If only for a few seconds, the pair of 3.5mm headphones and a pocket-sized MP3 player offered insight into a world that, in Kelly Argueta’s opinion, too few hear about.
“Can’t you get this right?” said a woman’s voice, registering somewhere between a shout and a whisper. “What’s wrong with you, it’s not that hard, stupid. Are you stupid today?”
The rapid-fire degradations were part of a simulation Argueta and other mental health advocates set up as part of World Hearing Voices Day. Saturday’s event at Fredericksburg’s Market Square served as a safe space for those who suffer from auditory symptoms, as well as an opportunity to reduce stigmas attached to similar mental health disorders.
Argueta’s son Cristian started hearing voices three years ago.
“He said he was hearing things in his head, like a bunch of people talking in a crowded room,” she recalled.
What followed was a series of hospitalizations and medication ramp-ups that culminated in a suicide attempt last year.
“I just said, ‘This is not working, we have to figure out a different answer,” she said.
Argueta’s search led her to the United Kingdom and a charity organization called the Hearing Voices Network, which champions an approach rooted in valuing people over psychological labels.
“From then on, it was just taking all kinds of trainings,” she said.
In particular, Argueta focused on facilitating peer groups and finding alternatives to suicide. Today, she works as a certified peer recovery specialist with the Rappahannock Area Community Services Board (RACSB). She quickly discovered that many of the people she encountered professionally had the same diagnosis as her son.
And, like him, they found strength in numbers.
“I found that when they’ve got together, it was amazing,” she said. “I’ve seen a lot of them be out of hospitalization for a year, when they were previously in every couple of months.”
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For more mental health resources, visit the Hearing Voices Network or Vocal Virginia.
A woman named Ashley who attended Saturday’s event said she’s been hospitalized — at mental health facilities such as Snowden, Pavillion, Western, and Danville — over 30 times since she was 21. The Free Press is identifying Ashley by her first name only for privacy reasons.
“If you don’t go willingly, you’re handcuffed to a bed — one arm and one leg,” she said. “And if you’re sick and can’t control what you’re doing, you get injections, which just make you sleepy.”
Joe Stafford is hoping to change how some of those decisions are made.
For the past eight years, Stafford has worked as a peer recovery specialist at Mary Washington Hospital, where his primary responsibility involves helping those who are there involuntarily for mental health reasons.
Stafford said law enforcement officers once had discretion about when to restrain patients, but current policy requires the use of handcuffs whenever an individual is in custody. An Emergency Custody Order (ECO) lasts for eight hours, said Stafford, but if a bed is not available or if it expires on a weekend or holiday, it could be extended up to 72 hours.
“It’s a horrible policy,” he said. “There’s nothing therapeutic about it. I’ve been handcuffed to those beds myself, and every time it happened to me, my brain went to the same place.
“I see dogs tied up in yards, slaves get shackled together and convicts. I’m supposed to be here for a health reason.”
Last year, Stafford conducted a survey during a crisis intervention team (CIT) conference and found that roughly 60 percent of Virginia localities have similar policies regarding restraint. The majority of officers with whom he interacts have received CIT training and “hate” the current policy, he said.
One possible solution?
“They need better rooms,” Stafford said. “You can’t secure the rooms, and if they were free to wander around the room, there’s plenty of things they could hurt themselves or others with.”
This drawing, by Bee Paz, was one of the pieces of artwork shown during an event for World Hearing Voices Day on Saturday at Market Square.
By contrast, the environment on Saturday afternoon couldn’t have been more disarming. A music playlist curated by members of Argueta’s peer support group blared its upbeat counterpoints from a speaker, and a semi-circle of chairs was reserved for those who wished to share art, writing or other creative endeavors related to their conditions.
“It’s not judgmental,” said Cristian, now 17 and attending high school locally as a freshman. “This setting right here, you don’t feel so suffocated by everything.”
Likewise, when Ashley started attending Argueta’s Hearing Voices group, she finally encountered others who understood her reality. Her voices persist, even as her condition has improved to the point that she’s back in school getting her GED.
“I’ve come to realize I will always hear voices,” she said. “And I’m fine with that. Even talking to you now, I still hear the voices.”
