A Crazy Work Day

April 18, 2006

One thing I constantly have to remind myself at work is that the majority of the people I work with are sick. Some of them are just bored and need attention. But most of them really are mentally ill. I keep my cool by literally telling myself over and over again that they don’t always know what they’re doing and/or saying.

One patient hurled a tray of food across the room at me one day… and was hugging me and telling me how great I was a few days later. One accused me of sneaking into her room at night to give her injections in the neck (because, as she explained it, when she threw her legs over her head at night she’d lose 30 pounds instantly… which obviously means I was giving her injections of some kind, right). Another came walking into one of my rational emotive therapy groups stark naked. And yet another used her own fingers to make her rectum bleed so that she could get a rectal exam.

Needless to say… some folks are ill.

But today was another story. After spending several weeks working with our group of more functional patients, I moved over to “the other side” to spend some time with the more acute group. Normally there are a couple of really sick people over there… with a spattering of lower functioning, yet generally “ok” people. Not so at this point in time. Granted, I’ve only been working at the hospital since October. But I’ve never seen a group of so acutely ill patients all admitted at the same time before.

It was literally crazy today. Am I supposed to say “crazy”? Probably not.

And that’s just the problem. I caught myself thinking (and saying) that numerous times today. I know I’m supposed to remain objective and remind myself that they are ill. And normally, I have no problems doing that. But after one day with them, I started to lose that ability. Several verbal explosions, laughing/crying fits, and thought insertion episodes later I found myself sitting there… looking around the room… and wishing I was medicated myself just to be able to deal with it.

Since I know meds are out of the question I might just have to slip some Jack into my morning Mt Dew. Because you know what they say:

If you can’t beat them… join them!

Category Posted in Personal, Series, Work