://newearthtime.net/
journal 8th April cont.
At some point I had had enough so I called my neice to come and get her Christmas presents, and started cleaning away the Christmas wrapping paper, and put it in the fire and started burning it. She wasn't responding to me, so I told her that if she didn't come and get them I'd put them on the fire. It wasn't my attitude to be cruel, in fact the opposite, but I'd heard so many idle threats of trips cancelled because of this and that, then resumed because of a second and third chance, I'd stopped going on trips with them because I couldn't bear the raised voices and arguing. When she called my bluff them, I selected a boring book about New Zealand birds I'd given her, and a silly flute with only three notes, a tone, a half tone and a semi-tone, which it was impossible to play a tune on which wasn't irritating, and I chucked them in, and told her again, if she didn't want her toys to burn to come and collect her stuff.
That was enough for my sister. She came again and had a real go at me in front of her daughter. I simply lay back on the floor with my cask of winne and ignorred her, but I couldnt watch the television, because she was standing right in front of it. After asking her a couple of times to please leave the room, and leave me alone, I had no choice but to grab her by the shoulders and physically push her out of the room. That was too much. Jenny disappeared, and I went to sleep. It was only when two policemen came into my living room that I woke up. They accused me of trying to burn my house down, because I had a fire going in my Kent in the middle of summer, and and there were apparently papers on top of it "smoldering". I explained that it was not possible for paper to spontaneously combust below Farenheit 451 degrees, and it was unlikely my Kent could generate that temperature with such a small fuel load, however I threw the folders in question outside on teh lawn to cool off. They then arrested me for assault. It was impossible to tell them that I was in my own home and had invited everyone else to leave me alone.
At the Tauranga Police sttation I was allowed to talk to my sister, and persuaded her not to press charges for assault, as I would have to explain to the judge exactly what happened in my own house, and to keep matters "within the family" without bringing the police into it. She agreed. The next thing I knew there was another policeman who persuaded my sister to sign a committal order under the mental health act.
My GP Dr Barnett was called to my police cell at the Tauranga Police Station, who tried unsuccessfully to persuade me to sign a voluntary committal order, but I refused, and he explained that I would be put before two JPs (Justices of the Peace) who would then decide if there was a case to answer. He also explained that I would be transferred to an open ward a Tokonui psychiatric Hospital, where I would be evaluated by medical experts, (compulsory treatment) but whatever the outcome, I would be a residential patient in a hospital for three weeks at a minimum because this was the law. The two justices saw me, refused to accept my plea of not guilty, and I was transferred.
journal 9th April 2014
The transfer from Tauranga Police Station to Tokonui was in a police van with about four of five other prisoners. At one stage passing Lake Karipiro one prisoner tried unsuccessfully to kick out the trap door in the roof of the van. For a while I was concerned that I was being taken to Waikeria Prison, as we stoped at a grim two storied concrete block on the way, but it was only to deliver all except two of us. The other man, whose name I remember was Wade, after the pottery, and he had broken down and was sobbing tearfully as we went through the gates because he had been there before, and I understand he had failed in his attempt to stay away. Tokonui Hospital wasn't as bad as I had been led to believe, at least the patients were friendly.
My first impression when I walked in was a corridor, where two nurses were letting a man out of a cupboard which was designed for restraint. As they opened the door he burst out, and they grappled with him on the floor as they struggled to subdue him. It was quite unpleasant and intimidating, and like something out of the 1950's.
There isnt a lot I remember about that week. The bed, it must have been an open dormatory, the people. There was woman, a girl Paula who had spent 7 weeks in IPC (Intensive Patient Care), who had just been released into the open ward from where we could wander around the 50 odd acres of grounds. There was a swimming pool, but I didn't swim. I wasn't on any medication, although I did see some of tehpsychiatrists who asked me questions and did their evaluations. Paula craved iceblocks from the shop and bought 7 at one time, because she had been so dehydrated in IPC. She went to the beach with her parents one day, and came back with a shell ring, and told me how she had swum out to save a person who had turned out to be a surf life saver. We walked past the IPC ward where we could hear the patients screaming out. It sounded horrible. We laughed a little. Paula told me there was a potty in her cell and they spent 24 hours a day in there, and she had taken the shit and wwritten all over her walls with it. Wade gave her some tips about life, like, don't lean forward when somebody is lighting your cigarette. She played pool, but not in the conventional way with pool cues, because she was shaking so much she couldnt control them. Another patient who was more like an elderly nurse and was looking after the new patients told me they were putting medication in our food. There was a joke that they reused the tea bags, using condys crystals to give it colour. She told me I could feel my legs itching, and immediately I could. She said I should lift my trouser legs and take a look, and sure enough they were covered with red itching spots I hadn't noticed before. She said it was the medication. It was odd because I wasn't on any medication, such is the power of autosuggestion.