Women voting: Is that the problem?

By JoAnne Young

I am one of those women who took on the name of my husband when I got married. Young seemed like an easier name to spell than my maiden name, for all the times I would have to spell it at my job, in making reservations and giving my name to someone who doesn’t know me. It happens daily. It might also make it less complicated, I figured, for my last name to match the last names of our kids. 

 

Then along comes the Save America Act, that unneeded bill that Republicans believe will somehow make sure they stay in power, by making it difficult for women who changed their names when they married, for older citizens, students and lower income people to register to vote. 

 

Women are registered to vote and have actually voted at higher rates than men for decades. Is that the problem?

 

Gloria Steinem says: “The voting booth is still the only place that a pauper equals a billionaire and any woman equals any man.” Is that the problem?

 

The Save America bill would require proof of citizenship to register to vote and a photo ID to cast a ballot. Opponents of the bill argue it could make millions of American citizens ineligible to vote in federal elections.

 

The House has already passed the bill. The Senate will vote on it this coming week. So far, we are hearing that the bill doesn’t have enough votes to pass, unless some rules are changed that would require a simple 50-vote majority. But any number of alterations could be applied to the bill or the process to give it an opportunity to pass. In the past few years, it has become all to clear that you have to expect the unexpected. 

 

The Save America act is a version of last year’s Safeguard American Voter Eligibility (SAVE) Act, which passed the U.S. House but was not voted on in the Senate. The new version passed the House of Representatives in February. Here’s what is in it: 

 

-- A person registering to vote or changing any element of their voter registration, name, address, party affiliation, would have to do it in person and provide a hard copy of a birth certificate or passport. Drivers licenses, military or tribal IDs, or Social Security numbers, would not be enough. It is unknown what the process would include if, for example, the last name on a woman’s birth certificate or passport does not match her current name. It is believed that voter registration drives would be all but eliminated.

-- The act would demand that states conduct ongoing purges of voter rolls, even though opponents believe the processes to do so are faulty and insufficient, and registrations of eligible voters could be wrongfully cancelled. States would not be required to notify voters before they are removed from these rolls. 

 

Last year, anticipating this bill had a chance of passing, despite people assuring me it wouldn’t, I renewed my passport, making sure my maiden name was as prominently displayed as my married name. I hope that will be enough. 

 

My fear if this passes is that some women and young voters and people of color will be discouraged enough with the hassle of it all and just won’t bother, won’t vote. It’s hard enough to get some people to vote, even without this. I plan to make myself available to get people registered and to the polls, if Republicans who are supporting this don’t make it nearly impossible. It is believed that many eligible voters don’t have access to the documents that prove citizenship. 

 

I don’t understand why so many women in the House said yes to what I have come to believe is a voter suppression act. Thirty-two women, all Republicans, voted yes on the bill. Some of them said they believe voter ID is necessary to ensure only American citizens can vote, even though states have strong voting protection processes in place; many have voter ID requirements. This, of course, is more than a voter ID bill. It was an opportunity for one representative, Nancy Mace of South Carolina, to falsely accuse Democrats in the House of depending “on illegal votes from non-citizens to hold onto power and are willing to compromise election integrity to do it.” She can’t really believe that, can she? 

 

Civic Nebraska testified on a bill in the Nebraska Legislature in February, that would put stricter processes in place to verify voter registration, saying that The Heritage Foundation, a conservative think tank, analyzed elections from 1982 to 2025 in each state looking for instances of fraud committed by non-citizens and found zero instances in Nebraska. 

 

The Save America Act could impact so many eligible voters: rural voters, older Nebraskans, students, naturalized citizens and those who have changed their names. Civic Nebraska recommends that everyone update their voter registration in case this passes and before it would go into effect. Locate these documents: passports, certified birth records, naturalization records, and any paperwork that indicates a name change and connects your current legal name to your citizenship documents. 

 

Then of course, when the time comes, please vote. 

 

In Celebration of Women

By Marilyn Moore

Today is International Women’s Day, celebrated around the world.  Well, “celebrated” may be too optimistic a word.  While recognized as an official holiday and recognition date in many countries, it is not in the United States.  That is because its roots spring from socialist and labor unions advocating for women’s suffrage and workers’ rights, ideals seen as counter to American ideology during the Cold War.  The United Nations established it as an international holiday in 1977.  In 1994, Rep. Maxine Waters introduced a bill in the House of Representatives to make this a federal holiday; the bill failed to pass.

And so, much like the Equal Rights Amendment, our nation can’t quite take the step of asserting that women and women’s rights are truly equal.  While discrimination on the basis of sex has been outlawed in federal legislation like Title IX, the very real lives of women continue to be threatened by legislators at the state and federal level who “just don’t see what the problem is.”  Reductions in funding for responding to domestic violence, for example, affect women far more than men.  Reductions in funding for food and nutrition programs, and childcare support, affect women far more than men.  The law doesn’t say that….but that’s the way it plays out in real women’s real lives.  The proposed SAVE act, which purports to address a problem that is non-existent, persons who are not citizens voting in US elections, will impact women far more severely than men, because most married women have a current photo ID, which will be required, that does not match the name on their birth certificate, which proves citizenship.  

In times of war, and there are always times of war, women are exploited and assaulted by invading troops, and they are left to pick up the pieces after the war. Today, in Gaza and in Afghanistan, women are standing in line for water, they’re standing in line for food, they’re trying to figure out how to keep their children alive.  I suspect that’s true in Iran, also; we just don’t have the photographs yet.  We do know, however, that a school with 175 people, most of them children, was struck by a missile, most likely a US missile, killing all.  

My friend Mary Beth sent an article to me this morning in celebration of International Women’s Day.  It was a report done by writers of the "New York Times," who examined obituaries of women.  They noted what was reported, and what was not reported, about women at the time of their death, an indication of what was perceived to be important at the time.  For example, Hedy Lamarr, well known as a beautiful Hollywood star, who had fled Europe just before the start of WWII.  What is not well-known, and what received only a reluctant mention in her obituary, is that she was a scientist, an inventor whose ideas laid the groundwork for underwater detection of submarines and wireless communication.  Her beauty, her career as an actor was reported in detail in the obituary.  Her contributions as a scientist?  Not so much....

Remember the women, the African American women, from “Hidden Figures?”  The original computers, who calculated by hand the formulas that became the flight paths for the first American space craft.  A story basically untold until the movie was released…women doing significant, important work in what was seen as a man’s world…and their stories untold.  For the women featured in the movie, of course, they faced the added (perhaps the first) reality of discrimination based on race.  

While there are many more opportunities for women today than there were two generations ago, and certainly more than two hundred years ago, some things haven’t changed much.  I just finished reading Caleb’s Crossing by Geraldine Brooks (for the second time, I REALYY like this book), and I was struck, again, by the constraints placed on Bethia, a young woman in the 1600’s on the island of what is now Martha’s Vineyard, off the coast of Massachusetts.  She was allowed to learn, to a certain level, but not beyond.  While she could learn, it was not appropriate for her to show that she had learned; “showing off” was not what marriage-ready young women did.  She could not argue, she could not debate.  Silence was always her best and safest choice.  Her mind was not seen as worthy of development.

That is fresh in my mind as I think about comments I heard this week as I attended two conferences for women leaders.  Smart, accomplished, responsible women, willing to share their experiences, their failures and successes, in a wide variety of fields.  And way too often I heard them talk about sexual harassment, bullying, ideas which they proposed being ignored until stated again by a male colleague, having to prove, again and again, that they could survive in traditional male fields, like manufacturing, and succeed at the job they had been hired to do.  

And yet, and yet, with all that said from her own story, one speaker burst forth with, “It’s so great to be a woman!”  And she’s right, it is…for all the other experiences and life lessons that were shared.  The reality that women live longer than men, that we retire better than men, is due to women’s strength in developing friendships, strong friendships, with other women.  A social connection is as much a determinant of health and longevity as diet and exercise.  And women do that well.  We do that well in how we do our work and how we live our lives.  Another participant in one of the conferences cited a study in which she had been a part, a study of CEO’s.  One of the findings was that women CEO’s consistently used inclusive pronouns, such as “we” and “our,” more than men, who tended to use “I” and “my.”  Inclusive language is an indicator of inclusive practices, and people on a team are much more likely to give their all and do their best work when they are valued and included.  

As for our personal lives, the former surgeon general of the United States, Dr. Vivek Murthy, has identified “loneliness” as a public health crisis in this country, affecting our mental, physical, and societal health. The Harvard Nurses’ Health Study confirmed that women with strong social ties have lower blood pressure, reduced inflammation, and better overall health outcomes.  It’s why there’s that question on the Medicare wellness check:  Have you had a phone call, a visit, a connection, with a friend or family member this week?  If Medicare is asking about it, it matters.  And women invest well in friendships, in gatherings, in connections, in time spent with friends.  It’s a healthy choice to make.

Further strengthening our understanding of the health of social connections is another article I read this week, asserting that women who travel together live longer and healthier lives.  As the heart of that assertion is the observation by psychologist Dr. Shelley Taylor that when faced with something unfamiliar or challenging, women don’t just fight or flee; they reach for each other.  Let me say that again...we reach for each other.  That’s caused by the hormone oxytocin, which promotes bonding and calms the nervous system.  More than comfort, this can build courage.  

The article goes on to extol the advantages of adventure travel with groups of women.  I do not need an article to convince me of this.  I know that time and travel with friends is one of the healthiest, most life-sustaining activities that I do.  Whether climbing mountains, kayaking rivers, riding a hot air balloon over the Serengeti, or exploring rural Nebraska, I’m better, and stronger, and more resilient, and less stressed, because I do this with friends.  And I affirm, “It’s great to be a woman.”

Finally, and I know you thought I’d never get to “finally,” the first article that caught my eye this week about being a woman is the article about Mitochondrial Eve, the female ancestor from whom all humans are believed to have descended.  She likely lived in the Kalahari Desert in southern Africa some 200,000 years ago.  Every human on the planet caries the Eve gene.  It is passed from women to both female and male offspring, but males cannot pass on the gene. Another critical responsibility, assumed by women.  Another reason to celebrate International Women’s Day.  Even if the United States government doesn’t recognize it.  There are some things that are way too important to be left to a congressional determination, and this is one of them.  

 

‘I come into the peace of wild things,’ I come into the peace of sandhill cranes

 By Mary Kay Roth

Each year I come back.

I come back for the beauty and clarity of a ritual that is millions of years old.  

I come back for the gorgeous lifts at dawn and dusk when something almost mystical happens – when the rhythms of our lives throb with the pulse of spring.

I come back for that earthy evocative primal cry that reaches deep down and tugs at my soul.

It’s early Saturday morning and we are bundled under blankets, sitting beside the riverbank, the gilded dawn making sparkling ripples on the Platte. 

Our eyes are closed as we listen for the first waves of that telltale cry, a rich, bawdy chorus of rolling, twilling birdsong weaving an intimate spell over the land. 

We have come here for the migration of the sandhill cranes, one of the most remarkable wildlife spectacles on earth and the largest gathering of cranes in the world.  Throughout the next six weeks, a million or so of these geeky yet elegant birds will travel through the central Platte River Valley.

Each year I come see them. 

This year I really need them. I need to imagine a time beyond the boundaries and confines of politics and weariness. Somehow, somewhere, despite these troubled times, I need the promise of something certain and true.

As Wendell Berry so perfectly understood, “When despair for the world grows in me 

and I wake in the night at the least sound

in fear of what my life and my children’s lives may be … I come into the peace of wild things.” 

I come into the peace of the sandhill cranes.

For decades these beloved creatures have served as my personal compass, my solace, my clarity.  Like watching the inevitable tide of the ocean or the stars overhead, light years away, cranes seem eternal and everlasting.  Existing alongside prehistoric megafauna like saber-toothed cats and woolly mammoths, they have remained largely unchanged for millions of years.

On this particular brisk morning, just at daybreak, thousands and thousands of cranes rise from the river before us in stunning liftoff – amidst a familiar, noisy flurry of feather and sound.

As they circle and. dive above, we raise our eyes to their flight path, these glorious creatures soaring on the breezes in constant chatter. Eventually, swooping down into the nearby winter rubble of cornfields, they dine.  

And they dance, oh they dance, gently and gracefully hopping and prancing with joy among the stalks and stubble of their mid-migration feast.

In his 1937 essay "Marshland Elegy" Aldo Leopold wrote of the sandhill crane: “When we hear his call we hear no mere bird. We hear the trumpet in the orchestra of evolution. He is the symbol of our untamable past, of that incredible sweep of millennia which underlies and conditions the daily affairs of birds and men.”

Each spring, for almost 50 years now, I’ve been coming to see the cranes here at the Alda bridge just west of Grand Island. Once upon a time there was only a battered picnic table sitting beside the river shore. These days you’ll find an official viewing stand, parking lots and informational plaques.

But through those decades, whether I came alone, or alongside friends, my kids, grandkids – every single year, they still surprised me.

Sandhill cranes are among the oldest living birds on the planet, a ticking of the geological clock, their ancient lineage telling a storied history with fossil records placing them in Nebraska more than nine million years ago. 

The cranes we meet this Saturday morning have likely come from a winter vacation in Texas, New Mexico or Mexico – and will soon head north toward Alaska, Canada, even Siberia. Some fly shorter distances, some migrate as many as 10,000 miles.

They linger along the Platte as a stopover, feeding in cornfields and wet meadows by day and, by night, roosting in the safe and shallow reaches of the Platte.  

After fattening up with an extra pound of weight during their stay here, they’ll be on their way – flying up to 400 miles a day, 500 with a good tailwind.   

In my travels I’ve witnessed the Taj Mahal and the Parthenon, migrations of polar bears and wildebeests. Above all these sights, I’ll take the Platte River migration, most assuredly one of the wonders of the natural world.  

Despite the darkest of dark days, yes indeed, light and life do come around again.  The cranes come back.

And they offer us wise counsel, navigating their journey with resilience as they rest in the grace of the world, always finding a soft place to land.

In this most sacred season of dreamers and imaginers, right on the cusp of spring when there are those of us who still believe in silly wonder and those of us who still believe in hope – we have been given a precious gift. 

So, I’m sending out a call to action today: Sometime in the coming weeks, please take a few hours and go see the sandhill cranes.

Watch them lift with a whoosh at sunup – or languidly slip into the river at sundown.  Roam the country roads to see their flocks feed in the fields. Pause to watch them dance.

On my visit to the Platte River this past Saturday morning, ultimately the cold started nipping at my fingers and toes, and I had to fold up my chair, taking one last inhale of earthen breath – and heading for the warmth of the car.

But not without one last glance over my shoulder, one last quiet smile.

Until next year.

~ Gratitude to my friend, Tom White, for letting me share his magnificent photographs of sandhill cranes.

The Trees of Dachau: Heed Their Warning

by Karla Lester

Nie wieder 

The poplar trees lining the pathway of the Dachau concentration camp memorial site in Germany, were planted to bear silent witness to the atrocities that happened there. The Dachau concentration camp was the longest running concentration camp, started in 1933 to imprison Nazi political opponents and dissidents. The camp was liberated by U.S. forces in April, 1945. The number of deaths documented at the Dachau memorial site is 32,000 with many more undocumented. Most were murdered by the Nazis. Thousands died from disease, malnutrition or suicide. 

It was July, 2019 and our family of five had a trip planned to Germany and Austria. I had been a student abroad in Germany in 1989, months before the wall came down and two summers after President Reagan, in a speech at the Brandenburg Gate, said, “Mr. Gorbachev, tear down this wall!” My host family in Eutin, Germany was addicted to Dallas reruns. “Karla, wir haben Dallas!” David Hasselhoff was a pop superstar in Germany in the 80’s. I’m still scratching my head over that one. Our study abroad group made a visit to the Dachau concentration camp memorial site. I remember riding the train there and how the somberness of the atrocities have stuck with me decades later. I didn’t remember the trees. 

As my family of five with my kids ages 18, 15 and 12, was headed to Germany and Austria in 2019, I had a real sense of hesitation and dread when I thought about going to Dachau. There was no question that we would go and I steadied myself to let them absorb the memorial site on their own and to take it in and tour what they believed was important to them. 

What I noticed during the 2019 visit were the poplar trees lining the paths of the camp and flanking the barracks where the prisoners were kept. I found them ominous, like soldiers I was too afraid to walk past. Prisoners at Dachau drew the trees that covered up the barbed wire and hid what was going on from the Germans walking by. Trees were used to hang prisoners. 

Father Korbinian Aigner was imprisoned at Dachau for openly criticizing Hitler and the Nazi regime. During his internment, he planted and cultivated apple trees and introduced new varieties to the world. Trees that Father Korbinian cultivated are still planted today as a sign of hope and resistance. 

"The ideas of the Nazi movement strove towards a 'racially pure national body'. All 'elements' that 'weakened' it or which did not 'fit in' were to be removed. Such notions gave expression to a racism in which people were classified and treated as superior or inferior according to biological characteristics." 

2019 was during the first Trump administration when children were being put in cages and separated from their families at the border where Trump was building his “big beautiful wall”. Melania Trump wore her custom designed jacket for a best case scenario, tone deaf moment, that stated, “I don’t really care. Do U?” 

Touring the Dachau memorial, I couldn’t believe how the Trump administration was following the Nazi playbook. I found the similarities between Stephen Miller and Heinrich Himmler chilling. During the second Trump administration, they have bore down even harder on their Nazi strategy playbook. I decided to dust off the pictures I took from my 2019 visit to Dachau. 

Juan Nicolas, a U.S. citizen, a very sick 2 month-old baby with vomiting, dehydration, and respiratory distress was detained, along with his mother at the ICE Detention Center in Dilley, Texas. Journalist Lidia Terrazas and Representative Joaquin Castro are the only ones speaking up for Juan and sharing his story. Is Juan one of the violent criminals that President Trump is protecting Americans from? 

Propaganda and lies. Censoring and controlling the media. ProPublica and CNN published interviews of children detained at Dilley. The stories are horrendous. Why are none of the major news outlets covering Juan’s story? 

Illegal Writings in Germany and Publications written in Exile

"True-to-life descriptions of the camp could only appear in the German Reich in the underground and at great risk. Spreading illegal material and even speaking about such reports was severely punished. 

The newspapers and publications from exile reported in detail on the terror in the concentration camps."

I saw a post on TikTok about Juan with a call to action to call Dilley Detention Center and to call Congress. I called the ICE detention center in Dilley, Texas where children and families like Juan are sent, including Liam Ramos who was taken by ICE from his school and sent to Dilley along with his Father and released only due to national political pressure. Hundreds of children have been and are being detained at Dilley. When I called, I was referred to Core Civic, the operational organization behind the ICE detention center and then to the Residential Concern Line where I filed a report outlining my concerns for Juan and the children detained at the Dilley detention center. I received an email that they had received my report. The next day, the response to my report was from an entity called FSC Ethics,

Good morning Ms. Lester.

Thank you for report to CoreCivic concerning medical care for someone who is temporarily housed at our Dilley facility.  We understand your concern and appreciate you reaching out.  The facility is staffed with licensed and certified medical professionals, including pediatricians, who provide care, treatment and medication to those in our care and address any medical and dental concerns they may have, which is available 24 hours a day. 

While we cannot provide specific medical information to you based on medical privacy laws, I can share that our medical team has verified that the minor resident in question has received excellent care and is doing well. 

Medical Care

"The medical care of the prisoners was inadequate from the very beginning. The protective custody camp leader decided whether a prisoner was ill and allowed to visit the SS camp doctor. As a rule, the SS doctors did nothing to look after the ill and see that they recovered." 

The problem is that at the time whatever part of the ICE Industrial Complex was hitting send on their email full of propaganda and lies, Juan Nicolas had been sent to the Emergency room, diagnosed with a respiratory infection and then he and his Mother were deported to Mexico, left at the border with nothing. The government is lying. 

Dachau in Nazi Propaganda

The German newspapers impugned the imprisoned political opponents of the Nazi regime as "rabble rousers", "grumblers" and "work-shy", and described the Dachau concentration camp as a work and re-education camp, where prisoners were taught "discipline" and "work morale." 

Trees were planted at Dachau around the perimeter to hide the barbed wire fences from the Germans walking by. We are being lied to about what’s happening in ICE Detention Centers. Videos are being suppressed of what’s really happening in Minnesota. ICE agents are still there in full force. We are being lied to about Minnesota ICE detention centers where the detainees are not being allowed counsel and are being taken without due process. 

Alex Pretti, trying to protect a woman from ICE agents while she was peacefully protesting, was killed before America’s eyes- a dissenter, a protector, an ICU nurse at the VA Hospital. After his death and before any investigation, major news outlets started spouting the lies from DHS and Kristi Noem falsely accusing him of being a domestic terrorist, despite video evidence to the contrary. 

"The Nuremberg doctor , Delwin Katz, was in two-fold danger as Jew and communist. At first, he provided medical care for fellow ill and injured prisoners as official duty, in part also in secret. He was, however, soon assigned to heavy labor in the gravel pit and finally accused by the commandant, together with other fellow prisoners, of having buried a tin can with "atrocity reports" so as to then smuggle them out whenever the opportunity arose. Although no can was found, Delwin Katz was sent to detention in the bunker. He was murdered there on October 18, 1933. 

Arbeit macht frei is a German phrase on the gates of concentration camps that means, “work makes you free”. In RFK Jr.'s press conference about autism, he said people with autism “will never pay taxes, they’ll never hold a job, and they’ll never play baseball”. Eugenicists targeted poor, disabled and minority populations. Donald Trump became President of the United States after mocking a journalist with a disability on national television. 

In July 2025, President Trump signed an executive order, "Ending Crime and Disorder on American Streets," directing federal agencies to increase the use of long-term, involuntary, and forced institutionalization for individuals with mental health disabilities, substance use disorders, or those experiencing homelessness. The mental health act of 1963 put forth by President Kennedy was when deinstitutionalization started. Trump is unraveling protections for vulnerable Americans.

The Nazis didn’t like what they called the “modernization” of society that included the arts. Congress cut Corporation for Public Broadcasting funding which helps support over 1,500 community public radio and television stations across America. Trump has renamed the Kennedy Center the Trump Center and is closing it for two years for renovations. When James Talarico from Texas, who is running for the U.S. Senate, was recently a guest on The Colbert Show, CBS cowered to Trump’s threats and didn't air the interview. 

It’s trickled down to Nebraska. Governor Pillen is Trump’s mockingbird. Anyone who speaks against Pillen or doesn’t vote for him, he calls a slur that hints of eugenics. He’s building an ICE detention center in McCook, Nebraska. Pillen is putting Turning Point USA chapters in Nebraska schools, which smells of HJ (Hitlerjugend) and stinks way worse than his hog farms. Pillen is attacking the job posting by LPS for a LGBTQ+ student advocate position. Pillen is drastically cutting disability services for vulnerable Nebraskans to balance a budget shortfall that he created by cutting taxes for rich Nebraskans. 

Nie wieder

These aren’t simple nods to Nazi Germany. President Trump recently put up a banner of his face on the Department of Justice, a pathognomonic sign of fascism. 

As the rest of our family finished the end of the Dachau tour at the crematorium, my son, Andrew, and I stayed back by the trees. It would be too much to take in that day. He knew I had been to that part of the tour when I was there in 1989. 

“Mom, you don’t need to go? You’ve already paid your respects.”

Bear witness like the trees around the world to the atrocities that happened in Nazi Germany and the genocides in Gaza, Myanmar and South Sudan. Scream, “Never again,” to the Holocaust deniers. Speak up against the red pill radicalization of boys and young men and to the demonization of black and brown people and the LGBTQ+ community. Do not allow the extermination of science and disenfranchisement of expertise and the dismantling of the department of education. 

Do not fall for their propaganda. Do not allow yourself to be censored. Educate your children about the atrocities of Nazi Germany and show them how to speak up. Plant apple trees like Father Korbinian and raise good children. 

Heed the warning from the trees of Dachau.

Nie wieder

And the drum beats on …

 By Anna Swartzlander

While I was working in the psychiatric provider realm at the Nebraska Department of Corrections (NDCS), I learned more than just medicine and metrics. You cannot heal someone if you are not meeting their basic needs. A favorite mentor once told me, “There is not a pill for the anxiety that comes from not knowing where one is going to sleep at night.”

As I continue to practice as an Advanced Practice Registered Nurse (APRN), I see firsthand the impact of the mental health epidemic in America. I cannot help but be troubled by how medicine and healthcare contribute to the system of keeping poor people poor – and, I would even go so far as to say, keeping mentally unstable individuals – ill.

For instance, when an incarcerated individual at NDCS was thought to have suicidal thoughts, they were placed in a cell by themselves with nothing more than a strait jacket/blanket and a floor mat. Communication with loved ones, pens, paper and books had to be earned back by having less self-destructive ideations or behavior.

Of course, these policies are in place for a reason, but I personally can’t think of anything that would want to make me end my life more than being cut off from my loved ones … and books.

If you think about it, this practice is not that different than how we handle suicidal behavior outside of incarceration. If an individual is behaving or acting in a way in which self-harm becomes a safety concern, we lock them into psychiatric wards for “rehabilitation.” Electronics including phones are taken away, along with belts, shoestrings, perfumes, and anything else that may pose a threat. Showers are witnessed. A close monitoring system is set in motion. 

It is interesting to me that in an attempt for one to gain more independence over their life, their autonomy is stripped away. A stigma almost instantly develops between those that can live life happily without help (successful members of society!), and those who cannot (failures!).  

And although I understand policies are in place for a reason, and that suicide is not a subject to take lightly, I have long questioned: Is this system working? 

Statistics show that suicide rates have been increasing over the past several decades, and data shows that one of the most vulnerable and risky times for suicide attempts is in the first few weeks following discharge from a mental health facility.  

When an individual was placed on “suicidal watch” at NDCS, they were not allowed out of their cell for a specified amount of time, and/or until their risk level was reduced. As one of four psychiatric providers at an NDCS facility – which held over 1,000 individuals, including the department’s most mentally ill residents – I visited the suicide watch unit to complete daily assessments. Because I did not typically see individuals immediately prior to their cell placement, I cannot say if their mental health was improved by isolation on this unit. In some cases, I suspect it was.

However, in many cases, it was not. I saw so many grown men cry. I saw comatose behaviors daily. I witnessed manic exercise. I saw communication via feces on the walls. And, honestly, although unnerved and disturbed, I understood. These behaviors did not necessarily equate to insanity. Feces on the wall, after all, communicates just as well (or more effectively) as screaming at the top of one’s lungs.

It is getting harder to provide care in the American healthcare system. As an empathetic healthcare professional – someone who got into the field of nursing to help people, to care and provide aid, to minimize harm, and to increase quality of life – I realized too late that healthcare is unfortunately a business. 

Individualized creativity is essential to healthcare in general, and my time with NDCS taught me how correctional medicine is no different. It is critical to think outside the box, especially when policies and practices often limit therapeutic options, and even, sometimes, pens, paper and literature.

Faced with the dilemma of stabilizing mental wellbeing for those individuals on the suicide unit at NDCS, I began to research holistic ways to help prevent mental health crises. And one theme always stood out to me: Rhythm-centered music making (RMM), and how we can learn from other cultures and from history, by practicing simplistically and holistically.

RMM – the use of healing via rhythms or repetition – has ancient roots in Greece, Egypt, indigenous cultures and others, where drumming, chanting, dancing, and other rhythmic behaviors are used for emotional release.

Consider the Drum Circles and Healing Rituals in Africa in which simple drumming patterns and rhythms promote healing by providing a healthy, physical outlet for releasing built-up energy, allowing for overall stress reduction.

Or Sufi Whirling, a spiritual ritual practiced in Islamic cultures that includes rhythmic whirling that is thought to increase body-mind focus, self-regulation, positive-affect, unity and wholeness experience.

In India, Kathak Rhythmic Storytelling involves rhythmic footsteps, meaningful hand gestures (mudra) and emotional facial expressions to create a profound harmony between mind and body.

And in Brazil they practice Pregame Rituals/Rua de Fog with chanting and rhythmic jumping that increases emotional response and unity.

I’m sure some of these rituals sound familiar. Recently, there has been a resurgence of rhythm-related health methods in forms such as music therapy, heart rhythm meditation, yoga, drumming and many others. Almost everything that calms the mood involves some form of rhythm. Physical movement often involves some form of repetition or counting: rowing, swimming, dancing, music. 

These rhythmic behaviors have been shown to not only improve and regulate mood, but also to improve mobility, cardiopulmonary endurance, muscle strength, flexibility, balance, global cognitive function, and quality of life.

Repetitive motions are often associated with helping to calm, such as rocking a baby to sleep, or tapping one’s foot. Even the rhythm of breathing can aid in mood regulation. I constantly use a stress-reduction practice my children taught me from elementary school: four-squared breathing. It works like this: Inhale for four seconds, hold for four seconds, then exhale for four seconds, hold for four seconds. Repeat.

I wonder if I made time, as I did in my childhood, for jump roping, hula hooping, and making friendship bracelets, what effect this would have on my mental health? I remember pen-drumming being popular during my middle school years. Was this just a bunch of anxiety-driven pre-teens attempting to deal with life via desk-tapping?

Could these behaviors also help patients on suicide watch? Although they do not have access to a hula hoop, they do have their fingers and their brains. Could something as simple as tapping out a favorite beat with hands and feet help reduce the mental stress of captivity, loneliness and stigmatization?

I believe we would give suicidal individuals a better chance of recovery from mental health crises if we used rhythmic-centered methods instead of solitary confinement. Policies and procedures aside, imagine walking into a suicide watch unit that was full of music and meditation – versus cement walls and segregation. Imagine leaving the psychiatrist’s office with a prescription for a drum set instead of a lifetime supply of pharmaceuticals.

What can I say … After 20 years working in healthcare, I’m still a dreamer. I hope I’m not the only one.