Grant Integrated Services has gotten scary

Grant County Mental Health plus PARC equals disaster for the mentally ill. It makes sense when you consider that lots of junkies are mental.

I’ve been going to Grant Mental Health for 20-plus years. Before the change I heard, “Hi, Anita, I’ll buzz upstairs. Go on up” when I came in the door. They didn’t lock their doors for an hour lunch break before. Now they do, maybe they’re afraid the drug addicts will steal the paper clips. I don’t know.

When it was just mental health the waiting room was quieter most of the time. When we talked, we talked about our personal afflictions, and we talked about meds, and what new psycho meds the kids were taking to get high. When someone was bummed we did what we could to comfort him or her. We had a support group for bipolar and schizophrenia, but not any more. Mental health stuff: those are my people.

Now there are druggies and the crazies, resenting each other. This is a very toxic environment for us mental patients. I had a recent crisis and called Grant Integrated Services, and it took the person on the phone a few moments to register that I’d called for mental health, not drugs. Then I was told that I needed to be assessed in person in Moses Lake. I don’t drive, can’t take the bus. I live in Ephrata.

Or call 765-1717; that’s the crisis line. I’ve done this before. They send cops to take you someplace, maybe with linoleum floors and straitjackets. You just don’t know. And police at your place gets unwanted attention. I’d rather lock myself in my room.

That’s the problem right there: some are not getting help because it’s too scary. Grant Mental Health was a safe place; Grant Integrated Services is not. I am mental, and I don’t like being treated like a junkie. Can we at least have our own waiting room?

Anita V. Whisler

Ephrata