12-15 -2018

Wednesday, January 10, 2018

Dec. 15, 2011

. The Yearly Survey At The Time Of Housing Inspection Used To Ask How SLH Handled Complaints. The one about a month ago left this question off though was on the survey for the previous two years. How many other people gave SLH low marks for how they “handle” complaints (Barrie would not let me speak about Gerda in the grievance meeting in May 2010 and stated that maybe I did not belong in the SLH program and 2 months before when Peggy Wyss made a grievance two month previous to mine about Gerda’s bullying of Peggy, Caryn Zaner, her RC told Peggy she had to move out) and it was changed to make SLH statistics look better.

Peggy Wyss (In SLH program for 6 years) and I have experienced threats to lose our housing after complaining about the bullying and other severe problems with Haitian citizen, Gerda Sejour who has been in the St. Luke’s program living also at 24 Dunsinane Court, Silver Spring, for almost 5 years. Many, many housemates other than Peggy have left after a short stay and when the previous housemate, Shannon, returned to pick something up, her relations with GS were obviously very strained.

An investigation would need to ask therapists of previous housemates of Gerda and to read any other grievances, besides Peggy Wyss’ and mine, filed because of Gerda Sejour’s behavior to them.

Copies to Congressman Patrick Kennedy, son of the late Senator Edward Kennedy, God rest his soul, Sen. Kennedy’s staff told me that Sen. Kennedy had started an advocacy group for the mentally ill in Boston and saw no reason why I should not be able to use it.

Archdiocese of Arlington also has attorneys for those who cannot afford legal representation.

Congressman Chris Van Hollen, State Delegates, Senators Mikulski and Cardin. Tipper Gore is involved in funding for Mental Health and her secretary is a consumer. Former First Lady, Roslyn Carter, has a group for caretakers of the mentally ill and is involved in fundraising for Sheppard-Pratt. Local newspapers, The Gazette, The Washington Post, health writer Aaron Goldstein.

Stephen’s Ministry counselor at local churches.

ADA – Americans with Disability Act has attorneys for low income victims of discrimination including ageism.

Montgomery County Coalition for the Homeless, 600-B East Gude Drive, Rockville, MD 20850, www.mcch.net

Some very ugly things were done to me over the past two years at St. Luke’s House, now a secular organization for the mentally ill, must write of them. Gerda was not benefited by Melissa Jacob’s, Rehabilitation Counselor supervisor, malign neglect. Criminal negligence of constant mishaps with fire in the kitchen and ironing on her sheets, threats to me and bullying of other housemate Peggy Wyss who filed a grievance with the help of her Aunt Sallie who requested that a representative of Dept. of Mental Health attend in early 2010. The notes or transcripts of this meeting must be available and should be part of an investigation into Melissa Jacob and Barrie Friedman’s (Melissa Jacob’s supervisor) refusal to involve themselves or even listen to testimony about the dangerous behaviour of Gerda Sejour which also predated my acceptance into the SLH program and includes many, many mishaps in the kitchen and Gerda ironing on her bed in her room, leaving coating of oil on burners, overflow of oil and rice left in cup under burners, smoking burners everytime I turned on stove if did not was both burner grill and cup underneath.

Gerda would leave oil in our few pans on stove for months and cooked rice in pots for months, the RCs esp Amanda Tillman would say someone else is responsible or it was Gerda’s business if she left pots and pans with oil and food for weeks or months – Health Dept. carelessness in leaving house while dishwasher was on and plastic handle of spoon melted so completely that the metal of spoon fell off and coil at bottom was coated with plastic, smelled like diesel fuel, neither Gerda nor the RCs were concerned about kitchen safety and safety of Peggy, myself and neighbors which included a young child next store at the time, they were the first to move most likely because Gerda’s almost constant screaming echoed and re-echoed down the back deck corridor.

Gerda was not served by SLH staff ignoring her screaming at her voices every day for hours or bullying housemates and she had so many mishaps with the stove, I told several RCs more than once when accompanied by Gerda’s screams upstairs that Gerda was crying out for help and the change of medications over a two year period did little if any good in helping Gerda with her voices. Or for giving relief to Peggy and I for having to listen to Gerda’s screaming or stomping around the house in her boots, or blasting music with Gerda singing even louder over it.

Some of the rapid turnover in Rehab Counselors may be due to the way Melissa Jacob runs this department including asking RCs to ignore behavior that is dangerous to other clients and there are many lies in my Treatment Plans, esp. the past two, some are provable and need investigation by objective party. SLH needs exit interview of staff or at least exit questionnaire to pinpoint supervisors who are not doing their job honorably.

Some of the RCs who have left have indicated that they disagreed with policy, (Jerrel, no longer RC with St. Luke’s House) including morally repugnant duties such as lying about or ignoring Gerda’s spraying Lysol as she stated at a house meeting with Blessing Atem, who is no longer with St. Luke’s, in my rice and spitting on my hygiene products in the bathroom and leaving bloody underwear on doorknob of bathroom, by my folded up towels in linen closet and in bucket in front of the toilet, first with water, then for weeks with no water in bucket. Sweta Jadeda, my RC at the time, told me that it was just a part of Gerda’s sickness and nothing was done. Sweta is no longer with St. Luke’s House. Another line used constantly by RCs was “That’s just Gerda being Gerda.”

Caryn Zaner is no longer with St. Luke’s house, did house meeting before Blessing Atem – things she said to me before she left…..

Cost of training Rehab Counselors, continuing training also – turnover may not be because it is a difficult job but Melissa Jacob’s decisions endangering clients to be implemented by staff while she hides behind the curtain need to be carefully examined.

Gus, maintenance, who often talked to Gerda and me separately, told me after I moved that “Gerda really hates you.” Gus did not want to discuss it but was warning me. When I told this to Amanda Tillman, my current RC in name only, she just said “He said that did he.” And there were no follow up questions concerning how I was coping, trying to heal from two years of Gerda treating me as a scapegoat for her family issues and Gerda’s tormenting enemy voices, Aphrodite and Zeus, with little to no help from my or other RCs who come twice a day for medications and had nonsensical excuses for the very serious things that Gerda was doing. I have concern for the current housemate of Gerda’s that I switched houses with Alicia Castro. Alicia refused Beth’s offer to help move the last items at 14528 Banquo Terrace where I have been housed since August to 24 Dunsinane Court and when Beth suggest that Alicia come back to get the items, Alicia said, “After what was done to me in this house, I never want to come back here.”

I feel very bad for not telling Alicia about what she could expect from Gerda as a housemate but after the Lysol spraying in my food, led up to by worse than usual bullying and Gerda being unable to resist obeying her voices in telling me what terrible things Aphrodite was going to do to me – Gerda stated on the phone to Nicole, RC, that Aphrodite would not leave her alone until Gerda came in my room at 6 am to tell me something terrible Aphrodite had said after Nicole was obviously asking Gerda why she threatened me and Gerda said she was lying in bed and Aphrodite would not leave her alone until Gerda came in my room.

TREATMENT PLAN

My last two Treatment Plans have been exercises in character assassination, at least in the comments sections at the end and contain many lies. Including stating mistakenly that I do not get along with housemates, plural, at 24 Dunsinane Court I never had a disagreement with Peggy Wyss who expressed concern and sadness when I left and whom I have spoken to in the Art Group since then, at 14528 Banquo Terrace, I have gotten along with Melissa Donna Willard from the beginning and when I would express concern that Melissa Jacob and Amanda Tillman were trying to force me out, Melissa Willard stated again and again that she did not want me to leave.

At the beginning, Beth attacked me for my hearing problem and coughing, including in front of RCs coming for medication monitoring and our mutual therapist, Paula Weiss said she would “nip it in the bud” and Beth has been polite to me since then. I did not respond when Beth astonishingly attacked me and went on and on the way you would talk about someone you had been married to and disgusted by for 20 years. Paula Weiss, who is therapist to both Beth and myself, said she asked the RCs who confirmed that at the beginning Beth acted “very cattily” towards me but since the first two weeks Beth and I have gotten along but the Treatment Plan of October 2011 supposedly prepared by my RC, Amanda Tillman, but most likely by the supervisor Melissa Jacob states that I had “recently” had problems with both roommates, Melissa Willard read this part of my Treatment Plan with my permission and disagrees.

If either of my new housemates have issues with me it has not been brought up at the mandatory weekly house meetings nor has Amanda given me any information about this.

Amanda refused to read me the first treatment plan she prepared in April of this year stating falsely that “people come around to read the treatment plan to clients.” When I asked her what people, that my Treatment Plan had always been gone over with me by my RC, Amanda gave very vague answer and changed the subject. When Amanda handed me the April 2011 Treatment Plan in a doctor’s office when I asked about it, she stated that so many people had contributed to it that she was no longer sure what she had written. My therapist Paula Weiss looked up my TP on her computer and said the only other person who had signed off on the April plan was Melissa Jacob which was right since MJ is AT’s supervisor. I was so shocked by what Amanda or someone had written that after reading the last two paragraphs I lost my glasses. I signed much, much later under pressure from Amanda the day after she had helped me move my computer downstairs at 24 Dunsinane so I would not need to try to do my computer graphics through Gerda’s screaming at imaginary people.

I still have not signed my second treatment plan, and after reading a part of it, Amanda said if I wanted to go grocery shopping we had to leave right away. Last week when I made an appt to see my psychiatrist at SLH, Dr. Parveen, who has been under pressure by Melissa Jacob to change my diagnosis, the receptionist said I already had an appointment, a PROVIDER’S MEETING and the receptionist was reluctant to tell me what that was, when I saw my therapist, Paula Weiss a few days ago, she said she had just been informed that there was to be a Provider Meeting that she would attend but Paula asked me what it was about and I told her that I had not been officially told of this meeting by Amanda or anyone else and only knew of it because of a slip by the receptionist. I am never told anything or given adequate answers to my questions.

Today is Dec. 15 and was to have a meeting with Amanda today but someone else did medication monitoring this morning and Christine said that Amanda had taken Wed. and Thurs off and would also be off her usual days of Friday and Saturday, Amanda did not call me to cancel our appointment and last week said she had training and asked if we could skip the meeting last week. We have not been having meetings since last April but since I had been so long without medical care, Amanda has been taking me once a week to doctor’s appointments. Amanda is very uncommunicative in the car and gives very inadequate answers to my questions.

Amanda was obviously not a good advocate for me at the weekly RC Team Meetings (though why the meetings are based on a legal model of needing an advocate every week rather than a medical model of healing, I don’t know and when I asked Paula a few days ago, she said she did not know either). My therapist Paula Weiss has always been wonderful and respectful in her treatment of me and asked at one point for my position to act as an Advocate for me in the weekly RC Team Meetings, I agreed and then knew for sure that Amanda was not fulfilling her role as my advocate in the meetings though there were certainly signs before that.

Paula Weiss, unfortunately, according to Nicole is no longer the Team Therapist as she was for several years since the newly hired Carol Piker has more Peppertree clients than Paula and is most likely more amenable to go along with Melissa Jacob’s power grabs from licensed clinicians.

MJ had Amanda ask me questions from what AT called “a questionnaire, no not really a questionnaire” then asked very personal psychological questions as to whether I heard voices and I began talking of visual distortions, this was obviously a test to be administered by a psychologist or someone with much more training and expertise than Amanda, after about ten minutes AT called a halt and said she had all the information she needed. I do not have a close relationship with Amanda, she acts bored when I talk about anything from the terrible problems with Gerda to my artwork (and misstates in my treatment plans that I talk mainly about Conspiracy Theories, by which is meant what is now called Deep Politics or ParaPolitics not personal conspiracies as was asked me by Dr. Parveen after this mistaken emphasis in the weekly team meetings )and it was a shock after she took me to my primary care doctor, riding in silence to park the car in front of the townhouse and without any warning start asking me these questions that brought up a lot of bad memories.

When I told her later how upset I was by these questions and asked what the test was called, she only asked why I had waited a month to tell her I was upset and stated that everyone in Peppertree program were asked these questions and the RC asked them under different circumstances after I told Amanda that I thought it was brutal the way she started asking the questions with no prelude no warning and then stopped me when she had enough information to give Melissa Jacob in her power grab. MJ is obviously trying to do an end-run around my therapist Paula and my psychiatrist, Dr. Parveen, who is very concerned about me and told me, she was very upset, a few weeks into my move to Banquo Terrace that the “Team” was saying that if I did not get along with my housemates that there would be no place to put me.

When I spoke to Amanda a month after her, I believe, illegal cherrypicking questions from a psychological test that should only be given by LICENSED CLINICIANS, Amanda said that everyone in Peppertree had been asked the same questions from the psychological test (is this true, clients I have asked have said that they were asked no such questions about hearing voices and other symptoms that should only be discussed with a therapist or psychiatrist unless the client has a very close relationship with RC, which Amanda and I definitely do NOT) and that each RC asked them in their own way and I told AT that I thought her way of springing it on me with no preparation in her car after a doctor’s appt was particularly brutal but AT was unconcerned by my distress.

Alicia Castro obviously had problems with Beth and no attempt was made by Amanda Tillman, purportedly my REHABILITATION Counselor to help smooth my way with Beth. Dr. Parveen said she wanted to talk in more depth with me to help her with my diagnosis. For a while Amanda was pushing for a soon meeting with Dr. Parveen but Melissa Jacob has obviously decided to skip this pressure for a new diagnosis before The Provider’s Meeting which the receptionist said was scheduled for January 26 and which I still have not been officially informed of.

When it was cancelled, I found out and asked why Amanda did not tell me and she said she was waiting until it had been rescheduled, I had asked Amanda if I could bring a Stephen’s Minister or someone with the chuch to the Providers Meeting AND WOULD NEED TO INFORM THEM AS SOON AS POSSIBLE ABOUT THE CANCELLATION IF THEY HAD SCHEDULED TIME FOR THE JANUARY 26 date for the PM and AT had said yes. I asked Amanda, why since she knew I might be bringing someone to the Providers Meeting that AT did not tell me as soon as she had learned of the cancellation due to clinician’s training, AT finally admitted she should have told me about the cancellation after repeating several times that she did not want to tell me that it had been rescheduled.

Ms. Jacob should try to hire at least one more older RC, I am sure there are applicants, more likely to be more sensitive to clients than those in early 20s. and there should be more than one, Kimberly for older adults.

I was surprised by Terry Reid’s kindness when she called just after I was informed by Gladys Spellman Rehab that my mother had passed away and Terri said she would send someone to be with me, since I shouldn’t be alone. Jessica came and though I like Jessica and she has grown a lot in compassion over the past year, she did not know how to react to someone who had lost a loved one or many of the brutal new practices like the short time period before mass cremation within a few days and a mass burial and taking burial insurance policies to pay for hospital bills not covered by Medicare.

Older RCs more life experience with helping deal with grief and my shock that after taking my mother’s burial policy to pay for hospitalization, and the second call after PG Hospital was from a private group in body parts that wanted my mother’s skin and Jessica saw nothing wrong with that or with only 3 days to come up with the money for cremation or the Board of Anatomy would do a mass cremation of my mother’s remains and bury her in a mass grave like the Nazis. Amanda was given permission by Ms. Jacob to help me find a crematorium that would do the cremation and wait for payment until I had received the $900 that had accrued from the $70 per month that is legally required to give patients from my deceased father’s Navy Retirement and Social Security. Amanda was very good at that time and so was Ms. Jacob in helping me to meet the director of the Crematorium and it took almost 6 months of many calls to obtain the $900 from Gladys Spellman and visits to various places so that my mother’s last wishes to be buried with the spouses of military veterans at Arlington Cemetery and which my mother had paid on a Veterans Life Insurance policy to pay for the cremation and burial which was taken by the hospital.

All the time I was dealing with Gerda’s projecting her family issues on me and screaming most of the day at her voices or bullying me and/or Peggy, I was visiting my mother in Kensington Nursing Home where I had to call the ambulance twice since the doctors and nurses just ignored my mother when she was delirious or comatose from what the paramedics called a faulty oxygen condenser and riding with my mother in the ambulance and then using my cab coupons to visit her in Gladys Spellman and when she was sent to PG Hospital. It was hard to see my therapist first at Family Services in Gaithersburg and then after months of asking Ms. Jacob if I could see Paula Weiss– found out that it was a 6 hour bus ride to St. Luke’s House Life Skills Program, until Amanda started taking me to see my therapist but a month and a half ago, Amanda said she could not take me to 6040 Southport one way to see my therapist and psychiatrist – I was taking a cab one way which stretched my cab coupons to 4 visits so that I could also take the cooking classes and attend the art class once a month.

Briefly, Amanda said that if I could not see my therapist and psychiatrist without her taking me she would but later denied saying that and that I had agreed to take a bus to show independence but that she would take me grocery shopping once a month and to doctors appointment, my current (Nov) treatment plan states that Amanda takes me to do weekly grocery shopping which has never been true and is critical of my spending all my food stamps at the beginning of month, it is difficult and unwieldy for me to try to plan for the whole month but though my current TP states that Amanda will help me plan menus and budget and write a daily schedule this like so many things have been promised and not done.

Amanda shoved a calender at me and told me to do menu planning refused to help me in any way in the only three sit down meetings we have had since April 2011, AT had been taking me to doctors appts but could have made some time to act as a real RC, check AT schedule for the past year to see if she has had any more than 3 meetings with me.