Lisa Y.

Lisa is a Chinese-American I met while in the Oakland County Jail. She would end up there when she didn't show up for her court ordered, monthly shot. You see, Lisa is bipolar. She would often get arrested while in a manic phase of her illness. She told me several stories about her antics in Lake Orion. One time, she stopped her car in the middle of the road and refused to move, until her then boyfriend got out. She was a complete mess. She even harassed an old woman one night she was in a manic fit. It was too much for Lake Orion to take and a judge ordered her to get a shot that she couldn't stop taking and/or forget to take. If she didn't show for her appointment, the Lake Orion Police would show up at her door and take her to jail to get it.

The only thing I didn't understand at the time is why they brought her to OCJ and not to the outpatient clinic where she got her shot. Why did she have to be arrested and put in jail evry time she missed her shot. After I figured out the deputies were selling inmates, I understood why. People in a manic phase of their illness have a hyper sexdrive, too. So Lisa came to OCJ very horny. Once she asked me what I did for sex in my cell, since I was alone. I explained that I didn't do anything. She straddled her seat at her desk, cupped her breast and showed me how she satisfied herself. I laughed, but now I think it's sad.

Lisa had been a freshman at the University of Michigan when her illness took hold of her life. The women she lived with saw that she was a bit strange and started complaining about her behavior, until her brother had to come get her. She says that it was due to her being outgoing, something that is not expected of a Chinese person in society. She said she just didn't fit the norm. Lisa is very smart. I almost believed her, until the day she had a full blown psychotic break through the night. I went to her cell to talk and saw a whole other person from the one she was the day before. She began to yell at me and lose control. I was so shocked and couldn't believe her demeanor and actions could change so quickly, but they had. I asked her in a calm tone, "Are you alright?" She spit at me and it landed on the glass. She screamed at me in a vicious manner said, "Get away from me you Nigger!" I backed away and went to sit on the couch to watch television. I had never seen such a dramatic change in a person before.

She spent a lot of her life in mental institutions in Southeast Michigan. She had told me that all the rumors about the State Hospital Clinton Valley were true. The rumors about the staff having sex with patients and the tunnels beneath the hospital, where all this was suppose to take place were not a myth. It was all true and she had taken part in the mahiem. as a young woman. Lisa was about 40-years old when we met in OCJ. She had been in the system being sexually abused for over 20 years. She would swear it wasn't abuse and something she wanted to do, but she didn't realize those people had an obligation to look after her well-being and not use her for their own sexual needs. Now, she was being used at the Oakland County Jail. She was having sex for Hungry Howie's bread sticks that were said to be the best.

She was always placed in the three main spots for prostitution. That was cell 1, 6 and 8. She never went upstairs to live, because they always wanted access to her. She was very beautiful and resembled a doll. She was really nasty however, and had created a tough exterior in order to survive her adventures in jail and whatever else she had been through in the years since her diagnosis. I came to realize through my own journeys that the mentally ill in Michigan were nothing but chattle to be used at the whime of those in charge of them. People like Lisa are left to muttle through a life filled with abuse and little reward. The sad part is they don't even know or understand. Lisa would often stand in her door and sing, "Ah, me so horny! Me love you long time!" It would be funny, but she couldn't sign. But she knew her worth in the jail. She was a man's fantasy from Full Metal Jacketand the Too Live Crew's hit song. And that's why the Lake Orion Police brought her to jail and didn't take her to the out-patient clinic. Sex...