| I'm thinking again about making my experiences working in the mental hospital into a book. I think my target audience is basically the type of people who hang out here. So I hope to get some feed back, maybe get a few people to laugh or learn something, if that's ok with you guys! I just wanted to help people. That's what I believed at the time, but the truth is I wanted to use my degree in psychology and decide if I wanted to go to grad school. I wanted to know if clinical psychology was the right field for me. My part time job working with developmentally disabled adults was rewarding but it didn't pay the bills. And I wanted to get in where the real work of psychology was taking place. I started as a "patient tech trainee" with a group of other twenty somethings, some who had psychology degrees as well. In reality we were nursing assistants, and our training lasted one month. During the last week of training we each spent a half day on a unit. I remember feeling incredibly nervous and not knowing if I was right for the job. Something I felt every single day for the nine months I worked there. "Don't say that name! Don't say that name!" The other three nursing staff stared at me from their places around the table. "What?" "You are calling her back. Great, now she's coming back." I looked around in disbelief. "Never say a past patient's name. It just means they will be back soon." Everyone groaned and sighed. I was embarrassed and stunned. These college educated people really believed saying someone's name would cause them to get admitted again? Is this a joke? Three days later in the pre-shift meeting we found out yes indeed, Dolores was coming back that day. "oh god! See? We told you!" "That's ok, it takes a while to learn everything here." Dolores was wheeled in and immediately started complaining about how much she hated us, the hospital, and the other patients. I hated having her on the unit. She took up so much of our time, and was rude and hateful. She was elderly, wore diapers, had a colostomy bag, a surgical wound, dentures, and had to be pushed in a wheel chair due to hip problems. "That's nothing. You really need to toughen up." was my head nurse's advice to me the first time I had to help change her colostomy bag. I ended up in the hallway trying to over come the urge vomit. "I am setting up a new country in Africa! The government is helping me." "Really Dolores?" I was laughing to myself thinking of this very sick elderly white woman as president of an African country. "Yes and you aren't allowed." I smiled to Rose the RN as we got Dolores into her wheel chair from the bed. "and why is that?" I asked her. "we don't allow immoral people in my country. You know, we don't allow lesbians!" I almost broke out laughing. I was walking a fine line. There was no point in arguing with a patient about their delusions, but I just had to know where she came up with this. "You know I have a boyfriend?" "You are having an affair with Claire. She's not allowed either." "Who is Claire?" "She's head nurse on the night shift" Rose said smiling. Do I look like a lesbian? What the hell? Sure she's psychotic but this has to be based on something right? "Delores, I've never met Claire." "you aren't allowed in my country." Twenty years ago, smoking was allowed on hospital grounds. Our job as techs was to take the patients out twice during our 8 hour shift for a fifteen minute smoke/exercise break. Dolores had a hacking cough. Sometimes she coughed so hard her dentures started to fall out. Still we had to wheel her downstairs with the rest of the smokers so she could get her nicotine fix. Hunched over in her wheel chair, barely able to light the cigarette on her own, she would puff on her skinny long cigarettes, which seemed to provide no pleasure or relief from her constant state of contempt and unhappiness. I would hate to work in a mental health facility where smoking was banned as many are now. As it was, when patients were admitted, they had to meet with the treatment team first to be given permission to go outside. If someone came in on a Friday or the weekend, they were stuck inside until Monday when the team of nurses, doctors, nutritionists, social workers, and psychologists spent at least an hour reviewing the intake, the chart, and the history of the patient to determine of they were safe enough to go outside. In the interim, the chain smokers had to wear nicotine patches which barely took the edge off their cravings. | |||
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