Within a few hours of taking Patricia off the ventilator and before UNMH could discharge her from ICU for her independent mental health evaluation, the Department of Corrections came in and arrested Patricia. She is currently back in the Metropolitan Detention Center awaiting a hearing before Judge Murdoch about her probation violation.

            I am listening to 1984 in the car and reading American Terrorist about the Oklahoma bombing, so the timing proved poor. I immediately created visions of Big Brother swooping down and arresting Patricia before the hospital could determine what was best for her.

            I probably got the cause and effect reversed as I struggled with this the first couple of days. The Department of Corrections did not arrest Patricia because she attempted suicide, Patricia attempted suicide because she knew they were coming to arrest her and return her to jail.

            At least I hope so. The Department filed a notice with the Court stating that Patricia has been placed into custody “while an investigation is being conducted for allegedly violating probation condition(s) #5, in that the defendant was unsuccessfully discharged from La Pasada for repeated rules violations”.

            And you wonder where George Orwell got the idea for Newspeak from? What is “unsuccessfully discharged”? Doesn’t this mean they tried to discharge her but were not successful? 

            Condition 5 is the supervision paragraph of Patricia’s probation in which, Patricia is required to successfully complete any treatment program the Department orders.

            I wonder if ‘unsuccessfully discharged’ is Newspeak for Patricia’s attempt to discharge herself via suicide and proving unsuccessful at it? 

            Grammar aside, I am left to speculate as to what is going on, and to wonder if we are sinking into a rinse and repeat cycle from hell where the Department fails to help Patricia, incarcerates her for a few months, releases her, she gets into trouble again, makes another suicide attempt, they arrest her, and the cycle repeats.

            Not my vision of how I wish Jessica to spend her teenage years.

            I told Jessica and Montie the other night that I would not repeat the cycle with them. Next time Patricia is hospitalized, I simply will not tell them. I hear the argument that the children have the right to know what is going on with their mother, but not at the expense of their sanity.

            Just mine, just Glen’s and the continued speculation that the Department of Corrections has placed Patricia in a unique hell worthy of Dante.

            I put the Department on notice of my exercising the right to be notified and attend any hearing, I placed a call to both the victim’s advocates office and the parole and probation section of the DA office, but they have not bothered to return my calls.

The DA never considered this much of a crime, and perhaps she is right, maybe the true crime occurred afterwards as the Beast Machine arose, consumed Patricia and turned toward the family.