CHAPTER 3 ~ Part I: MADE MAD IN AMERICA

 CHAPTER 3 ~ Part I:  MADE MAD IN AMERICA 

TL; DR NEXT UP ON MY TOUR OF THE BROKEN SYSTEMS IN AMERICA:  How I fell accidentally & unintentionally into the deeply dysfunctional “mental healthcare system” in America.  

Why did I keep discovering all of these broken systems in America in 2020 AT THE ONSET OF A GLOBAL PANDEMIC, you might ask? What can I say - I got a knack.  

Actually, I believe it is because there is a natural enmity/animosity in this World between good vs evil, light vs dark, righteous vs the unrighteous and those out in the World trying to always do the right thing and those evil predators intent on stopping them so they can carry on criming and profiting from other people’s pain.   

So far, I had come to fully understand the corrupt tommyrot of the “homeless outreach scam nonprofit system” in IL which never effectively rehouses anyone ever and I dared to call them out for it.  Then I took on the for-profit by private equity lethal nursing homes in IL and dared to call them out for their UNLAWFUL practices behind locked doors during the Pandemic - and I won. I had my freedom from that janky hellhole and all of the videos and photographs I would need to prove everything I said about that awful place is true.      

So fleeing that janky, lethal IL medicaid nursing home who offered me none of the restorative physical therapies I was sent there for, I still required the critical medical attention I never received while actually in that Facility.  In the immediate aftermath of leaving that SNFacility, I (again) landed at the Caseyville Motel 6 - the now infamous, former “COVID Homeless Motel.”   

As mentioned previously, John with Call for Help literally saved my life (again!) when my mental health team at Centerstone Behavioral Health ASSURED me there would be safe housing and rescue oxygen waiting for me that they personally arranged knowing how lethal that SNF (Skilled Nursing Facility) had been - but, alas, they failed me on this metric too.  The degree to which Centerstone Behavioral Health of Alton IL failed me over and over and over again for 18 months cannot be overstated here. (And if you really want to get “in the weeds” of it all - please see the attached emails I sent to them regarding their failures during my time treating with them.)   At a minimum, these emails prove that Centerstone Behavioral Health in Alton IL is a  fully failed mental health provider and, at worst, they prove the place needs to be shut down and lose their certification to operate in the State of IL.        

But sadly, much like the janky SNF from which I fled after receiving no medical therapies, Centerstone is largely funded by Medicaid dollars too.  And when you are in the business of servicing the Medicaid-population in IL, you can be the absolute worst, most appalling service-provider, and still somehow get even MORE STATE OF IL GOVERNMENT MONEY.  There’s a very good reason I call these places preying on the vulnerable populations “Medicaid bottom-feeders” - and that’s because they ARE.    They are feeding off the pain & suffering of the disempowered bottom half of the socioeconomic ladder while reaping enormous yearly profits.

The fact that my therapist with Centerstone, Rosalind Young, listened to my tales of horror from inside that SNF rathole on a weekly basis and the fact that she herself used to work in nursing homes prior to becoming a newly minted therapist at Centerstone, means she fully understood I could literally die in that place on any given day. She had seen entirely preventable deaths happen to others like Patricia (whom I mentioned in Chapter 2) and like me who went there to get well - only to DIE for want of basic OXYGEN or my roommate needing basic INSULIN or Patricia TURNING IN THE BED to prevent blood clots.  

 So Rosalind of Centerstone instructed me to leave the lethal nursing home on a certain specific date in November 2020 and she assured me that when I did so - that Centerstone would have the rescue oxygen and shelter arranged for me that I required after fleeing the SNF.  The fact that I relied on this to be true and then was failed catastrophically by Centerstone is evidence of my seemingly incurable naivety with these broken Medicaid systems in IL.  Despite witnessing the broken homeless and nursing home systems, I still had the stupid good faith belief  that Centerstone would do right by me and do what they promised that they would do.  I trusted these incompetents to actually get it right with my care - with my very life left quite literally hanging in the balance of their performance or failure to perform -  much to my grave peril.  I now know: fool me three times you IL Medicaid bottom-feeders and I get it: they are ALL always going to be woefully incompetent and likely let you die. They’re never ever going to do the right thing and worse - no entity currently exists WITHIN THE SYSTEM to actually ever hold them accountable.  So there really is literally  ZERO incentive for IL Medicaid bottomfeeders like Centerstone to provide anything other than a fully failed level of contractual performance. 

PLEASE UNDERSTAND WHAT I NOW KNOW:   ANYTHING CONNECTED to ANY of the MEDICAID System in IL will only be fully incompetent and an unimaginable nightmare boondoggle for those caught WITHIN that broken Medicaid system in IL.  That’s just the way that it is and there CURRENTLY is just no political will to change how awful all of it is.  The Democrats in IL under Governor Pritzker have a democratic super-majority and they could absolutely ACT to pass laws to change these “broken by design” fully failed social safety net systems in IL. Yet too many people in positions of power are PROFITING off the pain of vulnerable poverty populations in IL so I can almost guarantee you that if you happen to be reading this Memoir in 2026 and Governor Prizker is STILL our Governor, these broken systems will be the same as they ever were and as they are TODAY in 2023.     

Admittedly, from the outset, I knew it was not a good match between Centerstone Behavioral Health and me.  Seemingly, a full 90% of their client-base involves substance abuse clients who are either referred to them by the Madison County Drug Court Diversion Program or are people who, sadly, reach out to Centerstone themselves  hoping Centerstone will be at all helpful to them in helping them overcome their drug/alcohol  addictions.  HEAR ME NOW: Centerstone fails to even render critically necessary rehab services to those suffering from substance abuse disorder.  Do not trust them with anyone you love or if you happen to be struggling yourself.  You will be repeatedly failed by them and relapse before you are ever even assigned a clinical team. Avoid Centerstone Behavioral Health no matter what else you do.  

And I say this as someone with experience in Substance Abuse Recovery Services.  I worked in this field when I lived in Georgia and I absolutely know that successful programs exist to help those struggling with addiction.  Sadly, those “successful programs” are quite expensive and only available to the affluent because we have two systems  of justice in America and we have two separate and unequal systems of medical and mental healthcare in IL and in America, too.  And that’s just the way that it is and things will never be improved until and unless We the People demand change at every level.    

And thus and so, going into therapy with Centerstone, I discerned pretty rapidly that I was far from their  “typical client” as I needed deep, intensive therapy from a professional, informed psychoanalyst - in order to heal from narcissistic abuse - and was NOT “just another addict” (their words - not mine) who they could blame for their failures as an Agency when Centerstone’s failed drug Recovery Program did not attenuate my issues .  As such, they tried to put a square traumatized person (me!) into a not trauma-informed round hole for their “typical substance abuse treatment protocol” and it was an unmitigated disaster. 

They failed me catastrophically on every metric.  It’s just that simple. But it’s not just me - read their online reviews.  They fail nearly EVERYONE and only some bother to write the TRUTHFUL negative online reviews Centertone  deserves.   And if you assess their negative online reviews you will see that they have someone respond online to any negative review but when you call the phone number they provide? No one ever calls you back.  This is intentional so they can tell Corporate (in Tennessee) that they take patient feedback regarding their failed therapy experiences at Centerstone seriously.  They do not.  Centerstone of Alton literally does not care if you literally die from acute distress, suicide or drug overdose.  They are making bank, baby, and there’s always another addict crying out for their services not knowing how awful it will be should you happen to perish in their care.  AVOID CENTERSTONE in ALTON IL!

 

At the beginning in May 2020, being open to therapy with Centerstone seemed promising.  Their “therapeutic services model” consists of three (3) people assigned to you: a peer support coach who essentially is like a BFF with active listening skills and who themselves have been through some things.  To be technical, a peer support coach is a person with “lived experience” who has been trained to support those who struggle with mental health, psychological trauma or substance abuse. Centerstone also assigns you a  “social worker” who is, in theory, there to help you navigate any essential needs you have by way of housing, clothing, food, medication, doctors’ appointments etc.  You are then also assigned to a therapist who is, at Centerstone anyway, just a MSW (Masters in Social Work) graduate.  Sounds fully comprehensive and extremely helpful - ON PAPER - to the emotionally distraught, right?  In reality, at Centerstone - it is an unmitigated dysfunctional, uninformed dumpster fire of unhelpful & incompetent “trainees” who have no idea what they are doing.  Alarming indeed.    

Aside from being diagnosed by my Huntington’s neuro-psych as suffering from “traumatic grief” in the months and years following my father’s entirely preventable death, I had zero personal patient history in mental healthcare or therapy previously as I was always a happy, well-adjusted, law abiding, average joe person in America.  I  do possess a degree in psychology from University and consider myself adequately educated on the topic and, as such, I have a general idea of what mental health treatment <should resemble> if done effectively. In addition to my formal education on the topic, I have read countless books on the topic over the years including “An Elementary Textbook of Psychoanalysis” by Charles Brenner, the requisite reading of  Freud & Jung and many excellent MODERN books commenting on the psychological theories proposed by Freud and Jung.  Additionally, one of my favorite therapy books is “The Fifty-Minute Hour: A Collection of True Psychoanalytic Tales of Patients on the Edge” by Robert Mitchell Lindner.  

So, there I was, carrying around a giant bag of “unhealed traumatic grief” regarding my deceased father for a year and  then I encountered that fully disordered landlord in St. Louis - who had 89 unwarranted stalker-type intrusions into my home and two incidents of narcissistic rage-filled, physical assault violence against me. When that happened with that lunatic landlord in St. Louis, I began reading EVERY book on the topic of narcissism: malignant, covert, overt, inverted or otherwise.  I absorbed a million YouTube videos on the topic and my favorite “Youtube experts” are Richard Grannon and Doctor Ramani.    Incidentally, when I first began having extreme problems with this disordered landlord upon moving in, I had no clue what I was dealing with and was literally thrown into a constant state of panic and chaos trying to navigate the many disordered moods and behaviors of that man.  Then, finally, one night - a cop listened to me for over an hour about everything the lunatic landlord was doing and that cop left me his business card saying: “I’m going to write something on the back of my business card and you are going to research it and, after you do, this landlord of yours and everything he is doing will make so much more sense to you.  After that? I advise you to go get an OOP against him tomorrow and then you will have the legal right to change your locks and keep your landlord out of this home.  Then I advise you after that - to pack and run far away from here.  Because these types never quit - until you’re dead or so damaged you can’t come back from the brink of despair.  And I don’t want to be back here in a week or a month hauling your body out of here in a body bag.  I cannot stress this enough: Run from this lunatic. Do NOT look back.” 

I, of course, began disagreeing with the cop about “Why do I have to leave when I’m the victim of his criminal harassment…” but the cop just placed his card on my coffee table and left.  

On the back he had scribbled “male covert malignant narcissist.”  A few hours of reading on the topic and I suddenly fully understood EVERYTHING: Oh. That’s why I have to leave.  These people WILL kill you in their fits of disordered, narcissistic, homicidal rage. It is no joke and nothing to trifle with as they are not like the rest of us. They are without conscience.  They exist only to deeply destroy others and elevate themselves - while living off of other people’s money.  There is nothing but death, devastation, destruction and damage in their wake. They can never fill the black hole that is their tortured existence so they steal, destroy, terrorize and sometimes even kill  others to compensate for their own lack of…essentially everything.  Dangerous and disordered indeed. Run far away from these monsters as soon as you can is my best advice. I initially did not follow this directive from the cop and I nearly paid for that critical mistake with my life. Do not trifle with disordered narcissists.  Disengage from them, safely escape and never look back - no matter how you have to do it.     

And thus and so, when I first got connected to Centerstone, it became immediately obvious to me that their  “social helpers” they employ there are students still in school, nearly all of which are under the age of 25 and who have almost no lived experience in this thing called life to bring to the table in the form of wisdom, insight and knowledge. {Note: This is not to say that the younger generation has none of this - for they absolutely do - I am just saying that the people Centerstone employs in these roles within their “triad treatment model” had none of any of this and, coupled with being young, they are not at all helpful to most they purport to serve, broadly speaking.}  

For these younger “trainees” have no “Rolodex” of 1000 contacts they’ve developed over decades from working in the field nor have they learned how to navigate the quagmire that is mental health in America for their clients.  Centerstone essentially employs students still studying the field of social work to enter the field of substance abuse counseling at one of three (3) levels of care; OR, at best,  they tend to be graduates right out of school who just framed their diploma and have literally no idea how to do the job they just obtained a degree to do.  

As such, anyone like me with years of lived experience, university degrees of their own in the field, zero substance abuse history and voluminous years of reading on the topic is not likely to be helped by a “Medicaid bottom-feeder” entity like Centerstone.  And their rates of staff attrition are horrifying because the “supervising therapist” over all the therapists employed there is some high-pitched, shrieking  gossip-girl named Christina Endicott who will promise you the World but deliver you an empty paper bag.  She is one of those “Midwestern housewife type women” who somewhere along the line was taught that if you speak like a little girl while always being  “extra appeasing” to the Management men in the Corporate structure of the Company - you will be promoted far beyond your knowledge and skill set. Yikes. Ugh. What an intransigent nightmare to try and navigate as a client of Centerstone. 

    To be fully honest, the most helpful of all employees at Centerstone assigned to me was my Peer Support Coach, Paige.  She was very young but came from her own background of  trauma and she seemed earnestly invested in her clients.  She was helpful because she could relate to the fact that when terrible things happen to you it is truly a terrible and traumatic event.  The rest of the dunderheads employed at Centerstone? They seem to function only on autopilot and being intentionally emotionally removed from their clients so as to not experience the very real condition of “caregiver compassion fatigue.”  I get it.  But it’s not at all helpful.  The day you become fully numb to the traumatic suffering of others is the day you need to absolutely stop working in the field.   

So, it came as no surprise to me that immediately upon reaching her graduation day, my Peer Support Specialist, Paige, left Centerstone for a better job/better mental health employer ELSEWHERE located in Edwardsville IL.  And I did not blame Paige for leaving Centerstone one bit.  Because that’s what Centerstone essentially is: the mechanism by which people in the mental health field “obtain their certification hours of service” as an unpaid intern and then, upon graduating, immediately jump ship to a real job with a real mental health provider.  

Centerstone’s reimbursement rate is so low from Medicaid that they literally invented the “triad treatment model” in order to triple-bill the State of Illinois Adult Medicaid threefold for each client.  I suppose that’s one way to “beat” the ridiculously subpar and low reimbursement rates from Aetna Medicaid in IL: bill them thrice for the same stupid, unhelpful advice. But I do genuinely hope that wherever Paige is today that she is happy, thriving, still laughing and still relating to people on the very real level she does.  She truly meets people where they are and shows a genuine concern for their welfare and wellbeing.  She is a shining star that I am not at all surprised left Centerstone the day her internship was over and she could obtain legitimate employment with a legitimate and highly-rated service-provider elsewhere.  Godspeed, my friend.        

So, there went my peer support specialist who was, incidentally, never replaced by Centerstone yet they continued to bill for this aspect of my care for many more months thereafter.  (NOTE: For those keeping score at home, this is called MEDICAID FRAUD BY AN IL SERVICE PROVIDER just FYI.)  

So that left just my “social worker therapist” Rosalind Young and  my  “caseworker” Danielle LaPlant - who was a “MSW therapist in training” but who was, in practice,  fully useless - and that’s being generous.  It became abundantly obvious to me, almost from the outset, that the caseworker, Danielle, was only accustomed to helping addicts “learn how to adult.”  Consequently, when I told her I did not need to be taught how to launder my clothes, or balance my checkbook or create a daily To-Do List - as she does for most of her clients - we had precious little she could actually do for me. 

Languishing in that COVID Hotel Program that Summer 2020,  I was in the midst of a housing crisis, a food scarcity crisis, a no clothing to wear crisis, a medical health crisis with my health in rapid and alarming decline and she could functionally assist with EXACTLY NONE of these critical issues.  All she said, week after week, while I was languishing in that ‘COVID Hotel Program’ was “There really is not anything I can do for you because everything is closed due to Lockdown and gosh I just don’t have any ideas or training on how to think OUTSIDE our usual box.”   Caseworker Danielle repeated this same useless mantra to me month after month - all while being paid by the State to help me - long after Lockdown officially ended in May 2020 and well into the end of August 2020. This was a catastrophic failure of an unconscionable magnitude because there was PLENTY she could have done if she had any notion at all of how to effectively “case manage” a client’s case.    

For example, let’s take just one of those “crisis daily living issues” I was experiencing and talk about how to properly manage it.  Sitting here today as I write this, I think back to it all and realize just how EASY it would have been for Danielle LaPlant to find some clothes for me to wear in the Summer of 2020.  Remember - I lost everything in my apartment while hospitalized for 47 days with COVID in March 2020 and that loss included ALL OF MY CLOTHES because it was all stolen by my own drug addict niece.  

I HAD LITERALLY ONE PAIR OF SHORTS  AND 2 SHIRTS TO WEAR FROM MAY 1, 2020 UNTIL SEPTEMBER 2020. AND ONE PAIR OF DOLLAR TREE FLIP FLOPS. 

THAT WAS IT. THAT IS ALL THAT I HAD. 

(Please, dear readers, consider just how dire a circumstance that is because this ALSO included only 2 pairs of underwear. So every night in the COVID hotel I had to sink wash one pair of underwear and hang it to dry overnight so I would have them to wear the next day. You likely cannot fathom how such a clothing crisis translates to dire-straits daily living but it was GRIM.  And Centerstone had full knowledge of just how grim it was and simply chose not to act or care or help attenuate the crisis in any way whatsoever. I also had NO MONEY (remember my niece stole it all while I lay dying from COVID in the ICU in March 2020) to pay to properly LAUNDER my clothes at any laundromat and the ‘COVID Hotel Program” did not include housekeeping so my bedding remained UNWASHED THE ENTIRE five (5) months I remained there.  I repeatedly asked Centerstone for assistance with this crisis and they said they had no known way to help me with even just THIS crisis as one of the many I was facing at the time.

Speaking hypothetically, if I knew someone was truly struggling right now and in need of clothing - and inexplicably ALL RESALE THRIFT STORES AND CHURCH CLOTHING CHARITIES were closed - I would literally find anything in my own closet that might fit the person in need and GIVE IT TO THEM.  But I wouldn’t stop there. I would also ask the people I know (friends, neighbors, people at my church etc) if they have any extra clothes that could help the person. Everyone always has something they can donate in situations like this.  And that’s the thing about the great people of Illinois - when they hear someone needs help and they have the ability to help - they show up en masse with provisions and assistance.  Their hearts are pure gold here in the Heartland is what I have discovered and you need only make them aware of someone else’s acute need - and they literally spring into action.  The great people who reside in Illinois are truly everyday heroes and will always be the greatest asset of Illinois, in my opinion.   

But even further still in managing the clothing crisis for a client,  I would appeal to my local area Walmart.  Walmart stores were open during Lockdown and in Summer 2020.  Agencies and social workers/homeless outreach workers etc can, in their official capacity, approach the Manager at any area Walmart and ask for donations and often they will eagerly assist you - if they have the ability to do so and the kindheartedness to WANT to help.  And as the assigned caseworker I would ALSO have taken the hotel bedding and clothes TO MY OWN HOME if I had to in order to wash them (or a laundry drop off service) if I had to - just to GET IT DONE for the client! Because desperate times and unprecedented challenging times call for bold unprecedented action by those charged with helping.  And because nobody should have to sit in the same dirty clothes & bed linens for five (5) full months. Ever.

So ALL OF THESE INTENTIONAL ACTIONS my caseworker Danielle - who was paid to do these things - could have done; yet she willfully chose to do NOTHING, and  instead, leave me in 1 pair of shorts and filthy bedding the entire Summer of 2020.

  And let’s discuss my food scarcity and malnourishment issue.  

By the end of September 2020, I could fit in 1 leg of the 1 pair of shorts I owned due to my alarming and ongoing food scarcity issue at the COVID hotel.  

By the end of September 2020, I had stomach ulcers because I learned that if you drink high caffeine coffee & sucked down a freebie packet of hot sauce (both via EBT at the local mini mart) you don’t feel hunger most of the day.

That’s how I coped with my absurd food scarcity/hunger problem: I literally caused ulcers in my stomach from consuming acids (in both coffee & hot sauce) so that I wouldn’t be incapacitated by hunger headaches from my hypoglycemia. Welcome to Pandemic America - prepare to starve…

Danielle <could have> found the Caseyville Food Pantry that I ultimately did.  She <could have> left messages with other area food pantries and churches and  SOMEONE there MIGHT HAVE HELPED. There is a long list of things a true problem-solver and actually fully engaged ‘caseworker” COULD HAVE DONE to help attenuate both my clothing and my food insecurity crisis.  But instead, Caseworker Danielle took an already malnourished and frighteningly underweight client who was quite literally starving to death and Danielle did what? Week after week - she intentionally left me to starve.  And she got paid by the State of IL via Centerstone Behavioral Health to do this gigantic pile of NOTHING in response to such acute life issues.    

This inability to do even the most basic functions of her job in a crisis speaks to the larger Corporate culture problem in existence at Centerstone: the Pandemic exposed that Centerstone has no idea how to properly ADAPT and manage in a crisis. But they also have literally no informed knowledge or skill set on how to manage clients’ emotional crises - as the very professionals who are allegedly trained to do so. But worse than all of that is this: Centerstone has ZERO INTERNAL ACCOUNTABILITY for such abject failures of their clients.  There is also literally no INDEPENDENT EXTERNAL oversight of this failed Agency (and other Medicaid bottom-feeders just like Centerstone) to call out these catastrophic VERY BASIC NEEDS FAILURES. As such, Centerstone just gets to continue failing their clients they are charged with helping because with no oversight comes no accountability and with no accountability comes certain death for their most fragile/vulnerable clients.  

The only thing that does absolutely happen is that Centerstone creates wholly fraudulent “compliance reports” for the State of Illinois to ensure that the IL State grant cash & Medicaid moneytrain keeps on coming into their own pockets at Centerstone. Shut them down and revoke their certification, State of Illinois.  Failure to perform and nonperformance and the intentional manufacture of fraudulent compliance reports SHOULD BE actionable against dumps like Centerstone by the State of IL - so why aren’t they? 

HOW HORRIBLE  HOW FULLY UTTERLY HORRENDOUS AND UNACCEPTABLY CORRUPT ALL OF THIS IS.  AND PEOPLE IN THEIR CARE DIE EVERY DAY IN IL AS A RESULT OF THIS CATASTROPHIC FAILURE.     

   

As another specific example of how completely useless Caseworker Danielle was, when my St. Louis attacker found me at that Caseyville IL motel, I was triggered, traumatized, nearly seriously injured and having repetitive uncontrollable panic attacks.  Did she help or intervene? Nope. Even when I asked her for any ideas, suggestions, help, intervention techniques to help attenuate the constant and unrelenting panic attack this episode caused? Nothing. Danielle had literally no recommendations or solutions to suggest.  Also, I told her I could literally lose my spot in this Hotel Program because of my lunatic landlord/my abuser’s ongoing criminal mischief at the hotel and I needed someone to tell the hotel how destabilizing and potentially fatal that would be for me.  

Danielle responded to this dire need and request by saying simply:  “Centerstone doesn’t really do client advocacy and even if they did - I would not know what to say to the hotel on your behalf because I'm not very good at standing up to people in charge.  But I sympathize with your plight and realize how terrifying it must be for you and truly HOPE that you don’t end up living in your car again because of this.”  

Just great. 

So my own incompetent mental health ‘caseworker” had zero informed knowledge on how to actually advocate for clients in crisis…are you beginning to see the critical problems herein, dear readers?   

CAN YOU EVEN FATHOM BEING FAILED SO CATASTROPHICALLY BY THE VERY PROFESSIONALS BEING PAID THREE-FOLD BY THE STATE OF IL TO HELP YOU WITH SUCH THINGS??  

I simply cannot stress enough how truly long-term damaging it is to have incompetent mental healthcare clinicians utterly fail you at every turn. It is my contention that the ABSENCE OF CARE from such uninformed Medicaid bottomfeeders would leave one less wounded and less further traumatized in your greatest hour of need. How tragically sad that the absence of any mental health support or care would have certainly been BETTER AND AN IMPROVEMENT OVER relying on the Centersone flunkies who simply did nothing but fail again and again over and over again. This is what ZERO accountability in the mental health care system looks like, folks.  And fragile people barely hanging on in emotional anguish succumb to these catastrophic failures every day.  I absolutely know clients died as a result of Centerstone’s abject negligence and malpractice and to that I can only say but for the grace of God go I…   

Because Centerstone failed and refused to advocate for me in this crisis, I literally had to contact my own primary care physician at this same time to have her office intervene and help the hotel realize that I was the victim of ongoing stalking by this lunatic STL landlord and that was WHY I was in the DV Covid Hotel Program in the first place.  Fortunately, as soon as her office called the COVID hotel and advocated on my behalf, everything was fine in terms of the hotel realizing my STL abuser was the problem and I was the victim who needed protection from him; and thereafter, the COVID hotel worked diligently to pay extra attention to my safety at their hotel - something for which I will always be grateful.   

It’s worth noting that the IL AG Domestic Violence Address Confidentiality Program attorney and my primary care doc BOTH told me to immediately get a NEW mental health provider because if your mental health team does not advocate for you in a crisis, they are highly questionable, at best, and likely should lose their State certification to provide services in the Community, at a minimum.  But I could not do that as my only other Medicaid option with Aetna Medicaid in that area of IL was an entity ranked way worse than Centerstone - which is frankly just too terrifying for me to even contemplate.  But the story of how Aetna Medicaid of IL has nearly zero actual providers available to adults in the Medicaid Program is a topic of another chapter in this Memoir entirely. So more on that later…  

  And thus and so, the only tangible thing my “Caseworker Danielle” ever actually did manage to do FOR ME while she was my assigned caseworker was take from me the original of crucial legal paperwork I needed copies of, and promising to copy it for my Centerstone file and return it to me (I had no access to a copier at the COVID Hotel) -  Caseworker Danielle then  promptly and irretrievably incompetently lost this critically vital ORIGINAL AND ONLY legal paperwork I had.    When I told her boss at Centerstone, Christina Endicott,  about this overt reckless lapse and breach of my confidential paperwork, Danielle the caseworker then denied ever taking it from me. When I showed them I actually recorded her taking the documents from me via my dashcam on my car (not intentionally - it just happened to record the event because we met at our cars when I gave her the legal paperwork), Centerstone Management became entirely dismissive of the whole matter. They essentially defaulted to dangerous invalidation of how serious an error this was on their employee’s part and said “Oh well, what’s done is done and what’s gone is gone. We cannot unspill the milk.  Maybe you can get another copy of the original she lost…” 

Really, Centerstone?  Yes-  THAT is exactly how Centerstone handles the many failures of their behavioral health employees.  “Oh well, ho hum, too bad for you, our duped and out of luck client. We know everyone working here is incompetent and you, our clients, will just have to pay the price for our known failures and incompetence.” 

Eventually, though, Caseworker Danielle soon, too, reached her own  “graduation day” from her schooling and she was relocating to a new town in IL to be elevated to the actual MSW therapist role within Centerstone. (PRO-TIP: The loser employees they do have never leave Centerstone because literally no one else will have them.)  May God help the people who are now the unfortunates that will be connected to Danielle LaPlant as their ‘therapist” is all that I can say. 

In our final session together, Danielle asked for “constructive feedback and assessment” of what I thought she did well and what I thought she might be able to improve on.  I told her, honestly, that I thought she generally meant well and that she was easygoing and reliable as she kept most of our scheduled weekly appointments. She seemed eager and thrilled for much more of that POSITIVE VALIDATION.  So, when I instead then pivoted to providing her with “constructive feedback” stating that I observed her to be inattentive, distracted, reckless with client paperwork, unengaged in problem-solving for her clients, lacking knowledge of known resources in the Community  and ALSO that she should really pay attention to the fact that clients absolutely know when she is doing her laundry and playing with her cat whilst allegedly doing  remote “tele-therapy sessions” from home - she became ENRAGED.  She became so angry and unhinged by this objective constructive feedback that she literally then threatened me with an involuntary mental health commitment via the local Caseyville cops AND said she would (falsely) tell the cops that  I threatened to hurt her and the cops would “of course take her word for it” and my future could be literally RUINED by any such call from her. 

She became so demented and disordered in the face of my constructive criticism - feedback she herself had asked for - that I actually hung up the phone mid-session and called the local Caseyville Police Department ON HER; and I sent an immediate email to her boss at Centerstone.  The local cops assured me that because I alerted them to how bizarre Caseworker Danielle was behaving and they could tell by speaking with me that I was not in any apparent distress or threatening anyone they would write HER UP for false reporting and harassment IF she did call them about me.  And, of course, she never did - because I checked a week later.   

Suffice to say, when you are forced to call the police on your own mental health worker because she actually threatens you,  there is zero value added there and only more trauma heaped upon more trauma…  

Any mental health caseworker that weaponizes the power they may have over clients/patients because they cannot handle valid constructive feedback, has literally no business in the field of mental health.  I strongly suspect that Danielle was one of “those females” who went to University in search of her Mrs. Degree (to marry a rich man) and when THAT didn’t pan out for her by graduation day, she then found herself literally having to actually do the job she was not at all prepared nor qualified to do.  How horrifying for each and every client that ever has to encounter that “newly-minted and graduated MSW” now.  

I have long said that there should be a “mental fitness-for-duty evaluation” for all mental health providers on a bi-annual basis because - although MANY people can ACADEMICALLY pass the textbooks tests required to graduate - far too many of them are uninformed and, in fact, are antisocial and mentally unfit to actually serve in this professional capacity.  Sadly, in my observations, many go into the field just to work out their own psychological problems on unsuspecting clients.  

I think it is worth interjecting here that the day my St. Louis attacker found me at that hotel and my own Caseworker Danielle proved useless and I was spiraling in abject fear - the Centerstone 24/7 Crisis Hotline worker actually did help.  Through the luck of the draw on that hotline, I landed on an informed, male hotline worker and he walked me through several reasonable steps that immediately helped to calm me in the fraught terror of the moment and worked diligently with me through various steps to help attenuate the dire situation overall. 

He first asked me if I had a weapon for self-defense in case my attacker returned to again harm me and he then suggested different types of things that make good impromptu weapons.  I did a visual surveillance of my hotel room looking for the types of items he was suggesting but found nothing.  Then I remembered I had a softball bat in the trunk of my car from Autumn 2019 when I played in Springfield IL in a league there; so I went to retrieve that while he was still on the phone with me.  Then he reminded me to triple lock my hotel door.  Then he helped me through different breathing exercises and told me to chew a piece of gum to calm the panic attack.  (HINT: This actually does sometimes help. In the throes of a panic attack, your mouth goes dry.  If you chew a piece of gum, saliva floods your mouth and it “tricks your brain” into believing you are not in “fight or flight mode” and immediately starts to help regulate your heart rate and other physical manifestations of a panic attack etc.)  He then was the one to recommend I move rooms within the hotel in case my attacker returned - so that I would be in full view of the hallway security cameras at the hotel.  He told me ALL of these things so that I would feel like I had power to control my own environment rather than my sketchy, at best, environment controlling me and causing spiraling and ongoing emotional distress.   

And when I told Centerstone that THIS MALE EMPLOYEE was their only “helpful” personnel in my time of crisis - and that NONE of my ASSIGNED “Triad Team” had any ability to effectively intervene and assist me - what did Centerstone do in response? They lectured that male hotline employee and gave him a formal discipline in his file for helping me as he did.  Why? Because he suggested that a defenseless woman alone in an unsecured hotel being stalked by a madman actually get a weapon to protect herself, if needed.  THAT is how dysfunctional of a rabid quagmire of uninformed stupidity Centerstone of Alton IL actually is.  The one employee who actually helped me in the entire 18 months I was with Centerstone they, in their infinite wisdom,  decided he was bad and needed “retraining” which is such a load.  

Incidentally, this is why MALE therapists, in my opinion, are often so much better in a crisis: they are more logic-oriented and will actively help you navigate and attenuate the crisis; while, by comparison, female social workers will just tell you to run and flee and hide and HOPE that you aren’t murdered by a madman.  It goes without saying that “running and fleeing” is not the most useful  nor informed advice for a defenseless woman in a wheelchair such as myself.    

Incidentally, my caseworker Danielle LaPlant of Centerstone was never replaced by Centerstone after she “graduated” and left town either.  Well, so much for their “three-prong TRIAD approach” to patient care.  By this time, Centerstone was beginning to be “On Notice” that I was legally trained and smart enough to keep calling out the many failures of their employees and Management - for there was no shortage of emails from me in 2020 documenting all of this. (See attached emails for a truly up close and personal view of how deeply I was struggling with the overt dysfunction and toxic trauma being caused by Centerstone themselves.)  For that reason alone, I believe Centerstone actively retaliated against me by providing me with this “diminished level of care” in response to my ongoing concerns of their catastrophic failures.  

It was during this interval that I FINALLY  was able to access a prescriber from Centerstone - a full four (4) months after I began treatment with them.   This lack of a prescribing doctor, which I was promised when I began with Centerstone, was more urgent and pressing than you might imagine.   Suffering from post-COVID 20% pulmonary function as it was, my panic attacks quite literally became life-threatening when they occurred.  I literally and physically could not get air, I could not breathe during these extreme panic attacks and absent my ever-present rescue oxygen, there were several times when I surely would have died.  I needed anxiety medications to treat my PTSD caused by the ongoing stalking and I needed these meds so six (6) months ago.  And Centerstone, per their own admission, was backlogged and fully lacking any prescribing clinicians UNLESS you were a substance abuse client of theirs - then they inexplicably had several available prescribers for you.  But if you suffered from a different, equally debilitating mental health diagnosis like GAD and PTSD, Centerstone was simply content to let you die of intentional neglect at every level of their “care” of you.    

After many months of me literally begging Centerstone to assign a physician to my care, I was FINALLY given a LPN named Olivia Winters who was, sadly, in the midst of her own mental breakdown, which obviously gravely impacted the care I received from her.  After Centerstone and Winters were alerted to an adverse drug event I suffered in August 2020, they were required to report this event to the FDA as a matter of Federal law.  Centerstone told me that not only did they not know HOW to do this crucial function of their job that IS absolutely within their wheelhouse and domain since they have onsite prescribers; but, furthermore, they were not willing to LEARN how to professionally and effectively do so.  

As such, because of my prior work in bad drug litigation, I had to report my own adverse drug event to the FDA because my mental health treatment provider and prescriber, Centerstone Behavioral Health, was fully uninformed on this crucial topic and worse still, simply did not care to BECOME informed on this crucial topic in order to properly document same for me.  Worse even still, I received zero emotional support from Centerstone during this adverse medication event crisis - for Centerstone simply had no working protocol for how to effectively manage or handle this situation.        

How horrifying.  How utterly and deeply horrendously horrifying for me and all of their other patients similarly situated.  

  

One day, LPN Olivia Winters had such an erratic teletherapy appointment with me the last time I spoke with her that I became extremely alarmed for HER own mental fitness.  We were discussing the ongoing inability of anyone to find me permanent handicapped housing and she told me “There are mental health apartments available here through Centerstone.  They require rather dire diagnoses to enter (if you are not a drug addict in recovery) but you just tell me what you want me to say your diagnosis is -be it psychotic, schizophrenic or suicidal etc and I will enter it on your records to get you into housing.”  On the one hand, it was refreshing to see ANY healthcare provider take my ongoing housing instability seriously; yet on the other hand, a Centerstone prescriber, with whom I had suffered an adverse drug event, just admitted that she apparently routinely falsified medical records of clients at Centerstone Behavioral Health.  

How horrifying. How utterly and deeply horrendously horrifying.  There are simply NO WORDS for this. 

It was not long after that point that Olivia Winters left the employ of Centerstone due to her own mental health issues.  Gee, ya think? I cannot convey to you, dear readers, just how terrifying it is AS A CLIENT to be in the hands of such incompetent Medicaid bottom-feeders who employ the worst of the worst who are wholly uninformed to work in this field or occupation.  The poverty populations in America DESERVE better care and better mental health outcomes than we currently receive.  But so long as agencies like Centerstone are allowed to continue to operate in sheer incompetence, our care will never improve and we will continue to needlessly lose lives as a result. 

Americans claim to care that our seriously alarming spiraling suicide rate is very important to them but then someone like me comes forward with a firsthand account of WHY our suicide rates are escalating in America and…nothing changes.  Why is this OK with you, folks? I do not understand.  I will never, ever understand this American apathy in the face of lives needlessly lost on the daily in this Country.   

Also: Why is it that when affluent people suffer ‘emotional exhaustion symptomatology’ they are sent to spa-like settings for rest and relaxation occurring somewhere peaceful in nature near the oceans or mountains, where everything is a calming shade of white (white linens, bedding, curtains, bathrobes, furniture, fresh white daisies on your dresser each morning) etc; but the out-of-luck poverty populations merely receive  “telemed” by garbage Medicaid providers with no actual clinical expertise provided nor improvement in their symptoms attained? 

If you are aware and understandably outraged that there are two systems of justice in America, one for the rich and one for the poor, I have some really bad news for you about the mental health care system in America.  It, too, is disparate and inequitable and an abomination to the term “mental health” as it affords no opportunity for any type of mental wellness, healing or effective treatment or improved outcomes.

                 

And then there was my actual MSW Therapist of Centerstone named Rosalind Young. After two truly incompetent “MSW therapists” were assigned to me by Centerstone in May 2020, (seriously one of them kept calling me by the wrong name and kept referring to the “murder that happened in my family”  - which was clearly a different client she had me confused with) were dispensed with by me in short order by complaints to Management, I finally landed upon a Centerstone “MSW-Therapist” named Rosalind Young.  She was older than the average employee at Centerstone and had a teenage daughter which seemed like a better fit for me in terms of “demographic age” similarity was concerned.  

Yet, sadly, talking to Rosalind each week as my “Centerstone weekly therapist consultation” was a lot like talking to a good friend: she seemed more horrified by the constant & unrelenting traumas in my life than I was; but ultimately,  she, too, was simply ill-equipped and utterly unable to assist me in attenuating any of the multiple crises happening in my life.  

After over A YEAR with Centerstone, Rosalind and I still had not accomplished even one of my written “therapy goals/objectives” and she never taught me a single coping mechanism or therapeutic tool to help minimize/deescalate/prevent panic attacks.  And, she had no clue how to “clinically” help someone process/heal from traumatic grief -other than to constantly tell me I had every right to feel as I do - which is despondently bereft.  She also admitted she did not even know what a “narcissist” was and, therefore, she had no informed understanding of what ‘ongoing narcissistic abuse’ is or how it adversely impacts a person.  I do not understand how these “worst of the worst” Medicaid bottomfeeders hire employees who hold the diploma required to do this type of therapeutic work in a clinical setting but yet those employees fully lack any of the textbook knowledge necessary to actually effectively perform in this occupation in any meaningful or informed way.  

How is this The System in America? In Illinois Adult Medicaid,  because of the Pandemic, people in desperate emotional distress are now (in 2023) waiting up to a YEAR for a therapy session and when it finally occurs - these are the uninformed and garbage providers you are offered under IL  Medicaid. And people will continue to die as a result.  

But at least Centerstone is making serious bank by cashing in on the “for-profit Medicaid mental health grift” as their most recent financial disclosure indicates they made record profits during the first three years of this Pandemic while simultaneously delivering zero qualified services to the clients that so desperately need those informed services.     

And, most crucially, Centerstone of Alton, by and through Rosalind Young and their Records Custodian, massively screwed up a medical records release regarding me.  They were directed to send “attendance only records” to a third party indicating ONLY  THE DATES on which I received treatment from them. But instead, they sent HIPAA-protected “detailed INTERNAL clinical notes” that were woefully inaccurate and contained massive errors and misinformation - as well as egregiously private and confidential mental health information about my family members whose mental health diagnoses were included in this erroneous third-party disclosure by Centerstone.  And this unlawful third-party disclosure of these records then had permanently damaging repercussions on my entire life in the aftermath of this disclosure. (I will speak to the specifics of this complete catastrophe in a later chapter in more detail.)  

Consequently, all I can do is WARN YOU: never utilize Centerstone Behavioral Health in Alton IL and, if you do, never give them important documents, legal or otherwise - because they will just lose them. And never tell them relevant information about your family history and background because they will absolutely misplace and mishandle ALL OF IT - to your grave detriment.  They need to be shut down by the State of IL and trust me when I tell you, dear readers, I am absolutely giving it my level best to try and SHUT THEM DOWN.    

I tell you all of that by way of background so you understand WHY I have zero faith in our currently collapsing mental health system in America - and neither should you.  America is in a parallel mental health pandemic catastrophe right now - only part of which was exacerbated by the COVID pandemic because much of it was pre-existing, COVID just made ALL OF THIS so exponentially worse.  And the alarming part to me is that there are no competent clinicians to help if you are in the poverty populations and stuck with these “Medicaid bottom-feeders” like Centerstone in Alton IL who are fully uninformed regarding HOW to help you.  

In the interest of full disclosure, Centerstone of Alton IL was not always Centerstone.  Historically, they were a third-rate, nonprofit mental health agency called Wellspring Resources and prior to that they were known as Community Counseling Center with no better reputation in the Community than they have NOW.  But in 2015, they were acquired by Nashville-based Centerstone LLC of TN, a national, behavioral health non-profit organization with locations in Indiana, Tennessee, Florida and now Illinois.   Each time I have reached out to anyone at their headquarters in TN, the difference in professionalism and their genuine shock regarding just how horrifying the lack of appropriate treatment protocols is in Alton, IL seems genuine.  They always tried to reassure me that “nowhere else in the Country is Centerstone Behavioral Health such a total and useless dumpster fire of dysfunction” and my research on the matter seems to bear that out.  So, essentially Centerstone Behavioral Health purchased this barely functional mental health agency in Alton IL in 2015 to add to their ever-expanding Corporate portfolio and national presence; never realizing they bought a quagmire of dysfunction where things are just never going to improve at the Alton location due to constant staff attrition and shockingly poor mismanagement.  I only delineate their “corporate chronology” to demonstrate that these local nonprofits who change names and owners on the regular are always a dumpster fire of dysfunction and usually Medicaid corruption and fraud soon follow.  Do some research into WHO your available providers are and investigate if they keep changing their name on the regular as that is A MAJOR RED FLAG and a symptom of much larger problems in a non-functioning mental health provider

So, there I was in November 2020, rescued AGAIN by John of Call for Help after fleeing the lethal SNF and being abandoned and betrayed by Centerstone (again) the week of November 18, 2020.    Centerstone’s  own Corporate website indicates that Centerstone of IL offers Adult Independent Housing, Adult Supportive Housing, Medically Fragile Supported Housing and Respite Care for Adults - yet I was offered NONE of this despite being eligible for ALL of it and being in critical dire need of same.  When these dubious, local nonprofit agencies claim to offer services they do not actually provide to the Community, in a crisis or otherwise, they should not be given millions in our tax dollars by way of grants for merely CLAIMING to offer these services in the Community yet not ACTUALLY PROVIDING same.  

What I had just witnessed in that lethal nursing home and fled from was deeply traumatic and horrifying to me and was just MORE compounded trauma on top of already existing cumulative trauma.  I was in desperate need of a hero or someone to genuinely help me when Centerstone catastrophically failed yet again - full well knowing I was medically fragile and now often fully dependent on rescue oxygen when I fled that janky SNF; yet Centerstone had no concern for my medical or mental welfare at all. Upon the realization of their own failure in this regard Centerstone literally told me by and through Christina Endicott: “You will just have to figure it all out for yourself as we have no clue how to effectively assist you at all in this situation because your situation is simply too complex.”

Centerstone telling me this FINALLY HONEST TRUTH after they told me to flee the janky SNF and assured me they would have appropriate care/housing secured for me is, by definition, reckless disregard and gross negligence.  I will never understand how ANY AGENCY is allowed to be so potentially fatally derelict in their duty to safeguard care, utterly fail at same - yet keep receiving millions in Medicaid dollars and grant money each year in Illinois.  Again I say to you, dear readers - no wonder the State of Illinois is broke.  

Yet Centerstone DID continue to bill the State of IL for thousands of dollars for 2020 and  my ongoing care until December 2021 despite rendering no actual services to me.  Does it seem like I have landed upon YET ANOTHER ‘Medicaid Fraud in the State of IL by another janky Corporate bad actor which exists simply to line their Corporate owner’s  pockets with government cash all while effectively helping no one ever?’ Because if it does - congratulations - you would be absolutely correct that I did discover the very same phenomenon in the Medicaid mental health industry as I had in the Medicaid Nursing Home Industry as well as the sham Illinois Homeless For-Profit System.  

HOW HORRIFYING. HOW DEEPLY DISTURBING & UTTERLY HORRIFYING THIS ALL IS.  HOW CAN SO MANY SYSTEMS EXIST SIMPLY TO GRIFT GOVERNMENT MONEY FOR PROFITING OFF THE VULNERABLE LIVES OF POVERTY POPULATIONS IN ILLINOIS? 

Understand that I did properly report this Medicaid fraud to the local State Representative of Madison County IL but to my knowledge they are still investigating.  My legal team and I are preparing to INSIST that the State do a “deep dive” into Centerstone’s questionable triple-billing ruse - potentially saving the State of IL billions each year in wasted Medicaid dollars. I should really one day be PAID BY THE STATE OF ILLINOIS for uncovering all of this illegal government grift and exposing same.  But we all know that will never happen as the State of IL could not even ever properly process my IDES Pandemic Unemployment Claim.  The State of IL is great at giving money to Agencies who are supposed to dispense help, therapies and resources to people - yet who decide to keep those bucks for themselves; but the State is somehow fully unable to get actual money owed to its Residents.  What a complete failure this State is if you don’t happen to be a billionaire.      

And I get the spidey sense EVERYONE INVOLVED from Aetna Medicaid to Centerstone to the State of IL DHS absolutely KNOWS rampant fraud is occurring; yet everyone is getting paid and the money-train just keeps rolling along so easily for everyone involved so why rock the boat?  I say this because I received my medical records from Centerstone and immediately noticed fraudulent billing and medical entries that NEVER ACTUALLY WERE PROVIDED TO ME.  Think about it: rarely does a Medicaid recipient receive any medical bill or invoice or have reason to request and thoroughly review their own records in order to AUDIT this process. But I did…  

And I am now poised to report this fraud to the State of IL because I know  this fraudulent billing is, still to this day, ongoing with other clients at Centerstone.  No wonder the State of IL is broke and that the State of Illinois charges its residents some of the highest taxes in the Country.  But when corruption is the name of the game and everyone within the corrupt money-train is getting paid, taxpayers are just on the hook for all of this tommyrot. Why? Because there is literally no one in a position of INDEPENDENT OVERSIGHT to stop this government grift by these corrupt Corporate systems.      

 And I am but one David fighting the Medicaid Goliath in IL and I need your help if things are ever going to improve.  My legal team and I are currently assembling a class action lawsuit against Centerstone and are actively seeking others failed and or defrauded by Centerstone Behavioral Health in Alton IL.  If you or someone you love was also similarly injured by the entity doing business as Centerstone Behavioral Health in Alton, IL please email me at the following email and I will forward your information to my legal team: ladyjustice314@icloud.com. All I can do is make you aware what a scam ALL OF THIS IS at Centerstone and hope you are outraged enough WITH ME to DO SOMETHING about it with me.

And thus and so, I was out of luck, out of time and clearly out of any available resources to help with my dire straits in the MetroEast IL.  And remember that ‘wise advice’ someone gave to me at the onset of my Pandemic journey: “that I should not return to Springfield IL because the MetroEast was bigger and had so many more resources?” Well, color me underwhelmed if THIS was the abundant resources of the MetroEast IL. They had seven (7) months to assist me with all of my many life crises and utterly failed to assist me with ANY OF THEM.  And the surrounding agencies were all largely STILL NOT FUNCTIONING OR RESPONDING to calls for help/assistance/housing/resources etc DESPITE LOCKDOWN ENDING 6 months prior.   My thinking at this point was: it simply cannot be any worse than this back in Springfield IL.  

Yet when my friendly local church ladies of the local Food Pantry learned of my plan to leave the area because I could find no help or assistance they DID try to help.  (For what it’s worth, they were horrified by what had happened to me - and the other Residents there - inside that locked down MetroEast nursing home.) They seemed to take it as a personal failure of their beloved community that there was  simply NO HELP available there for me in the MetroEast.  They were so dismayed by this turn of events that they did pay for another few days for me to stay at a different local area hotel - hoping that I would somehow find a path forward in housing and appropriate medical care, if given more time. But with NO HOUSING/MEDICAL/MENTAL HEALTH caseworker actually assisting me in this regard due to Centerstone fully abdicating their responsibilities to do so, there seemed no path forward for me in the MetroEast IL.  

But as a last hope and prayer for me remaining in the MetroEast, one of the  church ladies gave me the name of a local man she knew from the church who owned a trailer park in the MetroEast.  She was certain he might be able to help me because she knew he had helped others.  And this last-ditch,  good faith offer of kindness, hope and charity by that church lady who was the only one attempting to honestly manage my multiple co-occurring crises but who was operating way outside her normal wheelhouse ended in yet another tragedy that befalls far too many people who experience  homelessness and/or housing instability: 

HUMAN TRAFFICKING.   

How did it come to pass that a church lady connected me to a man involved in human trafficking? Pro-Tip: Church is one of the most prevalent places these predatory monsters lurk.  But sitting here today I can honestly tell you that the church lady truly had NO IDEA.  She honestly & sincerely believed he was a “good Christian man doing good things in the Community.”  But also: never allow yourself to be the Christian church lady that is so easily duped just because you WANT to believe in the innate goodness of people, okay? Because you will walk away disappointed every time.  Are there good people still in this World? Absolutely.  But you must vet people nowadays  and test them and investigate them to be absolutely certain they are the good and trustworthy people that they tell you they are.  Merely showing up in church each Sunday to covertly troll for new victims while you believe them to be demonstrating “visible Christian acts of faith” just by coming to church will often lead down a trail of tears and disappointment in too many of today’s churches.   So, please HEAR ME on this, okay, church ladies?   

But PLEASE, dear readers,  do not blame the church ladies for this as they simply could not have known they had a predator in their midst.  I did not know or realize it and I had been to a lovely dinner with this same predator where he was a perfect gentleman and did absolutely nothing untoward.  No creeper bells went off in me at all and we had a fine evening together. In fact, if I did still date (I don’t because I firmly believe we all have only one true love/match in this life and I lost mine in the early 2000s) I might have gone on a second date with “Randy” - as he was THAT CONVINCING that he is one of “the good guys in the Community.”   So do NOT say the church ladies know or knew or should have known because I didn't even know or realize it myself - at first.   

And these predators who lurk in our communities undetected, they HAVE TO appear perfectly normal and ordinary so as NOT TO RAISE ANY ALARM BELLS in the Community.  It’s part of how they get away with it for so long. No.  The blame for my run-in with a human trafficker rests squarely on Centerstone Behavioral Health of Alton for literally abdicating their professional and moral obligation to HELP ME in this harrowing moment in time - as they were being paid by the State to do. For Centerstone failed in their duty to properly treat, duty to secure safe housing for me; for their rendering of mental health services far below the standard of care, for prescribing improper medications, for their verbal and emotional abuse of me, for their negligent breach of confidentiality by their Records Custodian with the massive aforementioned, third-party disclosure  HIPAA violation, for their failure to coordinate appropriate transfer of my patient care to another provider when they abruptly ended treatment with me and for their failed therapist who  assured me resources would be in place for me to flee the lethal SNF but who then failed to ensure those lifesaving resources were actually secured for me in my most perilous hour of need.  Not to mention their sketchy as a soup sandwich LPN who was falsifying records at Centerstone and documenting “any diagnosis the patient told her to impart in their patient file.” ALL OF THOSE FAILURES by Centerstone were the proximate cause of what happened next to me in the arena of encountering  human trafficking firsthand.  For had they done their job at Centerstone in terms of finding me permanent handicapped housing, a kind, well-intentioned local church lady would not have stepped up to try and help me when Centerstone failed so catastrophically.    

So upon urging by my local church lady friend, I contacted the man “Randy”she recommended to me because she specifically said “he helps lots of people with housing in the area” and she gave me his number and told him I would be calling him.  I did reach out to Randy and he invited me to dinner.  We had a lovely dinner wherein he asked me to go on a date with him the following Saturday night.  I told him I didn’t date.  He then asked if I wanted to see his trailer park that next afternoon.  I said “sure” - because why not? 

The thing that most bothers me as I recall the meeting with Randy in the Office of his trailer park that day is that I had no sense of fear, trepidation, misgivings, hesitation or natural paranoid inclinations THAT SHOULD HAVE BEEN THERE blaring like fifty EMS sirens in my ‘gut instinct’ - especially given EVERYTHING that happened to me in St. Louis with that abusive, stalker lunatic landlord.  But Randy had come recommended by a church lady I respected in the local community and we had established a good rapport over our one dinner so I had zero pause or hesitation heading into this meeting with him at his trailer park office. Oh, grasshopper, how stupid and naive you just continue to be….At this point, I had to be nearly about on my 7th “cat life” after all that had already happened to me in 202o.  I did not have that many more to spare being as reckless with my own personal safety as I was in this moment with this meeting.  Get a clue you crazy, grasshopper girl, would ya?!

Actually- I will always believe that it was that “circle of stones” I found surrounding my car that one Summer evening I left St. Vincent De Paul in STL after I obtained dinner there. (See Chapter 1) When the Lord knows He is sending you on a dangerous journey to take down inequities & injustices happening in our fallen World, He will literally send angels to encamp around you and He will also place a hedge of protection around your life so that you are safe when you go out and safe when you come back in. You know those people who are never taken out by the evildoers and instead they triumphantly live on to fight the evil of this World again & again with nary a hair harmed on their heads? Don’t ever mess with those folks. Those are God’s people. For it is written: “Touch not my anointed and do my prophets no harm.” God also assured me: “For I am the Lord your God who takes hold of your right hand and says to you: Do not fear for I will help you.” And there is nothing like stepping into the proverbial ravenous lion’s cage to fully test your faith that God will deliver you safe from all harm…

And thus and so, I met Randy in his Office and we chatted amiably there for awhile.  At this point, I knew I had exactly Zero Dollars to my name to be able to rent anywhere - hence the struggle with my ongoing housing crisis for the past 7 months.  But the church lady mentioned that Randy “helped people get back on their feet” so I was hopeful that maybe this could be a viable option for me when I met him there that day.  He then showed me the largest mobile home he had available to rent - which was, incidentally,  just a few feet from his Office.  It was large and had two bedrooms, a nice deck and a little grassy patch to plant some flowers.  It was nice enough and seemingly perfect for me.  I had never lived in a trailer park before but secretly always wanted to due to the folklore that surrounds them.  I wondered: Are trailer parks really Dens of Inequity filled with volatile methheads as the news media portrays them to be? Perhaps I could be a “silent lurker” among them, observing, making friends with my newfound neighbors along the way and hear their stories straight from them about how they came to live there and why they choose that lifestyle in America over the many other housing options available in America; and maybe I could even write a book about my time living in a trailer park.  Because at this time, the genesis for THIS PANDEMIC MEMOIR you are currently reading had not even come to fruition in my mind and heart yet.  So, at this particular time I was just contemplating my current circumstance and the possibilities of this living arrangement.     

After looking around the entire trailer, I then asked Randy if I could have a cat if I rented there.  He crinkled up his nose and said “Well ordinarily I have a no pets policy - especially about cats because I hate cats; but FOR YOU - I will make an exception.” 

BOOM!!!!! There. Right there.  THERE IT WAS.  

That’s when all the ALARM BELLS THAT SHOULD HAVE BEEN BANGING ON THIS WHOLE TIME FINALLY WENT OFF INTERNALLY for me.  Why? Because I’ve lived long enough to know that any person who says “Boo, hiss, I hate cats!” is always 100% of the time going to be a problem person at best (as in, someone who actually hates EVERYTHING) or, a certified sociopath. I say that because my abusive lunatic landlord in STL had said these Exact. Same. Words. To. Me.  Word for word.  And he did so  just to mollify me and get me to sign that Lease Agreement QUICKLY because, little did I know - he was in FORECLOSURE on his property and needed the four-plex filled up immediately with tenants - any tenants at all who had cash in hand - so he wouldn’t lose his property entirely.  

ALSO OF NOTE: With these sociopath types - any time they claim to be “making an exception or doing something just for you” - that implied privilege ALWAYS comes with a debt. A debt you can NEVER repay in their mind.  

Fortunately from my time working in the law, I have developed an excellent poker face and the ability to show NO REACTION AT ALL when I’m actually freaking out completely inside.  I did not want this man to know I had any inkling that something might be “off” in my mind about him now so I started complimenting his park area, the trailer we were viewing - telling him how fabulous it was and asking if he did all the work himself.  I even complimented his shoes and I remember him saying “I'm so glad you noticed.  I paid a small fortune for them and no one ever even bothers to notice them.  That tells me a lot about you, young lady.  I like your style! You’re educated, attractive, professional, have a keen eye and a good head on your shoulders.  You are someone I could even take to the country club with me as my guest and you would fit right in.”    

Phew.  Good.  Randy had no idea I suddenly had the major “ick” vibe going on towards him. I would just keep on fake-flattering him until I could safely and innocuously make my exit from him.  Trust me - fake flattery with these types goes so far.  So long as you keep telling them they are literally the center of the Universe, they will fall for it every time.  They are as dumb as they are monstrous.  This much I have learned.     

Randy then reached for a nail protruding from a wall in the unit and a chunk of wood unexpectedly fell off the window frame and cut my finger.  Randy  seemed aghast.  He immediately rushed me back to his Office where he pulled out a First Aid Kit and began giving me all of its contents.  It wasn’t a bad wound but it was bleeding.  I got a bandaid on it and smiled brightly at him and said “No harm. No foul. It’s all good.”  Visible relief flooded his face and he said “Wow, you’re really easygoing.  Most women would be screaming about how they were going to own my trailer park for that incident.”  Ah, there it was - the unrelenting misogyny of “all women are horrible and only out to steal my man money.”  I tried not to roll my eyes out loud at his remark and just kept on smiling and beaming at him.  

And he fell for it.  All of it.  Because the next thing he did caught me completely off-guard.  

He began to tell me EVERYTHING about his illegal enterprise there at the trailer park.  We had established a very amiable and good rapport over dinner and I guess he assumed I was someone who agreed with his many unfortunate political beliefs.  I have found in my time living in Downstate IL that if you say NOTHING in response to rapid QANON Conspiracy theories, racism, bigotry, misogyny etc - people just automatically ASSume you agree with them and/or are one of them.  For purposes of not making waves and pissing people off in very small towns in Downstate IL where everyone talks to everyone else - I pretty much just let this happen.  I have often said that IL is actually a Red State with a big BLUE corner called Chicago - because literally look at the voting map of IL and tell me I’m wrong.   

So Randy assumed we were a “perfect match” because I did not try to “own him and his trailer park over a minor accidental incident” and because I could certainly blend right in with his uppercrust lifestyle and his country club scene. (Trust me, in my former life in the law, I WAS part of the Country Club Scene and I had/have literally no desire to ever be THAT PERSON ever again.)  

Randy then continued to tell me how he ONLY rents to ‘wetback women” or other “illegal immigrant single mother females” in his trailer park because they are obviously the easiest to exploit for his own personal monetary gain and they are all too afraid to ever call the police so he considered that a win.   He then told me that he needed a “secretary” to handle all the “paperwork bullshit” he was uninterested in having to handle.  He said I could have the largest trailer on the largest lot just next to his office - FOR FREE - if I would agree to be his “trailer park office secretary” and handle all the leases, paperwork, taxes, correspondence etc. 

Okay - he was obviously ICKY and a sociopath because he abhors cats and views women as property to be exploited; but I did contemplate his offer for EXACTLY ONE  red hot second because well, it was FREE housing and I could begin to work again.  Despite my medical failings, that was very much my intention and plan.  So, although not IDEAL by any stretch I considered Randy’s offer momentarily because I was a female in dire straits, out of options and desperate for housing.  And desperate conditions cause desperate people to make desperate and tragic life choices…     

BUT THEN  Randy dropped the hammer on his whole scheme there at the trailer park and said that what he was hoping would come of me working for him was that more women would trust him if he had a wife - especially a pretty one who is sometimes in a wheelchair - because, according to him, women trust other women especially ones in a wheelchair.   He said that he intentionally “targets” young migrant singles and  uncoupled migrant mothers of questionable immigration status” so that he can force them to pay rent monetarily and sexually.   He bought his trailers at auction, rehabbed them “just enough” to make them barely habitable then rented them out in his trailer park for $500 a month plus lot rent of $250 AND  *unnamed sexual favors of indeterminate value* and it was mostly going well.  The only problem was he needed a Mrs. or a “female sidekick” to make him SEEM more trustworthy among the understandably skeptical migrant women he exploited. He bragged that even when “his favorite tenants” DID pay their rent on time and in full for the month he STILL pulled them into his office anyway “just to remind them HE was the boss.”  He then went on to tell me that the women who “defaulted or who couldn’t pay or who tried to refuse ANY of his sexual demands were just outright sold into sexual human trafficking by him for $10k each.” 

[Silently in my  head: “I’m sorry WITAF did you just say to me, Mr. Randy??]

And just like that - he had actually deemed ME a worthy Queen and obvious potential future asset of his criminal human trafficking enterprise.  Color me flattered - I mean flabbergasted - I mean outraged - I mean fleeing in abject horror from this monstrous man as quickly as I could without raising alarm bells with him - and then stress vomiting into a trash can at a local liquor store nearby after leaving his trailer park.

I actually played along like his plan sounded like a really great opportunity for me flattering him with remarks of what a great leader I’m sure he is and how I was certain I could learn so much from him etc. He beamed back at me like I was everything he ever wanted in a woman.  

And then, as innocuously as I could,  I told Randy I had another appointment in Troy IL I had to get to but that I would definitely call him later. 

Turns out -  that “later”  never happened. Obviously.

But I did return there about three (3) hours later (after I managed to stop hyperventilating and stress vomiting from my horrifying run-in with this man) because Randy mentioned he would be back in St. Louis MO the rest of the day securing more derelict trailers (full of mold) to rent out to desperate females who would never dare complain about the mold or anything else wrong in his trailers.  I returned there because I wanted to drive THROUGH the park and see the people who lived there with my own eyes. I checked that Randy’s truck was indeed now gone and then I drove through the trailer park very slowly but any of the women that were outside that day would not make eye contact with me but they were ALL noticeably NOT caucasian…

Then I saw a trailer with a cat in the window.  So I stopped and started talking in my “cat talk of trills and gentle hellos” and a Hispanic woman emerged from behind the trailer.    I said  “Howdy!” (the disarming universal greeting in Downstate IL to alert folks you mean them no harm.) She remained silent and skeptical.  So I said: “I was thinking this park looks like a nice place to live and was thinking of renting here.  How do you like it here?”

She looked aghast that I would ask such a thing and then she just began traumatically shaking her head no, No NO  as her eyes grew wide with fear and she said: “No rent here.  Run. Go anywhere else but here. A very bad man owns this place. Leave and save yourself, lady.”  And she disappeared into her rented trailer. 

And in that moment I knew Randy the human trafficker was real and really doing all of what he told me he was doing and asked me to be a part of - as if it was the most natural and normal thing to discuss and PLAN with another person.  

 Did I try to report this deplorable criminal? Yes.  But here is something you need to come to terms with right here and right now: these evil predators who do these sorts of heinous human exploitation crimes ALWAYS have already ingratiated themselves with local law enforcement.  And local law enforcement being a bunch of “good ol boys” in these small rural towns of Downstate IL - tend to take complaints against “a pillar of their community” - especially a white property owner MALE pillar of their community - as untrue so they tend to ALWAYS fall on completely deaf law enforcement ears  in these small IL towns.   

And there is only so much ONE PERSON can do in the face of such overt small town corruption. Trust me - I tried. Illinois State Police never returned my calls or letters regarding the matter and I was terrified this Randy might try to hunt me down if he learned I ratted out his illegal human trafficking enterprise to someone BEYOND his buddies in local law enforcement who he already knew would cover for him.  I did not record our conversation when he “spilled all” to me because how could I have known such a thing would come to pass during a casual look-see at his trailer park?? So, it would have just been my word against his and we all know where that goes in America today. 

Please, dear reader, keep this “evildoers ingratiating themselves IN ADVANCE with their local law enforcement”  theme in mind because it will come to replay in my life over and over the next two years.  They literally all work from the same evil playbook.   They know exactly what to do in order to never be held accountable for their crimes and they absolutely do whatever it takes long before any truthteller like me lands on their doorstep and TRIES to do the right thing, report them and hold them legally accountable.   

Of particular note here is the fact that Centerstone of Alton IL heard all about my near-miss with this human trafficking predator, Randy in the MetroEast IL  Centerstone is located  IN THIS SAME AREA where this was happening.  They ARE MANDATED REPORTERS of such harmful crimes against humanity. I retold every horrifying moment of what happened to me in that trailer park to my therapist, Rosalind Young, at Centerstone and in response - Centerstone did NOTHING - yet again.  They had a duty to contact the Human Trafficking arm of the FBI to get the other victims out of that trailer park. They had a duty to urge me to go to the ER to get DNA tests from the trafficker.  They had so MANY various moral, legal and professional obligations upon being told ALL OF THIS by me and they opted to do NOTHING.  And because of that - this human trafficking organization continued on for ANOTHER two years unabated.  

Please know, dear readers, I have not *legally named* the man engaged in the human trafficking matter in the MetroEast IL or any details about him herein because I am NOW currently working with an attorney,  law enforcement and the IL AG to do what Centerstone SHOULD HAVE DONE in November 2020 when I first reported it to them. I am doing this NOW because I now live somewhere safe far away from the MetroEast but with  “powerful pillars of the Community who WILL BACK ME UP if I say something bad absolutely happened.”  

And yet to review my Centerstone medical records file from them, my Centerstone therapist Rosalind Young did not even bother to document this traumatic atrocity I told her all about in November 2020.  Centerstone absolutely has blood on their hands in this whole sordid disaster.  For they COULD HAVE ACTED to save lives and stop ongoing human suffering back in late 2020 and yet again - Centerstone chose to do NOTHING - despite their legal obligation to do so much.  Shame on them. Shut Them Down. 

But don’t just take my word for how bad Centerstone of Alton IL is.  Evaluate their online 1 star reviews from other clients nearly despondent with how badly Centerstone failed them/their loved one.  No entity SO INCOMPETENT should be allowed to have any interaction in other people’s lives - much less any authority over their mental wellness and very freedom.  

And remember back in Chapter 1 on my First Time Homeless Chapter when I told you that the single most helpful thing anyone has said to me during my entire Pandemic Experience was: “I’m sorry for all of the horrible things that have happened to you (validation and an apology) that no one has ever apologized for. You don’t deserve that - any of it.  You are a good person and you matter. Your life matters.” (Affirmation and encouragement.)  It is so beyond WRONG that after 18 months of alleged “treatment” with Centerstone that something uttered by a kind internet stranger who also fed me STILL remains one of the top three (3) single most helpful things anyone has said to me since my World was turned upside down in 2020. (For the record, the other two will be in future chapters but they certainly did NOT come from any of the clueless dunderheads  at Centerstone - of that I can assure you.)

At best, I am a victim of a failed mental health provider that is not designed to meet my “complex needs”- but at worst, I am also a victim of an America that has proven themselves largely indifferent to my plight.  How? When so many millions of Americans are encountering the same failed mental health system I did? I know I am not alone in his struggle because of the 14 million or so Americans who experience the most debilitating mental health conditions, roughly ⅓ of those folks receive NO TREATMENT.  The reasons for this are complex: some forego treatment by choice but far too many more simply cannot connect with INFORMED services in our communities we want, need and deserve.  

In far too many instances, the criminal justice system becomes the ONLY WAY to access mental health care as court-ordered assessments are given priority status in these Medicaid systems. Sadly, our jails and prisons serve as the final landing point for those in emotional distress and anguish who simply fell through the cracks in our broken mental health system.  A full forty percent (40%) of our Nation’s incarcerated individuals have a diagnosed mental health condition.  Yet Americans have long accepted this, sad though it may be, because they have been told to believe that there are no other options and “The System” just cannot do any better.  And that’s just a self-serving false narrative our Country dishes out so you don’t hold them accountable when your loved ones die an entirely preventable death.  Because when it comes to caring for our most vulnerable citizens in emotional distress, the arc of American history in this arena has always bent towards failure.  I’m here to tell you that it simply doesn’t have to be this way…I have so many informed ideas on how to fix it all based on my lived experiences. 

For starters, places like Centerstone <should> reimagine their entire TRIAD TREATMENT MODEL and provide each patient with a prescribing psychiatrist, (never an LPN!), and make the “weekly clinical therapist” role be, at minimum, a certified and licensed psychologist; and then make their MSW employees the “caseworkers” who help attenuate adverse life events for their clients by connecting them to community resources and all available help.  For “social workers” are actually  SUPPOSED TO BE community caseworkers helping people connect to community resources.  But Medicaid bottomfeeder places like Centerstone put them at the TOP of their  Triad Treatment Model because Medicaid reimbursement rates are far too low for actually licensed and accredited clinicians and psychologists and psychiatrists to even CONSIDER working at low-hanging-fruit places like Centerstone.  If we fix Medicaid and remove all of the abject waste, fraud, corruption and government grift going on there (trust me, Medicaid fraud is a forthcoming chapter all by itself) - we can then begin to fix lowball, monkey-dung Agencies like Centerstone who absolutely should NOT have any position of power or influence/authority over vulnerable peoples lives as they are currently operating.  

And if you do NOT think that these critical  tragic lapses, errors, neglect, malpractice and uninformed clinicians by places like Centerstone don’t have a FATAL impact on people’s lives, I would like to share with you something posted on a mental health social media site I volunteer with for folks feeling hopeless and  suicidal. My volunteer work here began after that Redditor reached out to me in my Hour of Despair due to abject hunger.   After reading this entry on the message board, I actually reached out to this person first by message and then by phone call and, in the process, I  discovered she was utterly abandoned by Centerstone of Alton IL after just three (3) therapist visits due to “no available therapists and a crushing list of patients needing mental wellness care in America.” I spoke with this person for HOURS but eventually we hung up  because her phone battery died.  Did she perish as well? Ultimately we will NEVER  know if she is still with us - or, if she was tragically one of the 45,979 deaths by suicide recorded in America in 2020.  Her post was as follows: 

(Note identity redacted to protect the user’s health information privacy and so stupid cops don’t go do the stupid things stupid cops do and find a way to make this person “unalived by a cop” or exponentially way worse mentally due to their unwarranted & unwanted intrusion into the person’s life.) 

“SITTING ON THE EDGE OF THE BRIDGE: I’ve been spending the whole night walking around downtown and sobbing. I’m so tired. I decided to find a bridge. Now I’m just sitting on the edge of it and thinking about things. My mess of a life. How alone I am in this world. How useless I am. How much of a burden I am. How I’m just…nothing. It’s cold outside tonight. But the wind feels nice. I saw a train earlier. I sat down in front of it for a while and just watched it pass until it was gone. I went inside a gas station to get a snack earlier and complimented the girl working there. It was nice to make someone smile. I wish that I could be in a different life. One better than this one. But that won’t happen. Nothing will ever get better for me. I give up. I don’t have any more energy to keep fighting. I’m scared of death but I can’t live like this anymore. I can’t take it. Looking down at the street below me…I’m scared. I’m really scared. But I just can’t do this anymore. No one will help me and it seems no one cares. So I’m looking down beneath me at the promise of a blissful end to ALL OF THIS nothingness in my life and no longer having to think about how no one cares about how anguished I am….it just seems easier somehow….”       

      

And all I can think sitting here today remembering her and everything we talked about that evening is….there but for the grace of God go I…    

As such, WITH VULNERABLE PEOPLE IN THIS MUCH ACUTE DISTRESS, WE SIMPLY DO NOT HAVE THE LUXURY OF ALLOWING KNOWN FAILED MENTAL HEALTH AGENCIES TO CONTINUE TO OPERATE UNDER ONGOING GROSS NEGLIGENCE AND DAILY MEDICAL (mental health) MALPRACTICE - AS CENTERSTONE OF ALTON IL DOES. 

#ShutThemDown