[Music]
thank you all first of all for the
privilege of being here in front of all
of you and getting to speak on such
wonderful topics on such a tremendous
stage as an alumni of this school I’m
incredibly honored and profoundly
blessed to even be able to be doing this
so I am a spoken word poet by fact that
I was one here at UCI and I continued to
do it for years after I graduated so it
is with that that I bring each and every
one of you two very very intimate poems
that I wrote during a very difficult
time of my life and the context of the
poems is such that I’d be remiss in not
bringing it up somehow because it
dovetails into the really grand topic of
our entire evening the domino effect in
my case my topic is mental illness or
rather the lack of a discourse about
mental illness in this country and quite
frankly globally so what I wanted to do
was something a little bit different I
wanted to give you guys an example human
example of what the domino effect looks
like with regards to mental illness so
I’d like to give you an example myself
my name is Sarah Hillier
I was a UCI Alumni class of 2013
before that I graduated from high school
with highest honors came in to UCI in
2010 graduated from UCI in three years
of two bachelor’s degrees because the
moment I got here the first thing I
immediately decided to do was to take 20
units my first quarter when I did that
the counseling department here actually
a specific counselor will remain unnamed
actually looked upon me laughed
profoundly and when the punchline never
came said that is the stupidest thing
I’ve ever heard you will fail
immediately not only did I come back
with the 3.8 after that first quarter I
did it again the next quarter again the
next quarter
set the bar at 22 my second year and at
24 units my third year so I didn’t take
her very seriously when I got to law
school it was a lot of the very same
thing people telling me what I could and
could not do and yet somehow I managed
to graduate with the
doctorate from University of San Diego
law at the age of 24 at the oldest one
of the youngest of my graduating class
so in essence this is Domino a this is
Julia or how society knows him to be and
quite for quite likely they know him to
be someone who probably be mentally
stable because for all intents and
purposes first-generation Latino in the
United States he sounds like the
American dream this is the sound of
Domino a falling shattering into a
million pieces because he wants to make
sure that no other Domino in his place
ever has to know the terror of falling
let me try introducing myself again
hello everyone my name is chasity lugar
and I happen to be an individual who is
struggling with a mental illness in the
United States I was diagnosed officially
three years ago but quite frankly I’ve
had symptoms for about nine years had my
first psychotic episode here at UC
Irvine at the end of my first quarter
because it turns out twenty units is
kind of a lot had my second one my third
year of law school so bad that I was
essentially pulled from school and
incarcerated in a mental institution for
three weeks came out and everyone told
me give up call it a day
you don’t have to prove anything to
anybody so why are you still here after
these experiences experience after
experience after experience feeling
segregated from everybody around me and
believing that I was for all intents and
purposes a monster among society I
started to look elsewhere and realized
that I wasn’t alone
it’s just that we don’t know how to
utilize our own voices this is the sound
of Domino a shattering so that all of
every individual in the sound of my
voice that would ever consider
themselves to be neurodivergent that is
to say to have neuro chemistry that is
divergent from what the standard typical
operational neuro chemistry would be in
society or what society
classify says mentally ill or diseased
or sick or different or bizarre or
whatever other adjectives they use to
define us
we are simply different we just work a
little differently and it’s with that
but I want all of you to hear me when I
say if you struggle from something like
this whatever it may be whatever the
level of diagnosis resists
fight do not go gently into that good
night rage against the dying of the
light because quite frankly we are the
light to each and every individual it
within the sound of my voice who would
consider themselves neurotypical has in
someone who is not mentally ill if
you’re not listening to my words all I
ask is that you pay attention to those
around you because little do you know
that those with a mental illness exists
around you every second of every day we
are your coworkers
we sit next to you on public transit we
are your friends we’re your neighbors
god forbid you should ever wake up one
day – the same nightmare that I have
that one day we will also be your
children your future all of our futures
and it is with this I would like to
share with all of you two poems that I
wrote in the fall of 2015 when I was
incarcerated in a mental institution in
San Diego California for three weeks
against my will and pretty much with no
sense of what the hell was happening to
me I pray to God none of you ever have
to experience this like I did modern
medicine that’s that’s the second one
first impressions of mental illness the
night I was diagnosed as mentally ill
all I did was cry yeah I cried I bawled
like a newborn child being struck for
the first time of many times like a bat
torn from hell without its consent I
pounded my fists against the white walls
of the padded room they stuck me in
because they knew not what to do with me
over
and over again until the blood and sinew
filled the foundations of the prison
that couldn’t even hold me all I could
process was I can’t have children
anymore they’ve taken that right from me
because how could I justify burying
fruit when all I could hear were the
voices of my forefathers the violent
echoes of indecent men trying to live in
a decent time at going bombastically in
my skull if the tree has poisoned roots
level the damn tree burn the roots salt
the earth and sell the orchard pray to
God nobody knows what you’ve done this
is how we used to handle our heritage I
was a cherry blossom mourning the
stagnation of my fruits my seedlings
just waiting for someone to have the
common courtesy to yell timber and push
but I always classified as a type one
manic-depressive my emotions became a
nightmare I didn’t know I couldn’t wake
up from suddenly my tendency to be
overly inclined towards sadness and
black love poetry looked a lot like
raging bipolar depression a suicidal
record on an infinite loop that not that
kicking musical note that I don’t know I
can’t stop humming even if it’s gonna
kill me
mania mania MA and I if you take nothing
else from this remember this word as it
happens to be the most terrifying a rush
of numbness anyone in my position could
ever know my brothers and sisters how we
have suffered the feeling of being a
flame robbed raging at both ends of a
candle ready to decimate the very forest
line with all of our family trees all
the while the wax keeping us fed is
dwindling hemorrhaging in a losing
battle do you know what it’s like could
any of you know what it’s like to be
terrified of your own heartbeat to the
degree that a nurse with a crash cart
rushes to you to try and put a live
current
through your chest while you were awake
still breathing and making eye contact
with him because they don’t know what to
do with you 195 beats per minute
197 203 206 215 beats per minute if this
junkie shot up with something why isn’t
he dead yet and what do we do with him
I was 22 the night they told me that the
night that a team of white coated
doctors resembling a bouquet of petunias
are clustered so damn tightly I couldn’t
breathe around me and they called me
psychotic said that I bore psychotic
symptoms and that I showed signs of the
early onset of schizophrenia like any
English major I turned to a dictionary
psychosis adjectives with of relating to
marked by or afflicted by psychosis a
serious mental illness characterized by
defective or lost contact with reality
often with hallucinations or audits or
auditory or visual hallucinations you
see things you hear things we are a
humoring those observing me I concede
okay I am psychotic reality and I have
never truly seen eye to eye I am too
damn susceptible to falling in love like
my life actually depends on it treating
my heart like a shooting star letting it
rocket through space and hoping that one
day it gets earmarked by that one wish
I’ve been waiting for
spitting poetry like it will cure cancer
like it might cure cancer
living my life and an unexpectedly
optimistic fashion writing the edge of
an invisible cliff without minding where
that hole starts I dream like it’s the
only thing I will ever be good at I bare
my soul over and over and over to those
that are sick to those that are healthy
and everything in between like their
lives depend on it because most days it
does yes yes I am psychotic no it
doesn’t necessarily mean I want to hurt
any of you
I’ll raise the pacifist and deep down I
am still the same five-year-old boy
trying to reason what it means to be a
good man and really should that not
count more than the opinions of white
coats prescription pads and pens at the
ready just praying for a witch-hunt the
second is modern medicine proper dosages
lithium yes that pink sea salt that they
pull from the sea and stick inside of
our brains is little more than a
battering ram skull splintering like so
much wood underneath steel persecution
of sunlight flooding the very darkness
as we once held dear the first thing
they told me was that my darkness is an
illness they did not hesitate to look me
in the eyes and they said this I so
heavily empathize with the iron coating
my windows frayed and rusted as if left
smoldering in a fire that neither of us
knew how to put the flame out of we are
both elements of nature left charring to
pieces with no one looking after us they
say my fire is also an illness listen
here they come again their little feet
stamping across linoleum like gunshots
as they march a long pitter-patter
pitter-patter pitter-patter emptying the
magazine in my direction as they figure
out what to do with me next the
incessant drumming of children leading
into a cavalcade of men that are going
off to war to fight for something they
don’t even believe in anymore three
knocks I don’t humor them the xanax and
the ambien that they have been
suffocating me with for days house that
has numb to my sense of humor
just a bit so much so that even my
chuckles have the same gradients and as
razor blades striking steel without
regard three more knocks on the door I
start whistling
casually at first then with the
harmonics of a Robin does the jailer
realize I wonder that that caged bird
sings bloody murder whenever he walks by
three more knocks I smile turn even
throw a wink their way just for fun how
your glasses shine so very bright like
stars that I haven’t seen in weeks as I
look at you through the little wormhole
of a window in the solid reinforced
three-foot inch steel blast door you
think is going to keep you safe from me
knocks again they acknowledge me still
seems so manic doesn’t he doesn’t even
really want to be here huh tends towards
isolation very depressed always talking
to himself his mind you know maybe maybe
a nice little adjust adjust adjusting to
his medication would make him more
docile I retort the slightest chuckle
but not too loudly seed there is a hill
of hills delicately lining my belly with
such a quiet disorder that any shift
would be ordered chaos an asset and a
shroud a furious restraint of course of
course of course of course the empty
white coats looking upon me the
breathing chemistry set inside of a
prison inside of a prison
turning my agony over in their hands so
clinically as they figure out what to
pull out of me next and yet they tell me
I am the illness no hesitation as they
tell me I the illness they hold up an
institution that says we are the illness
we did not ask for your institutions we
did not ask for your labels and we
sure as hell did not ask for your
criticism we have only ever asked that
you acknowledge we though different from
you bleed the same blood and breathe the
same air in the same way that we wish
you would validate our need to exist we
wish that she would acknowledge the fact
that would you consider to be sensitive
camp a compassionate treatment from our
side of the fence looks a lot like a
damn hate crime that nobody’s talking
about thank you [Applause]
thank you all first of all for the
privilege of being here in front of all
of you and getting to speak on such
wonderful topics on such a tremendous
stage as an alumni of this school I’m
incredibly honored and profoundly
blessed to even be able to be doing this
so I am a spoken word poet by fact that
I was one here at UCI and I continued to
do it for years after I graduated so it
is with that that I bring each and every
one of you two very very intimate poems
that I wrote during a very difficult
time of my life and the context of the
poems is such that I’d be remiss in not
bringing it up somehow because it
dovetails into the really grand topic of
our entire evening the domino effect in
my case my topic is mental illness or
rather the lack of a discourse about
mental illness in this country and quite
frankly globally so what I wanted to do
was something a little bit different I
wanted to give you guys an example human
example of what the domino effect looks
like with regards to mental illness so
I’d like to give you an example myself
my name is Sarah Hillier
I was a UCI Alumni class of 2013
before that I graduated from high school
with highest honors came in to UCI in
2010 graduated from UCI in three years
of two bachelor’s degrees because the
moment I got here the first thing I
immediately decided to do was to take 20
units my first quarter when I did that
the counseling department here actually
a specific counselor will remain unnamed
actually looked upon me laughed
profoundly and when the punchline never
came said that is the stupidest thing
I’ve ever heard you will fail
immediately not only did I come back
with the 3.8 after that first quarter I
did it again the next quarter again the
next quarter
set the bar at 22 my second year and at
24 units my third year so I didn’t take
her very seriously when I got to law
school it was a lot of the very same
thing people telling me what I could and
could not do and yet somehow I managed
to graduate with the
doctorate from University of San Diego
law at the age of 24 at the oldest one
of the youngest of my graduating class
so in essence this is Domino a this is
Julia or how society knows him to be and
quite for quite likely they know him to
be someone who probably be mentally
stable because for all intents and
purposes first-generation Latino in the
United States he sounds like the
American dream this is the sound of
Domino a falling shattering into a
million pieces because he wants to make
sure that no other Domino in his place
ever has to know the terror of falling
let me try introducing myself again
hello everyone my name is chasity lugar
and I happen to be an individual who is
struggling with a mental illness in the
United States I was diagnosed officially
three years ago but quite frankly I’ve
had symptoms for about nine years had my
first psychotic episode here at UC
Irvine at the end of my first quarter
because it turns out twenty units is
kind of a lot had my second one my third
year of law school so bad that I was
essentially pulled from school and
incarcerated in a mental institution for
three weeks came out and everyone told
me give up call it a day
you don’t have to prove anything to
anybody so why are you still here after
these experiences experience after
experience after experience feeling
segregated from everybody around me and
believing that I was for all intents and
purposes a monster among society I
started to look elsewhere and realized
that I wasn’t alone
it’s just that we don’t know how to
utilize our own voices this is the sound
of Domino a shattering so that all of
every individual in the sound of my
voice that would ever consider
themselves to be neurodivergent that is
to say to have neuro chemistry that is
divergent from what the standard typical
operational neuro chemistry would be in
society or what society
classify says mentally ill or diseased
or sick or different or bizarre or
whatever other adjectives they use to
define us
we are simply different we just work a
little differently and it’s with that
but I want all of you to hear me when I
say if you struggle from something like
this whatever it may be whatever the
level of diagnosis resists
fight do not go gently into that good
night rage against the dying of the
light because quite frankly we are the
light to each and every individual it
within the sound of my voice who would
consider themselves neurotypical has in
someone who is not mentally ill if
you’re not listening to my words all I
ask is that you pay attention to those
around you because little do you know
that those with a mental illness exists
around you every second of every day we
are your coworkers
we sit next to you on public transit we
are your friends we’re your neighbors
god forbid you should ever wake up one
day – the same nightmare that I have
that one day we will also be your
children your future all of our futures
and it is with this I would like to
share with all of you two poems that I
wrote in the fall of 2015 when I was
incarcerated in a mental institution in
San Diego California for three weeks
against my will and pretty much with no
sense of what the hell was happening to
me I pray to God none of you ever have
to experience this like I did modern
medicine that’s that’s the second one
first impressions of mental illness the
night I was diagnosed as mentally ill
all I did was cry yeah I cried I bawled
like a newborn child being struck for
the first time of many times like a bat
torn from hell without its consent I
pounded my fists against the white walls
of the padded room they stuck me in
because they knew not what to do with me
over
and over again until the blood and sinew
filled the foundations of the prison
that couldn’t even hold me all I could
process was I can’t have children
anymore they’ve taken that right from me
because how could I justify burying
fruit when all I could hear were the
voices of my forefathers the violent
echoes of indecent men trying to live in
a decent time at going bombastically in
my skull if the tree has poisoned roots
level the damn tree burn the roots salt
the earth and sell the orchard pray to
God nobody knows what you’ve done this
is how we used to handle our heritage I
was a cherry blossom mourning the
stagnation of my fruits my seedlings
just waiting for someone to have the
common courtesy to yell timber and push
but I always classified as a type one
manic-depressive my emotions became a
nightmare I didn’t know I couldn’t wake
up from suddenly my tendency to be
overly inclined towards sadness and
black love poetry looked a lot like
raging bipolar depression a suicidal
record on an infinite loop that not that
kicking musical note that I don’t know I
can’t stop humming even if it’s gonna
kill me
mania mania MA and I if you take nothing
else from this remember this word as it
happens to be the most terrifying a rush
of numbness anyone in my position could
ever know my brothers and sisters how we
have suffered the feeling of being a
flame robbed raging at both ends of a
candle ready to decimate the very forest
line with all of our family trees all
the while the wax keeping us fed is
dwindling hemorrhaging in a losing
battle do you know what it’s like could
any of you know what it’s like to be
terrified of your own heartbeat to the
degree that a nurse with a crash cart
rushes to you to try and put a live
current
through your chest while you were awake
still breathing and making eye contact
with him because they don’t know what to
do with you 195 beats per minute
197 203 206 215 beats per minute if this
junkie shot up with something why isn’t
he dead yet and what do we do with him
I was 22 the night they told me that the
night that a team of white coated
doctors resembling a bouquet of petunias
are clustered so damn tightly I couldn’t
breathe around me and they called me
psychotic said that I bore psychotic
symptoms and that I showed signs of the
early onset of schizophrenia like any
English major I turned to a dictionary
psychosis adjectives with of relating to
marked by or afflicted by psychosis a
serious mental illness characterized by
defective or lost contact with reality
often with hallucinations or audits or
auditory or visual hallucinations you
see things you hear things we are a
humoring those observing me I concede
okay I am psychotic reality and I have
never truly seen eye to eye I am too
damn susceptible to falling in love like
my life actually depends on it treating
my heart like a shooting star letting it
rocket through space and hoping that one
day it gets earmarked by that one wish
I’ve been waiting for
spitting poetry like it will cure cancer
like it might cure cancer
living my life and an unexpectedly
optimistic fashion writing the edge of
an invisible cliff without minding where
that hole starts I dream like it’s the
only thing I will ever be good at I bare
my soul over and over and over to those
that are sick to those that are healthy
and everything in between like their
lives depend on it because most days it
does yes yes I am psychotic no it
doesn’t necessarily mean I want to hurt
any of you
I’ll raise the pacifist and deep down I
am still the same five-year-old boy
trying to reason what it means to be a
good man and really should that not
count more than the opinions of white
coats prescription pads and pens at the
ready just praying for a witch-hunt the
second is modern medicine proper dosages
lithium yes that pink sea salt that they
pull from the sea and stick inside of
our brains is little more than a
battering ram skull splintering like so
much wood underneath steel persecution
of sunlight flooding the very darkness
as we once held dear the first thing
they told me was that my darkness is an
illness they did not hesitate to look me
in the eyes and they said this I so
heavily empathize with the iron coating
my windows frayed and rusted as if left
smoldering in a fire that neither of us
knew how to put the flame out of we are
both elements of nature left charring to
pieces with no one looking after us they
say my fire is also an illness listen
here they come again their little feet
stamping across linoleum like gunshots
as they march a long pitter-patter
pitter-patter pitter-patter emptying the
magazine in my direction as they figure
out what to do with me next the
incessant drumming of children leading
into a cavalcade of men that are going
off to war to fight for something they
don’t even believe in anymore three
knocks I don’t humor them the xanax and
the ambien that they have been
suffocating me with for days house that
has numb to my sense of humor
just a bit so much so that even my
chuckles have the same gradients and as
razor blades striking steel without
regard three more knocks on the door I
start whistling
casually at first then with the
harmonics of a Robin does the jailer
realize I wonder that that caged bird
sings bloody murder whenever he walks by
three more knocks I smile turn even
throw a wink their way just for fun how
your glasses shine so very bright like
stars that I haven’t seen in weeks as I
look at you through the little wormhole
of a window in the solid reinforced
three-foot inch steel blast door you
think is going to keep you safe from me
knocks again they acknowledge me still
seems so manic doesn’t he doesn’t even
really want to be here huh tends towards
isolation very depressed always talking
to himself his mind you know maybe maybe
a nice little adjust adjust adjusting to
his medication would make him more
docile I retort the slightest chuckle
but not too loudly seed there is a hill
of hills delicately lining my belly with
such a quiet disorder that any shift
would be ordered chaos an asset and a
shroud a furious restraint of course of
course of course of course the empty
white coats looking upon me the
breathing chemistry set inside of a
prison inside of a prison
turning my agony over in their hands so
clinically as they figure out what to
pull out of me next and yet they tell me
I am the illness no hesitation as they
tell me I the illness they hold up an
institution that says we are the illness
we did not ask for your institutions we
did not ask for your labels and we
sure as hell did not ask for your
criticism we have only ever asked that
you acknowledge we though different from
you bleed the same blood and breathe the
same air in the same way that we wish
you would validate our need to exist we
wish that she would acknowledge the fact
that would you consider to be sensitive
camp a compassionate treatment from our
side of the fence looks a lot like a
damn hate crime that nobody’s talking
about thank you [Applause]
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