I keep getting told that it’s my fault that I hate my job because I didn’t take the initiative to make it what I want it to be like. I’m sorry, I cannot control that these girls throw their urine on me and try to spit on me and that they punch staff members in the face. I cannot change that, no matter how much initiative I show. The boys were bad, but I never want to work with girls again. I hate them, I hate the way they talk and treat each other. This is me officially giving up on adolescent girls.
A few days ago, my co-workers and I had a talk about how we need to better learn how to work together on the unit. Okay. That’s fine. You seem sort of genuine, but I’ve thought that before. They sort of asked me how I feel about them. I wish I could’ve said that I think they act and treat each other like the girls do and that I SEE YOU when you talk about me right in front of my face, but all I said was that “I have a lot of mental health issues that sort of impedes me from opening up to people.” One of them said, “Really?” Another said, “Oh yeah, she’s sad.” That comment made me want to become one of the girls and kick her in her face and fucking pull out all her hair, but all I said was nothing. I’m done trying to like this job and work with people who are completely incompetent and, despite being educated and working with those with severe mental illness, still use words like “crazy” and “retard” and don’t know common mental health diagnoses. I will never understand that.
I love Tennessee. I love that it’s always green and people are always nice and call you ma’am even though you’re only 23. I love when people say “y’all” and I love saying it and it not sounding terrible. I loved living in this house with some of the best people I’ve ever met. But now they’re gone and I’m still here, getting spit on and kicked at alone. I know I need to move on, but Tennessee is just so pretty and I wish I could be more normal.
Glad to know that just a few missed doses are all that stands between me and complete darkness.
Today I got so mad at work that I bought a plane ticket home for the weekend. I just need to sit in my house with my cats and figure out how I’m going to make it through until I find another job.
"
There are few things more humiliating, more soul-destroying and depressing, than the process of being institutionalized. And the worst part is your own collusion in the process. It doesn’t just happen to you. You allow it to happen to you. You partake. You adopt the mind-set of the place. You become docile, subservient, frightened, dull, unthinking, susceptible to the mysterious self-fulfilling power of the rule. You loathe the tone of your own voice as your mewl and cower to the dingbat shoving you your meds or taking away your pen. You are demeaned by the routine as you regulate your life by mealtimes, loitering in the hall at eight, twelve, and six. You change as you acquiesce to rudeness, becoming less, becoming small, a picker, a stealer, a scratching stray licking the hand that defeats it.
You do strange things. I tried for example, to make shoelaces out of toilet paper, so that I could walk around like a normal person instead of limping like a gangster because the tongues of my tennis shoes were curling absurdly to my toes. The laces tore, of course, but it was a way to pass the time, rolling the long strands of tissue between my fingers as tight and stringlike as they would go, and feeling, even though I failed to make the lashings tie or hold, the momentary elation of knowing that I could still exercise some some form of creativity.
"
—
Voluntary Madness, Norah Vincent
I think about this often. A few months ago, a staff member on my unit gave a patient a “theft” write-up for “stealing” gloves (staff left a box out unattended) to make shoe-strings. I’m beginning to think that treatment is a myth.
Vincent also writes about going to hug one of her fellow patients and that one of the nurses yells, “NO TOUCHING.” I do this on a daily basis (me - “PERSONAL SPACE PLEASE”) because that is my job right now, but I still believe that everyone can benefit from sympathy.
the-absolute-funniest-posts:
everyone: are you okay
everyone: you look tired
everyone: you look upset
everyone: you look confused
everyone: are you mad at me
everyone: what are you mad at
me: IT’S MY FAAAAAAAAACE
Follow this blog, you will love it on your dashboard
(via the-absolute-funniest-posts)
On Sunday during work (which, by the way, involved driving 3.5 hours to Nashville, 2 hours to Jackson, then 1.5 hours back to Memphis, then working on the unit for another 6 hours), I had an epiphany. I need to stop thinking about work in terms of, “When my supervisor comes back, things will be better” or “Once we are fully staffed, things will be better” or “Once this patient finishes her trauma narrative things will be better” or “When this person quits, things will be better” because, in all honesty, they won’t.
I’ve been realizing that this is just the way this work is. On rare occasions, noone will fight or try to hurt themselves and the staff will all be nice to each other and work together. But, most of the time, the girls are going to punch each other and cut themselves and destroy entire rooms of furniture. They won’t state their goals or go to group, and they will curse you out as soon as you redirect them. Most days, the staff won’t support each other and you will stay until midnight doing someone else’s work, and then have to come back at 6:30am. This is way it is, for a variety of reasons.
I need to stop thinking that things are going to be different if the facility suddenly realizes that their “behavior management” techniques are ridiculous or if they stop hiring staff that are starting their first job at 30. In all likelihood, these issues will not go away because the company isn’t going to change. My job, for however much longer I stay at it, will be stressful and difficult each day. I can only hope that, in the (hopefully near) future, I will have a job where I can help others in a manageable, professional, and fulfilling environment.
Until then, I will continue watching How I Met Your Mother with my roommates. We have Netflix on our TV now.
I think spending my days cutting nooses off of teenagers’ necks might be really starting to make me crazy.
