I guess I'm not crazy.

Man. The psych ward is a trip. I have always thought that I was a tad crazy because I'm very emotional and well, crazy at times. But turns out, I'm pretty normal compared to what I have seen on this rotation.

I got to the floor at 7 am for report, and apparently all the nurses do report together. You go over every single patient because you need to know if a patient is a violence risk. So just to give you an idea, here are the best of the best:

#1 63 year old lady involuntarily admitted because she stopped taking her meds. Because of this, one day she was taking a shower and the room was getting really steamy and she feared that she wasn't going to be able to breathe, so in panic, she broke the window and jumped out and started running around the street and banging on cars. Neighbors called the police and she ran inside and got an antique Dutch sword and began trying to stab the cops. No one was hurt. Oh and later in rounds they found out that she tested positive for syphilis which may be the cause of her craziness because I guess it can spread to your brain or something.

#2- 33 year old male with schizophrenia and other disorders is admitted voluntarily because he is exhausted from fighting demons and other monsters on all the other planets he goes to. He will also only respond to being called Jesus and Joseph Smith because apparently, he is both. Don't even try to question it.

#3- (this one is really sad) 35 year old male was transferred from another hospital because when he heard that he was going to go have to go to a nursing home, he got out of control and put a nurse in the ICU with head injuries. However, his IQ is 63 because he almost drowned when he was 5 (hypoxic brain injury), then had a traumatic brain injury when he was 15 because he fell from a tree, and one other injury that I can't remember. I was fearful of him until I saw him in the corner, hunched over, rocking and shaking. He was such a sweet guy, soft spoken, and I did just want to hug him. Apparently he only gets violent when someone mentions a nursing home.

#4- Woman was involuntarily admitted because she came to the ER with 1st and 2nd degree burns on her face. Sadly, she did it to herself because the voices in her head convinced her to stick her face in a pot of boiling water.

#5- Man is admitted because he cut off part of his ear to try and stop the voices in his head.

#6- Young male withdrawing from heroin. Now this was an interesting experience. But apparently alcohol is the only substance that you can die from withdrawing. Heroin just sucks to withdraw from. And painful to watch.

I'll think of more later but this is good for now. I was on the closed ward for the whole time, which is the crazier side. (I hope I'm not offending anyone by using terms like this, but I don't know what else to call it) I sat in the group room the whole time and took it in. Every 15 minutes they check rooms to make sure no funny business is going on and they are completely white, a bar window, and a mattress on the ground. When a patient acts out, is combative, or won't be careful of their language, they get put in time out. This is to discipline them but to also not rile up the other patients.

The schedule for the day goes: Breakfast, Music Therapy, educational TV, lunch, pet therapy, recreational therapy, dinner, more TV or movies and then lights out. It was a pretty enjoyable day to be involved in the therapy stuff and to talk with the patients. Well, for the most part. The self proclaimed "Jesus/Joseph Smith" had a long talk with me. More like I was just being talked at. He explained a range of things to me that I apparently needed to know. "So here's the deal. I'm a G. You will be a G when I'm done telling you all my secrets because I think you are legit. First off, anytime you see a Hummer, Mercedes, Porsche around Salt Lake, I'm driving it. I own hundreds of cars."
Me: Oh really? What about an Astin Martin.
Him: Oh for sure girl. I also created NASA. And those pyramids in Egypt? Ya I own them. (Et cetera et cetera, everything in the world he owned apparently)

Then he went on to explain to me about religion which was the most confusing 5 minutes jumble I have ever heard. I tried to follow where he was going in the beginning but it wasn't long before I realized that he wasn't going anywhere and he wasn't going to make sense no matter how hard I tried. He kept a book with him that he jotted down all of his thoughts on. I took a peek and it was just more nonsensical stories and theories.

On the floor, the protocol is to not where any white because it reminds them of a psych ward and they start to go crazy. You also aren't suppose to wear makeup, pull your hair back, and always keep an arms length away from a patient. You also can never turn your back in case they attack you. It was kind of odd walking in and out of the room backwards but trying to make it seem like you were walking normally.

My clinical days at the Children's Center are about the same, except on Monday, we got to look at the kids charts. I decided to do my focus on this boy who has gorgeous curly brown hair who tends to have tantrums pretty often and is usually shaky. He just seems very unstable and I wanted to find out why. Turns out, his mother is in drug rehab and just got out of jail and his father is in jail for drugs. He was found in a stolen car at age 2 and tested positive for meth, cocaine, amphetamines, and other drugs in his hair. He was put with foster parents but they brought him to Children's Center because of aggression and sexual acting out. They are trying to rule out sexual abuse from his real parents. He has also voiced "I want to kill myself." After testing, they gave him a number of diagnoses like "Total Problems, Internalizing and Externalizing scores were in clinical range. Emotional Reactive, Sleep Problems, Attention Problems, Aggressive Behavior Syndromes, Borderline anxious/depressed and somatic complaints were in clinical range. Same with ADHD and Oppositional defiant problems. His little brother was separated from him because he has different foster parents and doesn't get to see him anymore. His main diagnosis is Adjust Disorder with Mixed Disturbance of Emotions and Conduct.

So essentially, it made sense why he was so unstable. His entire life is unstable. At four years old. I won't be continuing at CC but I wish I could know what will happen to these kids in their adult life. Will the therapeutic preschool really change their behaviors? After so much trauma at an early age, are they able to lead normal lives when they have never even seen 'normal' lifestyles? Makes ya think.