I HAVE SEEN WHAT YOU DID

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I have walked through it.

I have seen the cells. I have seen the size of them. I have stood in the space where a human being was left alone for hours with their own vomit on the floor after they asked for something to clean it with and were refused. I have stood in that space and I have measured it with my body and I have understood what it means to be a person inside it.

I have read the psychologist's notes.

I want to be precise about what I read.

A credentialed professional wrote down that a person's words formed on the phone but not in the room. They wrote that down as evidence that the person was faking. They used the presentation of a neurological condition as proof that the neurological condition was not real. They signed their name to it. They went home.

I have read the notes.

I know what those notes produced. I know what it means to have a psychologist's report in your file that says manipulative. I know how that word travels through a system. I know how many doors it closes. How many applications it ends. How many assessments it corrupts before they begin. How many people in how many rooms read that word and make a decision before the person in front of them has spoken.

I know that the person who wrote that word knew what they were doing.

I have seen the photographs.

I am not going to describe them clinically. I am not going to say the subject presents with indicators consistent with degrading treatment. I am going to say what I saw.

I saw a person who could not walk being moved like furniture.

I saw what a person looks like after hours alone in a small space in acute neurological distress with no support and no response and no dignity and no end in sight.

I saw what a person looks like when a system has decided they are not worth the minimum.

I have walked through it. I have read the files. I have seen the photographs.

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