I did this of Marie when she visited me at the Brattleboro Retreat in the summer of 2015. Bizarrely, Dr Mark McGee, the incompetent psychiatrist (in my humble opinion) in charge of my “care” claimed my doing art every day and having visitors and socializing with friends from across the world qualified me for his misdiagnosis of borderline personality disorder…hah! What an idiot, right?!
Phoebe Sparrow Wagner, formerly Pamela Spiro Wagner, is an award-winning poet, author and artist who wrote WE MAD CLIMB SHAKY LADDERS (Cavankerry Press, 2009) poems about her life with schizophrenia, and co-author, with her sister, a psychiatrist, of DIVIDED MINDS: TWIN SISTERS AND THEIR JOURNEY THROUGH SCHkIZOPHRENIA, a memoir, which was a finalist for the Connecticut Book Award and won the NAMI Outstanding Literature Award in 2006. It is still in print, and available at Amazon.Wagner second book, a first volume of poetry, is WE MAD CLIMB SHAKY LADDERS, (2009) which is available at a discount now from Cavankerrypress.org. Her newest book of poetry and art, LEARNING TO SEE IN THREE DIMENSIONS (Green Writers Press/Sundog Poetry Center 2017) is also now available at Amazon and other booksellers.
Her work has been published in Tikkun, Midwest Poetry Review, and the New York TImes Sunday Magazine as well as the Hartford Courant and the LA Weekly, among other places. She also won an international poetry competition sponsored by the BBC in 2001/2.
Wagner’s art was on display in Connecticut area libraries in 2011 and 2012 and in Vermont, in Brattleboro, in 2016 and 2017. Many pieces are available for sale and charitable donation. She currently lives in Vermont.
View all posts by Phoebe Sparrow Wagner
7 Comments
Marie, you are so understanding and kind not to want to tell me what they said etc. to want to spare me! I still want to know…it could not be as bad as somethings I do know! But that said, I will never ever go or be sent back there so it really does not matter…what matters is that you did come to visit me despite their malevolence! Thank you! Thank you, my friend.
You got nailed with BPD because the doc couldn’t find anything wrong with you, so he defaulted to the go-to one for women. He had to justify your presence there to the insurance companies so the hospital would get paid to keep you imprisoned.
Dear Julie, I am so happy to read your comment. I love this portrait more because she did it while in hospital, in barely 3 days, and this puts to shame the ‘drugging of people and labeling them…’; secondly she did this spontaneously and for it it turned out just right – reflecting me who was there in front of her; and I now get it why the’admin’ seemed so shocked I could even come from all this far to visit her and they kept telling me to be careful and if I was sure…they even outright told me of a supposed ‘no touch policy’ as I often touched and hugged her…it was a very mixed emotion trip. But now I get an idea why they love labels out there and drugging people…it’s all for the dollars how sad
Omg Marie I think someday you have to tell me all about what went on behind the scenes: I had no idea they warned you against visiting me! Those miserable wretches!
Phoebe, it wouldn’t have served you any purpose of I told you then or even now lol. But that visit was a very big eye opener for me and there is quite some stuffs I read now about how mentally distressed patients are treated and I can shake my head cause I saw that. You are the best eye opener in this whole mental health realm I have ever had. My brother was my brother to me and difficult to appreciate what was happening with all the emotions and etc mixed up. But now I can, I thank you for being my precious friend
The bed was — oh he meant it even if it was a typical diagnosis. I got angry with his using that label on me because I was angry at be8ng chained up and hooded for transportation to the retreat,! He had to take that label off my chart, because I threatened to expose him. But he “got me back” on discharge summary by saying “she says”she does not have BPD so of course she does,!
Marie, you are so understanding and kind not to want to tell me what they said etc. to want to spare me! I still want to know…it could not be as bad as somethings I do know! But that said, I will never ever go or be sent back there so it really does not matter…what matters is that you did come to visit me despite their malevolence! Thank you! Thank you, my friend.
Love
Phoebe
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Oh I love that! Marie you are beautiful!
You got nailed with BPD because the doc couldn’t find anything wrong with you, so he defaulted to the go-to one for women. He had to justify your presence there to the insurance companies so the hospital would get paid to keep you imprisoned.
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Dear Julie, I am so happy to read your comment. I love this portrait more because she did it while in hospital, in barely 3 days, and this puts to shame the ‘drugging of people and labeling them…’; secondly she did this spontaneously and for it it turned out just right – reflecting me who was there in front of her; and I now get it why the’admin’ seemed so shocked I could even come from all this far to visit her and they kept telling me to be careful and if I was sure…they even outright told me of a supposed ‘no touch policy’ as I often touched and hugged her…it was a very mixed emotion trip. But now I get an idea why they love labels out there and drugging people…it’s all for the dollars how sad
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Omg Marie I think someday you have to tell me all about what went on behind the scenes: I had no idea they warned you against visiting me! Those miserable wretches!
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Phoebe, it wouldn’t have served you any purpose of I told you then or even now lol. But that visit was a very big eye opener for me and there is quite some stuffs I read now about how mentally distressed patients are treated and I can shake my head cause I saw that. You are the best eye opener in this whole mental health realm I have ever had. My brother was my brother to me and difficult to appreciate what was happening with all the emotions and etc mixed up. But now I can, I thank you for being my precious friend
LikeLike
The bed was — oh he meant it even if it was a typical diagnosis. I got angry with his using that label on me because I was angry at be8ng chained up and hooded for transportation to the retreat,! He had to take that label off my chart, because I threatened to expose him. But he “got me back” on discharge summary by saying “she says”she does not have BPD so of course she does,!
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“Bed” was what my iPad changed BPD to,!,!
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