One Law For One...
Unfortunately I still have days where I want to round up all those who were involved in Mr Man's "care", particularly during 2002, and tie them up and gag them, slap them around the head a bit, and tell them how stupid they are, and just generally rant and rave until I've exhausted my rage. I thought I had recovered, but there are still triggers.
Unfortunately it's illegal to do things like that, even to really stupid people who deserve it. Even to people who have caused suffering to others, like they did. It would be fine if I was a doctor though. Then I could legally hold them against their will and cause them all sorts of suffering.
You see, if I was a doctor, I could intentionally cause a person to suffer by giving them medication with painful side effects, and refuse to change them, and even smirk when the wife begs me to relieve her husband's suffering. And that is legal.
I could even enforce the giving of those tablets against the patient's will, even if they don't actually help their medical condition at all. I could probably get away with that for about two months by saying I had to give them a fair chance to see if they would help.
Or I could deliberately prolong their mental suffering by hindering their
diagnosis, by inventing weird and wonderful theories as to why they are
ill, or pretending to be ill. No one would ever know that I was just playing a game, and I could get away with that one for at least six months.
If I was a nurse I could mentally and emotionally abuse the patients. No one would believe them because "they're mental" - paranoid, and delusional. And family members are just "over protective".
Or if they needed medical attention for something physical, and I was supposed to arrange tests, I could let them suffer longer and just say it slipped my mind because we're so busy. I could probably get away with that for weeks.
If I knew that a patient was already a high suicide risk, I could bully that person to increase their anxiety, so that they try to take their own life, and I would be completely irreproachable.
Also, I could "inadvertently" cause someone's death through
neglect, you know, like if I was supposed to check on them every 15 minutes but didn't bother. I might have to
go to court, but I wouldn't have to go to prison. I could just say we were understaffed or something.
But seeing as I'm not a doctor or a nurse, it would be illegal for me to cause pain and suffering to those who did all these things to Mr Man and others. So they get away with it, and probably continue doing it. And ten years later I'm still left struggling to come to terms with the injustice of it all.