The Thorazine Kings: Gangs, Psychology, and World Politics (long)

Great Debates
1

Once upon a time, I worked in a mental hospital for adolescents.

The unit I worked on at the time had boys in it. We had a couple who were on probation, and in for observation. We had several who had trouble managing their anger. We had a few attention-deficit-hyperactivity-disorder boys. Throw in the Fetal Alcohol Syndrome kid and the one who had hallucinations, and you’ve pretty much got the lot.

One day, one of our probationers decided that the thing to do was to form a gang. Since the unit was locked, and the facility sealed, going out and FINDING a gang was impractical. Plainly, he would have to work with the materials at hand, and he went about forming a gang out of the other patients on the unit with him.

In time, he had four adherents to the cause. The Gang was born, and it had five members – four Ninjas and a Warlord, as our hero put it – and soon, the rest of the unit would learn to fear the sound of their footsteps…

Well, actually, no, they wouldn’t. Lacking drugs, chicks, cars, guns, or even anything worth stealing, largely what The Gang did was throw gang hand signs at each other, and talk smack talk. The therapists noted this with interest.

It all came to a head one day when Our Hero decided he wasn’t going to do what a staffer asked (as in, “Nintendo Time is over, Timothy. I need you to turn the Nintendo off and leave the social room.”)

Timothy decided to test his newfound allegiances, and called for his Homies to strike forth and kick ass, lay all these lame-o staff out, steal their keys, and head out in one of their cars, together, for the big city, man! Let’s GO! JUST LIKE WE PLANNED!!!

To make a long story short, Our Hero wound up in the seclusion room, the little one with the padded walls. No one was harmed. When one is recruiting gang members, one should probably take special care in training the ones with Fetal Alcohol Syndrome, or Attention Deficit Disorder. His Homies were more than willing, but their coordination, cooperation, and organization just wasn’t up to the task, if you follow my meaning. One kid didn’t realize that The Great Uprising had occurred until after we’d informed him of it…

…and he was sitting in the Social Room when Timothy attempted to trigger it.

The Gang tried a few other stunts in the weeks following. It didn’t work very well. In fact, it was frankly kind of pathetic. I mean, imagine a gang of guys who thought of themselves as Neo, Morpheus, Wolverine, Zorro, and Bruce Lee…

…as portrayed by Moe, Larry, Curly, Chico, and Harpo. It was a joke. The Gang That Couldn’t Shoot Straight.

The therapists quizzed the kids, asked them why they felt the need to form a gang in the first place. Basically, four of them said, “Timothy really wanted to, and it sounded kinda cool.”

Timothy’s answers, though, were more complex. Timothy came from a tough urban area. He’d seen REAL gangs in action. He had a clue what they were all about. And he thought they were unutterably COOL.

“Gangs are for protection, man. You got your homies, nobody messes with you.”

But Timothy, who’s going to mess with you here? You live in a hospital. No one attacks you. You aren’t allowed to attack anyone. Violence isn’t permitted on the unit, and the staff stops it as soon as a fight gets started. Who do you need protection FROM?

“Um… uh… well, you got to be in a gang to get chicks, man. Chicks get off to gangs, man.”

Timothy, there are no girls on the unit. Who are you trying to impress?

“Um… well… uh… gangs are… well, you just GOT to have a gang, man. Gangs are COOL. You GOT to have a gang.”

Why?

“(looooong pause)… well… well, YOU’RE just STUPID, man! YOU don’t know NOTHIN’!”

I later found out that “Timothy” was a pathetic gang wannabe who couldn’t have gotten into the Crips or the Bloods if he’d showed up with fifty pounds of heroin and a nuclear bomb.

In the staff room, out of sight or earshot of the kids, we made awful jokes about The Gang. We talked about how they couldn’t do drive-by shootings because they had no guns or cars, so they’d just run up and down the hall really fast and throw their balled-up dirty socks at their enemies…

…we joked about how their first big gang fight erupted because they didn’t have any girls, so they were trying to decide who their bitch was gonna be (no, not true, but hysterically funny, the way the supervisor told it)…

…we joked about how they couldn’t “jump anyone into the gang,” because beating each other up would get them in trouble, so they initiated new members with a pillow fight…

…but we did agree that they probably had the best drugs of any gang there was. After all, they were probably the best medicated of any gang we’d ever heard of, three times a day, right there at the nurse’s station…

…and that’s how they got their name: The Thorazine Kings.

I worked at this facility for several years. Over time, the patients were discharged or transferred, and new patients were referred in. In time, the original Thorazine Kings all were gone… but their legend remained. Occasionally, some new staffer would ask if the kids had ever tried to riot, to have an uprising… and the tales of the Thorazine Kings would surface.

Over time, these stories got more and more embellished, more and more interesting, if less accurate. I don’t know why. The entire group of them together had all the brains God gave a retarded duck. But the stories got longer and sillier as the years went by…

…and I told you that story, so I could tell you this one, right?

I was watching the news yesterday. Heard about how someone set off a truck bomb at the UN headquarters in Iraq.

…and I got to thinking.

What if the Thorazine Kings had been in a mental hospital in Iraq?

What if their country had had its infrastructure badly screwed over, first by their own inept dictator, and later by military action by a superpower? What would happen to that hospital?

Well, they’d probably shut down. Given the chaos of the war, the Thorazine Kings probably would simply be kicked out the door, instead of being shipped home. What would they do?

Well… they’d try to hang together, try to do gang stuff. If nothing else, they’d stick together and try to survive. They’d steal stuff, terrorize whoever they could, probably get one or two of their members shot by American troops or other Iraqis.

But… wait a minute. They wouldn’t be Thorazine Kings, they wouldn’t be a gang. What does Iraq know about gangs?

Well, they don’t. At least not in the sense that we do. They don’t have gangs. They have… um… terrorist organizations. Gangs of armed guys who terrorize their own people and lash out at their enemies, who garner power locally and use it. And if you ain’t in one, you’re likely a target of some kind.

(Yeah, yeah, I know the analogy doesn’t really hold water. But I bet teenage Iraqis think terrorist organizations are COOL. Especially the stupid ones and the crazy ones.)

So… we have the Thorazine Martyrs, cruising around in their stolen truck. They’ve probably gotten hold of some guns by now. If they’ve managed to link up with other organizations – notably the Fedayeen – they’ve probably gotten hold of more guns, some ammo, and perhaps some bombs, along with a lot of inflammatory rhetoric about going out and killing the Infidels.

Being the Thorazine Martyrs, of course, they eat this stuff up. They can’t wait to go and kill Americans right and left.

Unfortunately, Ahmed got shot by a little old lady whose house he was trying to loot. Fedayha got nailed by the Americans while he was trying to launch an RPG at them. Mookie blew himself up trying to figure out how to hook a detonator to a battery, and Azrad died of dysentery after eating some suspicious canned goods.

This leaves Timothy. His gang is gone. His prospects are dim. The REAL freedom fighters and martyrs and glorious Islamic Soldiers think he’s a colossal idiot and want nothing to do with him.

All he has is a truckload of guns, ammo, and bombs. After all, Baghdad is full of the damn things, and the Fedayeen are giving them away for nothing.

Timothy drives aimlessly around town. He still wants to go out with a bang. He’s heard about this “seventy virgins” business, and while he’s not particularly religious, he really thinks that martyrs are COOL, and if it’s true about those virgins…

…and about then, he sees a bunch of people standing around, in front of a certain hotel.

He’s heard about this hotel. Foreigners stay here. Foreign bastards. Hey, those people… look kinda… Western, don’t they? Hey… I bet they’re AMERICANS! They sure aren’t LOCAL!

…and Timothy smiles… and casually turns into the parking lot… and hunts for a parking spot as close to the hotel as possible…

…and triggers an international incident.
…and kills the most prominent non-Iraqi in Iraq who thinks the Americans should get the hell out.
…and terrorizes the major source of international aid and assistance for Iraq right now.
…and reassures the Americans that they are absolutely right in doing what they are doing.

…and accomplishes nothing useful or meaningful at all.
Yeah, I know. I’m pretty full of it, aren’t I? I know, the bomber didn’t get into the hotel parking lot, he got in thru the hospital parking lot next door, and yeah, yeah, I know. I’m likely totally wrong.

…but in my weirder moments… I wonder how close to the truth (or how far from it) I am?

2

I think you are on to something…is there any possibility this gang has taken over the Pentagon?

3

I’d like to think they were a little TOO dumb for THAT…

4

It would be more comforting to think that a “Timaq al Thoraz” was actually behind bombing the UN, to put it down to one poor clueless Iraqi who really needed treatment more than anything. That would mean that we wouldn’t have to admit to ourselves that otherwise rational human beings can be so dogmatic and so ignorant as to pull this stunt while in possession of their faculties.

If only…

5

I’m not entirely sure what the exact topic of the thread is here but I gotta say that was undoubtedly the best written GD OP I’ve ever read. Ever.

6

Amusing story… especially in what it says about human/ape mentality and gang logic.

Surely a lot more medication of all sorts of nuts are necessary in Baghdad and in Washington. Especially paranoia and suicidal dementia.

I do suspect that some of the suiciders do have the mental ability of that Timothy… but the people giving him the truck and bombs arent retarded. Unfortunately the UN wasnt hit by some wacko seeking easy infidels.

7

I helped formed a gang once when I was locked up in a mental hospital. We were involuntary and managed to get ourselved kicked out of the damn place. Details on request.

Hey, at least the guy’s got some initiative. Anyone who can care strongly enough about something and think clearly enough to plan anything more complex than how to shuffle down to the cafeteria for lunch while shot up with Thorazine deserves a round of applause.

8

They weren’t ON thorazine.

Except after the occasional attempt to attack someone.

The closest any of them came was one of them, who was on lithium.

And believe me, he needed it.

9

Oh, sorry, pardon the misconstrual. Carry on.

::climbs off soapbox::

::walks down corridor, soapbox tucked under arm::

10

I’d like to request your account, AHunter. Why were you in a mental hospital, and what did you do there?

11
  1. Age 21. Albuquerque NM. College=UNM, Bin=Vista Sandia Psych Hospital.

After a childhood, adolescence, and teenagerhood spent in loneliness and confusion, wondering if something was wrong with me, receiving various unpleasant treatments ranging from being beaten up to dealing with “insinuendos” for allegedly being “queer”, failing to hook up in any remotely pleasant way for sex or ongoing relationship with peoples male or female, I had a rather spectacular moment when everything came to a head and things clicked and started falling into place and I figured out who (or what) I was. I was very excited about it and started writing bits of my new understandings down, often late at night in pen on the back of xeroxed handouts from college coursework, which I would then xerox myself and ask some of my friends to read and tell me what they thought. Got odd reactions: people said it was “heavy stuff”, seemed to take it and me very seriously, but were cautious and very circumspect about saying what they thought of it. My interp: it’s controversial like radical feminism, it’s threatening, it has implications for people’s lives and it can be upsetting. I kept doing this and included some of my professors and some other people on campus.

I lived in the dorms and was approached, after awhile, by the resident advisor who said there were “some concerns” and that I should talk to the intake folks across the street at the university hospital. I knew I was probably pretty disconcerting, wild-eyed and intense about all this and handing out these things, and the content was both sexual and political (again, like radical feminism) and it was no surprise that maybe there were “some concerns”, in other words that someone might think I needed to see a psychiatrist. After the RA spoke to me a couple more times, I got the distinct impression that it was fast becoming a case of “willingly now or less willingly later” and I figured if I met with them and answered their questions and explained things they wanted explained that they would agree that I was sane, and, having done so, I’d have the RA and whoever was whispering in his ear about me off my case.

So I go over and after awhile I speak with the intake doctor. He has copies of what I’ve written but they are all out of order, so I put them in order. He asks if I’d left off some of these writings with this person, that person, and I acknowledge that I had. From the tone of the questions it appears that at least one of them did not recall having spoken with me in person beforehand or didn’t connect it with the manila folder I left in their mailbox with these writings, and felt personally threatened, and I explain that this was not my intention. He asks if I will agree to speak with the psychiatric specialists and if there are any problems with how my mind is working they would be the ones to address it. I say I will, and they provide a van and drive me a short distance away and I go into another waiting room. They have me fill out one of those consent forms, the kind you usually do when you see a new doctor. Then they say “come this way” and I’m taken through a door which is locked behind me and they ask for my shoelaces and my belt lest I attempt to strangle myself and it is explained to me that I will not be seeing my doctor until Tuesday and this is Friday, and that I can’t leave until and unless the doctor says so, and that what I signed, the consent form, was a voluntary commitment application, although it didn’t say anything on it about agreeing to be locked up or staying overnight or longer.

So I’m friendly and I’m being reasonable but I’m not giving them my shoelaces and belt; I agree that I might be a person with mental problems (because if you are you might not be able to know that you are), and I get taken to the ward (the serious / violent / restricted ward because everyone new starts off there) and shown my room (with no door but bars in the windows). Later on, when we are taken outdoors in a small fenced-in area for some long-forgotten reason, four rather large guys (in hospital whites, sure enough) tackle me and remove my shoelaces and belt and then let me up. I think this is inappropriate so I tackle one of them in return, pull off his shoe, and manage to toss it up and get it entangled in the telephone lines overhead. I get jumped on and tied down in 6-way restraints and put in seclusion and injected with Thorazine every hour or so for x hours before I finally get let up.

So I make friends with the other mental patients. I’m thinking initially “I don’t belong here this is a mistake”, like most of you probably would, but the other mental patients here on the Seriously Disturbed Ward…umm, they don’t think they’re Napoleon and they aren’t seeing pink elephants and I can talk to them. Heck, I can even explain the stuff in my papers that got me into this place and they understand it (with varying shades of disagreement or ideas about what some things would mean that don’t overlap with my own). And I can understand the stuff that they are wrapped up in and concerned about. One young teenage couple is in here because their respective parents are trying to break them up, and they’ve done silly things like brand each other’s initials in their forearms with cigarettes and said things to their folks like “If you make me break up with Amy/Jeremy I’m going to kill myself”. One woman in her 30s was put in by her husband for being less and less happy with their marriage and then less and less happy with his threats to have her incarcerated for not being happy with their marriage and finally less and less happy with his tendency to follow through on that threat and incarcerate her here every time she indicated that she wanted out of the marriage. There’s one really terrified/upset guy who was raised by seriously fire-and-brimstone fundamentalists and he is crying most of the day in corners thinking Jesus is going to get him because he is not good enough in the eyes of God. There’s a guy here about my age with a drinking problem, knows it, says he hates AA, got locked in here after getting in a stupid argument with a police officer while sober but hung over and ill-tempered and walking home through a suburban neighborhood. There’s one woman who paces up and down the hall muttering to herself and not taking to anyone else.

With the exception of the muttering woman, we are all able to talk and share with each other and do so. We talk about the problems or situations that led to us being in here, and we talk about the problems we are having because we are in here. And we are the only ones listening to us. The nurses are sadistic and use psychiatric meds as punishment for breaking rules or talking back. The doctors, as I discovered when I finally met mine, meet with you for about 10 minutes and their main concern is whether or not you are causing problems on the ward. I am extremely lucky in getting a doctor for whom it is not automatic policy to put every patient on psych meds, and I decline the offer although he says I am bipolar (“manic-depressive” they called it back then) and should be on some.

After a week or so, we have started calling ourself the “patient people” instead of “patients” because to survive in this place you need to be very patient with the confrontational and abusive staff who belittle you and order you around, and patient with the situation in which you’re locked up and when not in immediate danger from the psychiatric professionals are generally bored. And we start referring to the staff when they behave at their worst as “impatient people”. We continue listening to each others’ stuff and give each other reality-checks and confirmations of the authenticity of feeling this or that based on what has happened to us here or there, and give each other pragmatic advice and sympathy and just someone to talk to about it. And pretty quickly we’re overtly saying that the only therapy in this place is what we are providing to each other. There are a couple of nurses, one in afternoon shift and another on night shift, who applaud this and say it is excellent. There are others on both of these shifts and everyone on the morning shift who regard it as inappropriate behavior and try to discourage us from talking to each other. The woman whose husband put her in there has a doctor who starts issuing instructions to the staff to stop this behavior. My doctor is mildly supportive but mostly for what he thinks it means regarding me individually. He thinks this is all my doing. At first it sort of was except that it caught on like wildfire once some of this stuff had been said out loud once or twice. There is another doctor who thinks the whole phenomenon is a great success story for “milieu therapy” which usually means “the therapeutic advantages of being surrounded by walls and barred windows” but now because we are essentially doing mutual therapy (and not assuming each other to be “sick”, by the way) we are part of each other’s “milieu” …at any rate he thinks it’s all wonderful and is instructing his patients to participate in our home-grown group sessions.

By the fourth week the staff is openly bickering, not just in the conference room behind the nurse’s station but in front of us out on the ward floor, and we’re behaving like calm patient little Zen masters. One guy hooks up the teenage couple with an attorney friend he knows and although he won’t “take their case” he gives them simple legal advice. I flirt with the married woman in front of her husband when he comes to visit and we imply to him that the two of us are having an affair in the hospital and he suddenly starts saying he’s going to talk to the doctor about her coming home. The guy with the Jesus freak parents is drawing his nightmare visions in crayons and it seems to help him cope and for crayon drawings they are pretty good.

Then one day I’m out in the barbed-wire enclosure (“yard”) where they let the patients go to smoke and get sunlight and when I come back in I find all my stuff is piled in the middle of the intake corridor and they won’t let me go onto the floor. “You aren’t crazy and you can’t stay here. You have to leave. Take your stuff and get out of here.”

I say: “I’ve been withdrawn from the university and have no dorm room, and my folks drove my car back to their place. I guess I’ll go to my folks’ place but I have no way to get there with all this stuff.”

They say: “Well, if it’s still here by nightfall we’re throwing it in the dumpster.”

So I leave and walk out to the highway and hitchhike to my folks’ home 100-some-odd miles away, get my car, drive all the way back, get my stuff, and drive back again.

(Can you say “discharge planning”?)

Several years later I met up again with the guy who’d been in for sassing the police officer. He said that after they kicked me out they discharged the woman whose husband had put her in in the same abrupt way they did to me, and a couple others, and then the self-help revolution kind of dissolved. (Some others were transferred to the Just Mildly Nuts Ward, a few even before I was kicked out, which also dispersed our group). His own doctor had always said he had more issued he needed to work on but just asked him one day if he wanted to leave and that was it.

12

Wow.

You really DO know what you’re talking about, don’t you?

Listening to you reminds me of Old Home Week. Except most of mine were a bit crazier than you were; we had a scandal in the mental health industry in the late eighties and early nineties that made it harder to lock people’s kids up; too many small outfits were, um, “recruiting aggressively,” I guess you might say.

Oh, and NEVER sign ANYTHING in a mental hospital, not without a lawyer. Unless it’s a paycheck. And even then, wait until you’re at the bank. And read it first.

13

More info:

http://members.bellatlantic.net/~adhdah/

(I’m political about it)

14

At the risk of sounding utterly corny: thanks for sharing, AHunter3.

Fortunately, I don’t have any similar stories to share, although I have an aborted introduction or two.

15

You know, The Thorazine Martyrs would be a great concept for a book.

16

I dunno… what’s to say in a book that hasn’t been said in the OP?

17

true…