USH #2

As for an update. I truly don't know what to say. My clinicals at the Utah State Hospital are not over, I have one more week. But that isn't the main reason that I am without speech. I really don't know what to say about my experience. The individuals I have met are incarcerated for a number of reasons, some of which are among the most horrific imaginable. And yet I didn't see them as they were when they committed the acts. Some of which were done in rage, some in lust, others while under the influence of drugs or alcohol and all were done by those who suffer from some degree of mental illness.

The men I met were all calm, collected, well medicated and some were even very intelligent. Such as the individual who, while quizzing me about the members of the new first presidency pointed out that Presiden Monson is the 16th President of the church, and that the sixteenth letter of the alphabet is P, as in Prophet. Coincidence? I think not.

But seriously, the people in front of me, many of them, you wouldn't think they had any degree of mental illness. It is hard to describe that experience. You know what they did, you know how ill they are, and yet there is no evidence, nothing agrees with the information, nothing confirms what you have read, or what you have been told. I hate to admit it, but you do begin to trust and listen to the patients as they insist they aren't ill, that they didn't do what they had been convicted of, and that they really are going home later in the afternoon. It plays with your mind!!!

So when I say I don't know what to say about my time with them, I mean it. There were a few choice experiences that I will spare you the details, unless you are really interested in exploring your morbid curiosity, then feel free to ask me next time we meet. Otherwise, I am going to spend a few moments redefining my own personal reality, if you will excuse me.