Straw Augusta Ga

Book 📕 Title UNTIED SHOELACES

Chapter 10 “Assignment

I always thought that if danger ever came for me, the people who loved me would be the ones standing by my side. But when this mayhem first began, I found myself standing alone— and even people who weren’t family signed documents to have me committed to GR here in Augusta. All because I told them the truth: that I was being stalked, run off the road, and threatened.

People get targeted every single day.
But because I said it — because it was me, the one who was finally defending myself — suddenly I had to be “losing my mind.”
What they didn’t understand is this:

In all my forty-something years on this earth, I had never claimed anything like that before. Not once!
I was licensed to carry a firearm, and I worked multiple jobs in high-end security. I have no criminal background whatsoever.
What I will never deny is my issues the depression, the anxiety, and the emotional battles I’ve faced. Because let’s be honest — you can’t possibly attend the number of funerals I have and go through what I have and still be what the world considers “normal.” People love to judge without understanding that pain changes us all differently. You might cry three tears over losing your dog… but I might cry for three months. None of us are the same, and that doesn’t make one person weaker than the other — it just makes us human. What I refuse to do is label myself with every diagnosis someone tries to attach to my name. You cannot open a book, read a definition, and tell me who I am. There is no medical term that explains what it feels like to cry in your sleep. There is no psychiatric label that captures what it means to grieve multiple family members at one time. There is no definition for the kind of pain where you cry in the shower just to realize your tears are falling just as fast as the water.

Some things the world wants to call “symptoms” are really just human reactions to the rain never letting up in life and unimaginable loss. And I won’t let anyone reduce my lived experience to a definition in a textbook.

GR— and the other facility in Savannah — exposed me to things that cannot be unseen. When those doors locked behind me, it felt like stepping into a zombie apocalypse. So many of the patients were so heavily medicated their spirits were gone. Heads down. Eyes glazed. Bodies present, but souls sedated.

I refused medication almost every day. Not out of rebellion, but because I was watching.
Observing.
Studying.
Trying to understand how so many people could be treated as if they simply didn’t matter.

Most of the staff moved like we were burdens they couldn’t wait to silence. Anything we said was automatically unbelievable. And yes, I battle depression and other challenges — but I am fully functional and absolutely in my right mind. Despite everything life has thrown at me, my mind remains one of my strongest weapons. And that strength is what led me to the next chapter of this story.

There was a woman in there who looked so much like my mother that it stopped me in my tracks the first time I saw her. I could barely look at her without my heart tightening. For some reason, she clung to me. She didn’t trust most people, but she trusted me. She fought with the staff almost every day, something I came to understand more and more as time passed.

Her health was declining in front of my eyes.
Her shirt stuck to her arms like it was glued there, and every day her arms swelled more and more. One day I asked if I could take a look, but she screamed as soon as I touched her. Blood and fluid had soaked through her shirt, seeping from holes in her skin. The odor alone should’ve sent medical staff running.

I reported it repeatedly. Loudly. Boldly.
But every concern was ignored.

Then came the day she could barely sit up.
And that’s when I reached my limit.

I used my outside connections and one of my phone calls to silently dial 911.

Yes, I called the police on the facility itself, because clearly they did not care if that woman lived or died.

Officers arrived, and the staff tried everything in their power to silence me. But I walked straight up to the police and showed them her arms. They reacted instantly — rushing her to the hospital.

The truth came out:

Broken-off needle tips were lodged deep in her arms.

She was dying.
And not one employee cared enough to see her humanity.

That day changed me forever.
I no longer questioned why I had ended up there.
God placed me in that building for a reason:

To save her life.

And for that, Lord, I thank You for using me as Your vessel.

But I am also disappointed in myself, because once I walked out of those walls… it was like I left the rest behind. And deep in my spirit, I know those people still need someone — anyone — to speak up for them.

One thing that will never make sense to me is this:

In prison, men and women are separated for safety.
But in psychiatric facilities
They combine everyone — men, women, violent detainees, vulnerable patients — all in the same rooms, the same halls, the same sleeping spaces.

And that’s where the violence begins.
Not because mentally ill people are naturally dangerous, but because the system creates the danger. The system ignores the signs. The system fails the people who need help the most.

Even people like me — people they label as “mentally ill” — have enough common sense to understand that some tragedies happen naturally…

But too many are created by the very people who claim to be protecting us.

And to always be completely honest — not everyone in that place was cold.
There was a supervisor man with a calm presence — who made it his business to check on us. He didn’t treat us like problems. He treated us like people by laughing and joking with us. And there were a couple of workers I was genuinely cool with, employees who really did care a lot more than the others. They saw things. They understood things. And in their own small ways, they tried. Y’all know who you are.

I would never write a story that paints everyone with the same brush. Even in dark places, God always places a few lights. A handful of people who go against the culture, who still have compassion when the rest of the room has run out. And I’ll forever love and respect them for that!

This chapter of my life taught me something I will never forget:

Sometimes God sends you into the fire
not because you’re being punished,
but because someone inside that fire
needs your presence to survive.

And that is the day I realized —
I wasn’t there by accident.
I was there on ASSIGNMENT!

Ok so they have blocked me from being able to post my videos on this pg…WHOOPTY DOO!!!