Ignoring the voices within
![Picture](/uploads/2/3/6/9/23696171/4412134.jpg?415)
By: Deanna Domire
From a locally well-known artist to schizophrenic homeless man, the voices turned a successful man into a paranoid outcast. He fell through the cracks and has yet to climb out.
Lying against a tree in a downtown Salt Lake City park, Frank Gibson[1] portrays a stereotypical homeless man. He is dirty with a long straggly beard and long greasy brown hair. He is surrounded by liquor bottles and a few syringes. His shopping cart is full of his belongings. What may set him apart from other alcoholic and drug addicted homeless is the self-deprecating rants and screaming at himself. Frank is one of many homeless people with mental illness that has slipped through the cracks. Unfortunately, the resources and funding for mental health care are severely lacking and more people lose their faith in the mental health system every day.
Born to an alcoholic father and a mentally ill mother, Frank was the second of seven children. Their father regularly beat his family and molested his only daughter. In 1963, when Frank was fourteen, the Gibson patriarch murdered his wife in front of his kids and then took his own life. His aunt took custody of the children at that point. Two years later, Frank would be arrested for the murder of his aunt’s boyfriend—whom Frank found raping his sister—and then released when it was found to be justified. Frank’s aunt, who was extremely angry, kicked him to the streets.
“It was tough enough being a seventeen year old in New York without living on the streets. Now I was alone, cold, homeless and scared shitless. What is a kid supposed to do?” Frank asks. He had been on the streets for approximately one year on the streets, a man found him asleep on his back stoop. This man was a very well-known artist and told Frank that he needed an apprentice. He had always loved art but was able to hone his talent under the direction of his boss, the same man who had taken him in. He was not quite nineteen when he sold his first painting. “At twenty-one years old, my mind began to betray me. My art was now something that I feared because of the hallucinations and the voices whispering how awful I was. It was devastating,” Frank Gibson tells me with sadness in his eyes. “My only regret is losing my ability to create.”
“My first psychotic break happened when I was twenty-two and at the height of my popularity as an artist. I had been having hallucinations and hearing whispers but that day when I woke, I remember nothing after my morning shower. I had been picked up in downtown NYC half naked and tearing my skin apart screaming that I needed to kill the Matzos. Within a year, I had lost everything—family and friends, money, material possessions—and was living on the streets constantly f&@$ed up and addicted to anything that kept the voices quiet,” Frank tells me as he cracks open a beer.
While Frank was hospitalized, he was given a diagnosis of Paranoid Schizophrenia and Psychosis and was held for seventy-two hours. He was released into his own care with a bottle of medication they had started him on the day before. This would not be the last time that Frank was released from the hospital without any resources, medication, or support. For the next forty years, the system would fail Frank Gibson over and over again.
After the first hospitalization, Frank became a regular resident in the hospitals and jail systems across the country. He calls the voices in his head “Matzos” and says that they hate him and want him to kill himself. He has been forced to take numerous different medications throughout the years. He states that his tremors are not withdrawal but a left over side effect from one of the medications he was injected with.
Frank also tells of a time when, during a hospitalization, he was put onto a new drug that worked well for him. He was on it for over a month when he was –not over time, as is indicated- abruptly switched to a medications that Frank says made him “drool buckets of spit worthy of the bib they hung around my neck” and also left him unable to correctly control his limbs. When Frank asked his doctor why the switch had been made he was told it was cheaper. Due to his being on Medicaid, he was not allowed to use the medication that had worked for him for the first time in his life. “I would rather fight the Matzos alone than live like that.” Frank says as he mixes up his next hit of heroin.
According to Frank, the illegal drugs started about three years after his first hospitalization. A buddy of his introduced him to heroin and he never looked back. “After the first hit, the Matzos sounded distorted. I could hear them but it was almost a calming noise. I could not understand them and it was a peace that I had not felt in years,” he replies when asked about why he uses heroin. “A peace that not even the best medications can bring.” Frank says that while he knows he should be on medications, his faith in the current mental health system is non-existent. Not one time in his extensive criminal and mental health incarcerations has he ever been released with resources that lasted more than two weeks. To get an appointment for a follow-up, he tells me, was two months out. By then he was back on the drugs and into his own psychosis.
When asked what would need to change for him to try seeking treatment again he told me it was a pointless endeavor that he was through chasing. “But for the future, try listening and finding compassion. So many times I told them to help me and they just medicated me heavier. It is a nasty cycle that I gave up a very long time ago. Give me my dog, my needle and a beer and I will leave you alone.”
In 2012, on any given night across the U.S., the percentage of the homeless population with serious mental illness sat at almost forty percent (Health Care). Today’s policymakers are more concerned with the money spent on the mentally ill than in trying to solve the problem that is causing the excess spending in the first place. Frank was removed from a medication that could have helped him thrive in society because of funding. If society could find compassion and empathy for the mentally ill and their personal challenges, fewer people would slip through the cracks. In Frank’s words, “I am lost to that world. I will die on the streets in my own world and in my own way.”
Works Cited
Gibson, Frank, personal interview, 19 Mar. 2015.
"Health Care." National Alliance to End Homelessness:. N.p., n.d. Web. 28 Mar. 2015. <http://www.endhomelessness.org/pages/mental_physical_health>.
Homeless Feet. Digital image. Experimental Theology. N.p., 11 Nov. 2013. Web. 28 Mar. 2015. <http://4.bp.blogspot.com/- imKLz8WyQAs/UnnCAjtwLUI/AAAAAAAAGkw/6jrUuOYSHw4/s1600/homeless- feet.jpg>.
Psychiatric Drugs. Digital image. Before It's News. N.p., 15 Dec. 2012. Web. 28 Mar. 2015. <http://www.tuberose.com/Graphics/Psychiatric_Drugs.jpeg>.
[1] Name has been changed for privacy reasons.
From a locally well-known artist to schizophrenic homeless man, the voices turned a successful man into a paranoid outcast. He fell through the cracks and has yet to climb out.
Lying against a tree in a downtown Salt Lake City park, Frank Gibson[1] portrays a stereotypical homeless man. He is dirty with a long straggly beard and long greasy brown hair. He is surrounded by liquor bottles and a few syringes. His shopping cart is full of his belongings. What may set him apart from other alcoholic and drug addicted homeless is the self-deprecating rants and screaming at himself. Frank is one of many homeless people with mental illness that has slipped through the cracks. Unfortunately, the resources and funding for mental health care are severely lacking and more people lose their faith in the mental health system every day.
Born to an alcoholic father and a mentally ill mother, Frank was the second of seven children. Their father regularly beat his family and molested his only daughter. In 1963, when Frank was fourteen, the Gibson patriarch murdered his wife in front of his kids and then took his own life. His aunt took custody of the children at that point. Two years later, Frank would be arrested for the murder of his aunt’s boyfriend—whom Frank found raping his sister—and then released when it was found to be justified. Frank’s aunt, who was extremely angry, kicked him to the streets.
“It was tough enough being a seventeen year old in New York without living on the streets. Now I was alone, cold, homeless and scared shitless. What is a kid supposed to do?” Frank asks. He had been on the streets for approximately one year on the streets, a man found him asleep on his back stoop. This man was a very well-known artist and told Frank that he needed an apprentice. He had always loved art but was able to hone his talent under the direction of his boss, the same man who had taken him in. He was not quite nineteen when he sold his first painting. “At twenty-one years old, my mind began to betray me. My art was now something that I feared because of the hallucinations and the voices whispering how awful I was. It was devastating,” Frank Gibson tells me with sadness in his eyes. “My only regret is losing my ability to create.”
“My first psychotic break happened when I was twenty-two and at the height of my popularity as an artist. I had been having hallucinations and hearing whispers but that day when I woke, I remember nothing after my morning shower. I had been picked up in downtown NYC half naked and tearing my skin apart screaming that I needed to kill the Matzos. Within a year, I had lost everything—family and friends, money, material possessions—and was living on the streets constantly f&@$ed up and addicted to anything that kept the voices quiet,” Frank tells me as he cracks open a beer.
While Frank was hospitalized, he was given a diagnosis of Paranoid Schizophrenia and Psychosis and was held for seventy-two hours. He was released into his own care with a bottle of medication they had started him on the day before. This would not be the last time that Frank was released from the hospital without any resources, medication, or support. For the next forty years, the system would fail Frank Gibson over and over again.
After the first hospitalization, Frank became a regular resident in the hospitals and jail systems across the country. He calls the voices in his head “Matzos” and says that they hate him and want him to kill himself. He has been forced to take numerous different medications throughout the years. He states that his tremors are not withdrawal but a left over side effect from one of the medications he was injected with.
Frank also tells of a time when, during a hospitalization, he was put onto a new drug that worked well for him. He was on it for over a month when he was –not over time, as is indicated- abruptly switched to a medications that Frank says made him “drool buckets of spit worthy of the bib they hung around my neck” and also left him unable to correctly control his limbs. When Frank asked his doctor why the switch had been made he was told it was cheaper. Due to his being on Medicaid, he was not allowed to use the medication that had worked for him for the first time in his life. “I would rather fight the Matzos alone than live like that.” Frank says as he mixes up his next hit of heroin.
According to Frank, the illegal drugs started about three years after his first hospitalization. A buddy of his introduced him to heroin and he never looked back. “After the first hit, the Matzos sounded distorted. I could hear them but it was almost a calming noise. I could not understand them and it was a peace that I had not felt in years,” he replies when asked about why he uses heroin. “A peace that not even the best medications can bring.” Frank says that while he knows he should be on medications, his faith in the current mental health system is non-existent. Not one time in his extensive criminal and mental health incarcerations has he ever been released with resources that lasted more than two weeks. To get an appointment for a follow-up, he tells me, was two months out. By then he was back on the drugs and into his own psychosis.
When asked what would need to change for him to try seeking treatment again he told me it was a pointless endeavor that he was through chasing. “But for the future, try listening and finding compassion. So many times I told them to help me and they just medicated me heavier. It is a nasty cycle that I gave up a very long time ago. Give me my dog, my needle and a beer and I will leave you alone.”
In 2012, on any given night across the U.S., the percentage of the homeless population with serious mental illness sat at almost forty percent (Health Care). Today’s policymakers are more concerned with the money spent on the mentally ill than in trying to solve the problem that is causing the excess spending in the first place. Frank was removed from a medication that could have helped him thrive in society because of funding. If society could find compassion and empathy for the mentally ill and their personal challenges, fewer people would slip through the cracks. In Frank’s words, “I am lost to that world. I will die on the streets in my own world and in my own way.”
Works Cited
Gibson, Frank, personal interview, 19 Mar. 2015.
"Health Care." National Alliance to End Homelessness:. N.p., n.d. Web. 28 Mar. 2015. <http://www.endhomelessness.org/pages/mental_physical_health>.
Homeless Feet. Digital image. Experimental Theology. N.p., 11 Nov. 2013. Web. 28 Mar. 2015. <http://4.bp.blogspot.com/- imKLz8WyQAs/UnnCAjtwLUI/AAAAAAAAGkw/6jrUuOYSHw4/s1600/homeless- feet.jpg>.
Psychiatric Drugs. Digital image. Before It's News. N.p., 15 Dec. 2012. Web. 28 Mar. 2015. <http://www.tuberose.com/Graphics/Psychiatric_Drugs.jpeg>.
[1] Name has been changed for privacy reasons.