Our Very Own Screamer
September 16, 2006
I had a lot of preconceived notions about what working in a psychiatric hospital would be like. The optimist in me thought it’d look like Girl, Interrupted. The pessimist was thinking more along the lines of Gothika. Luckily it turned out much more Girl, Interrupted than Gothika in appearance.
I thought it’d be full of locked halls and doors that had to be “buzzed” to allow access. Ya know… like a prison. And while every room that isn’t a patient room IS locked, there aren’t any buzzer doors. There are a few big, magnetically sealed doors that keep folks confined to certain areas. But it’s not very prison-like.
I was expecting a lot of thorazine shuffling. Not so much. Over-medicated patients, yes. But very few shufflers. I thought I’d always feel paranoid and always on guard. And while I know I probably SHOULD be on guard at all times, I’m not. I thought I’d be dragging people off to the padded room every day. We don’t have a padded room.
And every so often… I thought I’d heard a distant scream coming from some unknown part of the hospital. Ya know… like in the movies. There’s always a screamer. In the movies the staff just ignores the scream coming from the abyss while visitors and other patients look at each other in terror… wondering if they’re the next ones to undergo whatever torture the screamer is enduring. We’ve not really had a screamer.
Until today.
We’ve got our very own screamer now. A co-worker and I even jokingly talked about how the screaming was something we’d expected from day one but had been denied experiencing until today. Of course our screamer isn’t being tortured or electrocuted or any of the other things the movies would have you believe go on in psychiatric facilities. She just likes to scream.
I had to smile a little. I even laughed on several occassions. For one, it’s just soooo cliche. A random scream coming from the psych ward. And two… it was REALLY freaking the other patients out. HAHA. I know… I know. I shouldn’t laugh about that. But the screamer is on a hall of more acute patients. All that separates that hall from the more well-functioning patients is a set of those magnetic doors. And every so often you could hear a blood-curdling shriek come from behind them.
You should see the way the other patients look at each other every time she screams. And then they look at us. All we can do is smile and pretend we can’t hear it. I mean… what are we supposed to do? Look them in the eyes and say “oh don’t mind her… she’s just fucking nuts?” Can’t do it. So we have to smile (and try not to laugh) while going about our business. But I can’t not sneak off and laugh every so often.
It’s almost as funny as the look I get from patients when I snap a latex glove on and ask “ok… who’s gonna be first”…
Posted in Humor, Personal, Series, Work
September 22nd, 2006 at 7:25 pm
Red or Blue, it up to you but be warned, the Red tastes a little funny!
HA!
September 22nd, 2006 at 8:20 pm
I wish someone had told me that before I stuck it in that guy’s mouth…
September 22nd, 2006 at 8:37 pm
[...] All was quiet for a few days. No surprise screams that made me poop my pants. But then she got some bad news and things changed. [...]
September 26th, 2006 at 3:54 pm
[...] Yesterday I spent four hours trying to explain the same thing over and over to The Screamer. She never did get it. I spent ten minutes trying to wake one guy up. Don’t think that’s very long? Try it. Keep repeating someone else’s name in varying volumes and pitches for ten minutes. You’ll see how frustrating it is. [...]
October 7th, 2006 at 9:06 pm
[...] So far I’d dealt with poop and barf. I thought I’d done my fair share of fluid control. But no. It wasn’t over. The Screamer approached me and said, “I just pooped and it came out red like this armband.” She was touching the red allergy band that all patients wear. I guess I didn’t respond in time because she repeated it. “I just pooped and it came out red like this armband. Will you come look at it?” [...]