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DMH Did More Harm

I finished writing Rotten Fruit is Falling Down in June of 2023 right before I sent it off to Palmetto Publishing.  I wrote:

 “At this point, we need a million dollars and a Martha’s Vineyard house. We need healing and the beach will heal us.  Fuck Sergio.  Get him in jail for any amount of time – great. Create a legacy of suffering for him with my words – it’s exactly what he deserves, and the system can’t give it to us.

My caseworker from Department of Mental health visited my house that day to discuss Vinni’s discharge plan. She was a breath of fresh air after speaking to the DA that morning.”

Pansheena, my DMH caseworker made me feel heard at first.  She empathized with my concerns about 3 Rivers.  At this meeting I shared the three major events that had occurred, but also my genuine distrust of the facility over my home.  She agreed to work with my family and with Vinni to do what was best for HIM.

The first time Pansheena went to 3 Rivers to meet Vinni was around this time.  She arrived in Springfield, which is over an hour away from Worcester.  When she arrived, staff told her Vinni was napping and they would go wake him up.  Being woken up from a nap to meet with his DMH caseworker was irritating to Vinni.

He groggily asked, “Can I meet with her outside where I meet with my parents when they visit?” The staff said, no.  Vinni responded with, “Fuck DMH! I’m not meeting with anyone!” He refused to get out of bed and meet with her because it was a beautiful day out and if he couldn’t be outside, he was staying in bed.  3 Rivers told me Vinni cussed out Pansheena and refused to meet with her.

 

When Vinni was sectioned at his school, he was taken by ambulance to the St. Vincent’s Hospital emergency psych ward.  The next day he went to Tara Vista in Devons, MA.  Usually kids are at Tara Vista for a quick mental health reset – a week to ten days.  But Vinni spent over 60 days there.  I guarantee you people remember Vinni at Tara Vista.  I feel like new rules may have been put in place after he left.  He is that horrifying smart and creative.

When he arrived at Tara Vista, he was stripped of his belongings and everything was searched through.  It was early March, which is still Wintertime in New England so he happened to be admitted to the facility with his winter coat.  There were many visitor restrictions – only thirty minutes a day and only two people could visit at a time.  Me or Felipe or my parents, his grandparents, visited him everyday.

He had only been there for a few days when my mom and I went for a visit.  We always made sure to bring food for the visit – that was about all that was allowed to be brought into that place.  They were very strict.  We would put our stuff in a locker in the lobby, show our ID to the reception desk and wait our turn to visit with Vinni.

It was cold that day, but nice enough for the kids to have outdoor recess.  They were just coming back into the building as we entered the visit room.  Vinni hugged us both and sat down to see what snacks we had brought him.  He was still wearing his coat and had pajamas on underneath.

We had reached the thirty minute mark and a nurse knocked on the door.  She said, “Hey Vinni, sorry to interrupt your visit, but it is time for you to head to dinner.  I am going to chat with your mom real quick.”  Vinni hugged me and my mom and said his goodbyes and he left the room. The nurse continued, “We are filing an incident report. It was brought to my attention that Vinni had a razor blade at recess and bragged about it to one of the other patients.  We are going to search his room while he is at dinner.”

As she was telling us this horrifying news, my mom noticed something. She announced, “Vinni didn’t leave the room completely. I can see his finger propping the door open so he heard everything you just said.”  As my mother spoke those words, Vinni shut the door and bolted into the bathroom next door.

I started crying.  I was genuinely horrified.  Where the fuck did he get a razor blade from?  Is it true that he has one?  Will my kid ever be safe again?  The nurse walked us out, down to the lobby as staff handled the lingering razor blade situation.

I later found out via phone call that Vinni surrendered the razor blade without self-harming with it.  He admitted he had found it in his inside jacket pocket while at recess.  He was probably just as shocked to find it in there as the staff was.  I am thankful my outspoken child couldn’t contain his excitement over finding contraband – it lead to another child alerting staff.  The staff took that child very seriously and prevented a situation that could have been much worse for my child.

That’s not the only time Vinni was caught with contraband!  Like I said, I feel like security increased as a result of his 60 day stay.  One other time, I received a call from staff at Tara Vista saying Vinni had a thumb injury.  I pressed for more information and asked if this was a true injury or a self-harm injury?

The staff explained, “The way the door smashed his thumb, we think it was a freak accident and not something done intentionally.”  Ok. No worries.  We had a visit scheduled for later that day.  Right before we were about to leave the house, another call from Tara Vista came in.  This time the nurse had another horrifyingly weird story.

“Hi Erin, Vinni confessed that he found a pencil sharpener.  He said he was tempted to self-harm with the blade so he threw the blade in the trash yesterday.  He handed over the plastic part of the sharpener just now.  We will do a search to confirm our findings.”  I asked to speak to Vinni.

Vinni got on the line, “Hey mom.”

“Vinni, where is the blade from the pencil sharpener?”

“I threw it away yesterday!  I already told everyone that!” he shouted angrily.

“You would not confiscate a pencil sharpener just to throw the blade away.  I know you still have it.  Please give it to staff. Me and Dad will be there soon-“ He angrily hung up on me before I could finish my sentence.  I felt immense anxiety.  Will my kid ever be SAFE?

By the time we arrived at Tara Vista for our visit, Vinni had surrendered the razor blade he had removed from the pencil sharpener.  He also consented to an exam where he showed staff the cuts he made all over his thighs.  They treated the cuts and determined them to be minor injuries.

When Felipe noticed the bandaid on Vinni’s thumb he asked, “Vinni, did you smash your finger trying to break open the pencil sharpener?”

“OH MY GOD Dad! How did you know?!” Vinni laughed. Me and Felipe laughed.  No one knows our kid better than us, not even the professionals.  Then we expressed our fears and sadness and the gravity of the situation.  Vinni explained to us how he plotted to steal the pencil sharpener for days before actually completing the mission.  Where there’s a will, there’s a way.  Vinni is a force.

 

Tara Vista recommended that instead of Vinni coming straight home, he should go to 3 Rivers, which was a DMH facility in Springfield, MA.  It was farther away than Tara Vista, but it had more structured therapy built into their program. Vinni needed a trusted therapist to help him process his trauma.  We were all pretty excited about 3 Rivers at first.

At 3 Rivers, we could visit for much longer than thirty minutes.  We could play outside or watch a movie on my laptop in the gymnasium.  We could Doordash food or bring food.  Our entire family of five could visit together. We could even bring our cats to visit Vinni!

My poor Vinni though.  He sobbed the first night being at 3 Rivers.  He didn’t like his room – it reminded him of Sergio for some reason.  It broke my heart whenever he called me crying.  At this point in time Vinni was struggling with so much all at once.

At this time Vinni also identified as they/them and did not identify as a boy.  We learned a lot about transgender stuff from Vinni.  It was hard for us to remember to refer to Vinni as “they” instead of “he”.  Whenever we messed up we would acknowledge it, apologize and try to use the correct pronoun next time.

Vinni explained to me at one point, “I can’t identify as a man because Sergio is a man and I am nothing like him. I don’t want to be a man.” I understood the disassociation was complex.  Several children at both Tara Vista and 3 Rivers identified as trans, including some staff members.  Identifying as trans is also a majorly courageous thing to do because you face opposition at every turn.

3 Rivers said they were experienced in caring for transgendered children, but Vinni is a whole other animal.  One morning a staff member directed Vinni to do something, probably eat breakfast or head to school and Vinni snapped back saying, “No, suck my dick.”

The staff member replied, “I can’t because your trans, remember? You don’t have one.”  Vinni reported this incident to me and his therapist. I was taken aback as Vinni explained what had happened.  I was like Vinni you cannot speak to staff like that, but also grown ups should not be inappropriate like that.  It was another weird situation to encounter.

The 3 Rivers therapist and program director took the incident very seriously.  They filed a 51A against their own facility and fired the staff that made the comment.

Fast-forward exactly one week later.  Another staff at 3 Rivers directs Vinni to do something basic – he responds with “No, suck my dick.”  Another staff takes the bait.

The staff member replies with, “That’s not very lady-like of you to say.”  This taunting made Vinni get aggressive which led to a restraint.  Another 51A was filed against the facility and this staff was fired too.  Another staff member was put on probation around this time because she accidentally over-medicated Vinni the first week he was there.

So by June 8^th, about one month after Vinni had been admitted to 3 Rivers Residential Program, we were already wanting to withdraw him from the program.  Yes he needed therapy, yes he needed medication and yes he needed to be safe, but he needed his loving family.  Pansheena agreed to help our family set up outside services so Vinni’s treatment wouldn’t be compromised.

She was a breath of fresh air…until she became a suffocating fart.

The first time Pansheena met Vinni was at 3 Rivers in July 2023.  The three of us were meeting in the gymnasium and I told her we were going to withdraw Vinni from the program at the end of July to go on vacation in Vermont to a lake house with our friends, the Kralls – our vacation friends.  Phil is a teacher and Kerri is a nurse.

Pansheena started asking Vinni a bunch of questions about 3 Rivers, going on vacation, etc.  Then she asked him about his trauma.  Vinni responded by saying, “I don’t have trauma.  I’m not here because of trauma.”

Loose cannon mother over here…I jump in and make things completely worse by saying, “We are all traumatized by a lot of things, Vinni!”  The delusion triggers me.  Now Vinni is triggered and yelling too. I snap and I tell Pansheena, “I’m emailing all of the people the plans of withdrawal so you can move forward setting up outside services, and I’m bringing Vinni back up to his room to cool down.”

I emailed the team and Vinni’s discharge was set for July 21^st, 2023.  3 Rivers staff did not agree with us taking Vinni on vacation.  DMH wanted us to bring  back to the program after vacation.  Me and Felipe wanted to establish a safe environment at home with appropriate services in place.  No one wanted us to assert our rights as parents, but we did it anyway.

We drove to 3 Rivers on discharge day and got Vinni and all of his belongings.  They gave us his medications and sent prescriptions to the pharmacy so we wouldn’t run out. We confirmed he would be seeing a psychiatrist at Ascend Integrative and would start therapy with Mrs. Petty.  I said I would also work with his school to figure out the best option for him in the fall.

The program director of 3 Rivers said, “You probably won’t like this, but we have to file a 51A against you because you are withdrawing Vinni from our facility against medical advice.”

I looked at Chris K. dead in the face and said, “Ok. So you guys have three 51A’s filed against you and I will have one?  And next month, when DCF looks into it and sees that we have not neglected our kid, it will go away?”

It did not go away.  That retaliatory act against the Arvizu family has left a mark on all of us.  It stole our vacation, it stole Vinni’s 10^th birthday and it made us lose faith in Department of Mental Health.  DMH wasn’t a breath of fresh air, they were a suffocating fart.  DCF dutch-ovened the shit out of us for 41 days while Vinni was held captive away from his family.

This Rainbow Party is our chance to celebrate what we’ve survived so far and to lift up others around us running their own marathon of trauma.