The Staff, Part 3: Perky Nurse

In an effort to write shorter posts, I'll cover the Nurses one at a time. No need to overwhelm you with text, my gentle readers. ("TLDR" is a valid concern.)

What I said earlier in the entry on the Therapists about the staff always sporting a colorful wardrobe was particularly true for the Nurses. Scrubs come in an absurd variety of colors, so a cheerful selection is not hard to come by. All the Nurses tended to wear cheerful or at least pleasing colors. ...And then there was Perky Nurse.

Perky Nurse was an explosion of color and cheer. I don't think there are even names for some of the shades of pink she would wear.

Short, spiky hair. Wild earrings. And pink scrubs.

It wasn't just the wardrobe that made me deem her "Perky Nurse." She simply was... perky. For being a Nurse in a psychiatric ward full of somber faces and snot-nosed tears, she was somehow all smiles, and they weren't even the kind of forced, vapid smiles that Therapist Verdigris had. Perky Nurse's smiles were all-natural, and intense. I could always tell when she was working a shift because I could hear her sunny-toned voice from anywhere on the unit. "Boisterous" is the word, I think. She greeted each patient boisterously, despite the fact that it was 8:00AM and no one should be "boisterous" before nine or ten o'clock.

She was a one-woman platoon against the grim and gloomy atmosphere of the ward. She would fill the void with her gaiety and habromania entirely on her own, and was darn determined to do it.

She cared for her patients like they were her children, full of maternal and absolutely unconditional love. It didn't matter if you were so comatose that you were staring right through her. She still had a smile for you and would make your bed.

That's right. She would make her patients' beds for them.

One day, when she was assigned as my Nurse for the morning shift, I returned to my room to catch her mid-fold as she made my bed. I'd seen her do this for my roommate and was baffled by the behavior. It certainly isn't a nurse's job to make the patients' beds, and the ward was grossly understaffed as it was. So I asked her: why?

"I want you all to feel cared for," she said, fluffing my bed's meager pillow. Then she looked at me with a giant smile and said, "I'm the Bed Fairy!"

I wish I was kidding. Seriously. You can't make this stuff up.

By CSA Images/Snapstock at Getty Images.

So -- thank you, Bed Fairy, for making me feel cared for during my stay. I hope you have many victories in your war against Sadness.

That much pink in a single outfit is completely unnecessary, though.


P.S. I forgot to add -- after that particular bed-making incident, Perky Nurse declared that my lone pillow was the saddest pillow she'd ever seen.

"It looks like it's been run over by a truck!" she declared, and promptly fetched me a second pillow to make up for my initial pillow's failings.

I didn't have to be jealous anymore of my roommate's ownership of a second pillow. I had my own secunda pillow, thanks to the Bed Fairy.

The Big Pink Plastic Water Mugs

I hadn't planned on saying anything about the big pink plastic water mugs, being so insignificant in my overall experience at Ward 3A, but when an idle Google search yielded the exact model of mug used by the hospital, I knew I must share them with you, my gentle readers.

The Thermo Insulated Travel Mug from China Wholesale Town.

Just imagine the mugs in a strange, pinkish-gray color, like if you took a pink shirt and washed it a million times over the course of twenty years, and that's the patient water mug.

About the best example of that pink I can find is this:

Pretty hideous, right? Why pink, of all colors? Blue or gray would make so much more sense. I guess pink was cheaper? I wouldn't be surprised if the hospital buys these mugs in bulk from that very website. With so many patients coming in and out every week, they'd have to buy them wholesale to keep cost down.

Every patient is allowed one of these standard-issue, over-sized mugs for water (or ice water, if you muster up the courage to ask one of the Nurses or Therapists for ice). But the mug is not simply given to you upon your admission. Oh no. You have to ask for the mug, hence why I never got one. I'm incapable of asking people for things out of an irrational fear of being an imposition or inconvenience to others. I just stuck with my Diet Coke bottles.

So I never got a giant pink plastic mug, but I liked looking at everyone else's mugs, because in getting a mug you were required to write your name and room number on the mug with a carefully guarded Sharpie brought out for that purpose and that purpose only. Watching someone sip on their water through the huge straw, I was able to see the extremely personal detail that is how a patient writes his or her name.

Patient L's name was done in a large, gangly scrawl, the "L" looping wildly with reckless abandon. Patient S's name was a delicate cursive, slightly slanted upwards toward the end. Patient Na's name was in clear, direct block print, unmistakably legible. On Patient K's mug, the tittle of the lone "i" was replaced by a heart.

In an environment filled with identical hospital gowns and impersonal identification wristbands, it was nice to see a little self-expression and individuality. In those moments, I could believe that these patients were real people.

Those mugs were damn ugly, though.

The Staff, Part 2: My Doctor

 From Getty Images. Photo by Val Loh.

What do I see? 

I see a bat.

Why? 

Because my Doctor is a goddamn vampire, that's why.

I'm pretty sure that My Doctor at Ward 3A was a vampire.

Besides a general air of creepiness and a piercing stare that unnerved me, I never saw him during the day.

But wait, Patient H, you might say. What if he just has a private practice during the day, like a normal psychiatrist, and just does his hospital work during the evenings?

"Well," I say to you, gentle reader, "That rationale isn't nearly as interesting. So let's go with the vampire thing."

While a patient's Nurse and Therapist varies from shift to shift, a patient's Doctor is an invariable factor. You only see your Doctor once a day, so shifts aren't an issue. You have one Doctor for your whole stay. Because of that, I can only speak knowledgeably about one Doctor -- mine, because he was all that I was able to observe.

The Doctors of the ward are creatures of mystery and autonomy. They waltz in whenever they want, completely violating the rest of the staff's attempts at maintaining a reliable schedule, and pull their patients aside one by one to suck their blood to talk privately in one of the tiny offices.

Tiny offices that never had any tissues. Ever.

That makes no sense to me. A psychiatrist requires only three items to practice their craft. They require a pen, something to write on, and tissues. While crying is an upsetting act in and of itself, I was always frustrated by my own tears, on top of all the other emotions experienced, because there was nothing with which to staunch the tears and other facial leakage. My Doctor would usually reach out to shake my hand after every session, but once I had to beg off because of -- as I actually said to him -- "snotty hands." That was embarrassing. (He did apologize for the lack of tissues, though. At least he seemed to realize that it was an unacceptable absence of necessities.)

Creatures of mystery, autonomy, and power. It doesn't matter what great progress you've made with any of your Therapists or Nurses. It's your Doctor that holds the key to your release or continued confinement. Only when The Doctor sees you as fit to leave do you get to leave. Therefore it's important to make a sane impression whenever your Doctor pulls you aside to chat. (Making a sane impression -- it's like making a good impression, just more urgently important.) I always made sure I was clean, decently dressed, politely alert, and calm. It didn't matter if I'd been crying only minutes before. If the Doctor showed up, I was all polite smiles and reasonable responses. Yep, there'd be no screaming tantrums or hysterical sobs from me! You might get that from other patients, but not little ol' me.

I am a Reasonable, Cooperative, Polite, and Generally All-Around Well-Behaved Patient, I tried to say in everything I did. I shouldn't be here. Don't you think I shouldn't be here? I should go home now.

Of course I tried to behave in a similar fashion for all the Nurses and Therapists, but it was more important with The Doctor. There were more consequences than just social niceties with The Doctor. You be nice to the Nurses and Therapists because you should be nice to everyone on principle. (And if anyone deserves a little pleasantness, it's them.) You be nice to The Doctor because there's an agenda.

But, as you might know, vampires have a heightened sensitivity to these things.

I'd been hoping to go home before the weekend. It was Friday and I was so ready to be discharged. (I had a birthday coming up the following week. I didn't want to spend my birthday in a loony bin.) I waited all day for my Doctor to show up so I could do my song and dance of reasonableness for him. I waited. And waited. And waited. I asked various Therapists when he might come in. They shrugged. I asked various Nurses when he might come in. They just rolled their eyes. I waited and waited in an ever-increasing fervor of need to show how goddamn sane I was (which probably wasn't very sane, now that I think about it). The Nurses and Therapists were all on my side by now. They were rooting for me, the good patient. I just had to convince The Doctor, and I was practically bursting with my need to do so.

He didn't show up until after 7:00 pm. Because he's a vampire.

Or because he has a private practice during the day. Whichever. I'm still voting for vampire theory.

"You look well," he finally said after he moseyed on in, careless of the anxiety I'd felt in waiting for him all day. Then added, "But, of course, you could be acting."

Damn sneaky vampires.

(What makes it particularly funny is that I was a theatre major in college. Acting? Who, me?)

But I wasn't acting! I really am a reasonable, cooperative, polite, and generally all-around well-behaved person. Even in real life, when I'm a person rather than a patient. It wasn't acting. It was... emphasis.

Needless to say, I didn't get out of the hospital before the weekend.

Because of the vampire.

From the Petrified Collection at Getty Images.

Do you see the vampire in this picture?

No, of course you don't.

Because vampires can become invisible. Duh.

The Staff, Part 1: The Therapists

There were six Therapists regularly scheduled in Ward 3A: Therapist Hard Stare, Therapist Chipmunk, Therapist Verdigris, Therapist Congolais, Therapist Barbie, and Therapist Hawaiian Shirt. I think I've only mentioned the first three so far, but I've had interactions with them all.

Therapists in the ward are different from The Doctors. For every shift, you were assigned a different Nurse and Therapist, but one's Doctor stayed the same from day to day. You meet with your Doctor once every day at an unpredictable time, usually for about a half-hour, and The Doctor prescribes meds. Therapists help the Nurses, lead group sessions, and have one-on-one talks with the patients (when they're not too busy, which was more often than not). Therapists, here, are for "working through your issues." The Doctors are for meds and wheedling out permission for discharge. The Doctors are more like what you'd find in a therapist or psychologist or psychiatrist outside a hospital; in fact, most of The Doctors actually had their own private practices outside the hospital, hence the general wonky nature of their schedules. The Therapists are creatures found only in an environment like this, since their primary job is to lead group sessions, and there are only a few specific places in this world that have the torture that is group therapy.

Let me say a few words about each of The Therapists on 3A.


Therapist Hard Stare

Cropped from a Scott Cunningham

photo at Getty Images

I'll always associate Therapist Hard Stare with the need to watch Patient X, as it always seemed to be Therapist Hard Stare who was saddled with that job, mostly because he was the only Therapist tough enough to exert even an ounce of control over Patient X's antics. (He was the one who would say things like "Down, boy!")

He tended to run loud group sessions, as he brought out a noticeable argumentativeness in the patients, and he wasn't above raising his voice to try to regain control. Dealing with psych patients is sort of like dealing with children, so I'd say his "parenting" method was exerting control through displays of power. He'd try to reason with the patients, as all the Therapists would try to do, but he'd have a stronger voice as he did it.

Even though it's hard for The Therapists to spend much one-on-one time with the patients because of the ward being so greatly understaffed, Therapist Hard Stare still often found some time to seek me out, as he noticed (and at least once remarked upon the fact) that I wasn't one to speak readily during group sessions. I'm just not... good at that sort of thing. Talk about how I'm feeling, I mean. Especially in front of a group.

Whenever he would talk to me outside of group sessions, he always emphasized the importance of working on communication skills -- emotional communication, which is something I've come to realize that I do need to work on. I can communicate effectively in normal situations, but ask me to talk about my feelings and I suddenly lose all my words. I appreciated that he would never use his Control Voice on me, but then again I don't think he needed to. Talking too much or arguing with him wasn't my problem. Saying anything at all, that was my problem. He would soften around me, trying to coax me into at least trying to say how I felt, but I never failed to be intimidated by the intensity of his eyes; when he looked at you, he really looked at you. Hence the moniker I've assigned to him.

He's also the Therapist who said on the Day of the Great Understaffing, "I'm not paid to do two people's jobs." See Therapist Congolais (below) for the exact opposite of that mentality.


Therapist Chipmunk

From Chip and Dale Online. Seriously.

Therapist Chipmunk once told me that she specialized in art therapy. Then why did we never have any art therpy, huh? I don't know. Whatever. Anyway, Therapist Chipmunk typically had the mid-morning shift, so she always ran Education Groups. Therefore, as a Therapist, she didn't have to lead a discussion. She just had to deliver an hour-long monologue, assisted by writing nearly everything she said on the whiteboard in the kitchen area. The day we talked about Affirmations, she even encouraged us to take notes. (I indeed took notes, but not on affirmations.) All in all, she bugged the crap out of me. Perhaps I wouldn't think of her so unkindly if she hadn't woken me up from a nap that one time I skipped her precious Education Group, but I take my sleep very seriously. Deprive me of sleep, and you are dead to me.

Why do I call her Therapist Chipmunk, you ask? ...Well. She looked like a chipmunk. Plain and simple.


Therapist Verdigris

By jennyfdowning at Getty Images

I call her "Therapist Verdigris" because, for at least three days, I was sure that her name was "Patina". Seriously. (It's not actually "Patina".) She would wear funky jewelry, chic glasses, men's shoes, and a pleasant but slightly vacant smile. The vapidness of the smile probably arises from trying to be pleasant to absolutely everyone all of the time. (And therefore she can't keep control of a group session the way Therapist Hard Stare can.) She was very nice, though. While I never had a one-on-one therapy-esque talk with her, she always said hello to me when we crossed paths and she never had to ask me what my name was. She always knew.

I'll always remember her specifically for the time when Patient X took his pants off in the TV room. When I told her about it, all she did was lose that pasted-on smile for a moment and sigh, "Again?"


Therapist Congolais

From the Wiki page about

the Democratic Republic of the Congo

Therapist Congolais (Debout Congolais!) was my favorite of all the Therapists, not because he did anything specific, but because days were made more bearable by his genuine pleasantness. That, and I loved listening to his accent. It was so soothing. Comforting. He was always so sincerely kind to every patient, even if a patient was being Difficult that day (or every day). He once spent most of a morning Community Meeting giving a speech about how the staff was there to "serve" all of us, which I thought was weird at the time. It took me a while to understand that that was honestly how he felt about his job, that he was there to serve us. He was so devoted to that sense of service that when, on the Day of the Great Understaffing, he found out that we hadn't had a Process Group that afternoon, he immediately held one the moment his shift started -- at 7:00 pm (some three-to-four hours late).

He, more than any other Therapist, made an effort to have one-on-one talks with the patients outside of group sessions. He sought me out specifically at least three times, usually to talk about self-esteem. He would give me assignments to do (making lists, writing journal entries, etc.) and honestly wanted me to give him the finished product. Patient L would give him her journal to read every time he came in, and, bless him, he'd read all of it and then talk to her about it.

Unfortunately for me and the rest of the patients, he had to leave the hospital about half-way through my stay because he was going to start working on his PhD full-time at George Mason University. We all wished him good luck, but were sorry to see him go. 


Therapist Barbie

She can only be described through this picture:

This is actually an (altered by me) advertisement for CEO Barbie,

but that's as close to psychology as Barbie has ever come in her career choices.

Seriously. She looked like a Barbie doll.

She was also kind of a bitch. Just sayin'.


Therapist Hawaiian Shirt

Cropped from a George Diebold photo at Getty Images.

I only met Therapist Hawaiian Shirt once, and that was at my very first Process Group, but I am assured that, yes, he does wear Hawaiian shirts every day. The particular shirt I saw was a black background with large orange tropical flowers on it. When asked why he wore Hawaiian shirts, he replied that Therapists were required to wear collared shirts, and these were the most comfortable collared shirts he could find. Fair enough.

(I eventually noticed that all the staff, both Therapists and Nurses, would always dress in bright, cheerful colors, so a Hawaiian shirt was not all that far-fetched. I'm not sure if that dress code is supposed to cheer up the patients or what, but that much visual stimulation was a little too much to take at eight o'clock in the morning.)

He was very Freudian in his approach to group therapy, always encouraging patients to seek what happened in their childhood that might have led them to their current mental state. "Everything comes from something," he would say. I'd thought that particular outlook went out of style with Freud, but he was proof to the contrary. It wasn't exactly a way to ease me into the world of group therapy, being forced to delve into the untapped pains of my childhood in front of a group of strangers, but he made me feel as if the delving were actually productive. It made me cry, after all. And two other female patients cried with me out of sympathy. He nodded a lot, urging me on, then told me afterward that I was already finding some real issues to work on, so good for me! (Maybe that sentence calls for a "?" instead of a "!"...)

I never had another Process Meeting that intense. Some tears in others, yes, but not with that amount of emotional anguish. I'm not sure how he got me to talk that much in the first place. Something about the way he guided you with questions, bringing the thoughts out piece by piece. It was effective at any rate.


So that's it. The A-Team. Trained mental health professionals, there to "serve" us.

That's all. Goodnight.

Cast of Characters, Part 3: Patient F and the Coke Machine

Other than the unit common area, the primary gathering place of the ward was the kitchen area. It's not only where we eat, but also where we meet for Education Groups (see this post for more on those) because of the presence of a whiteboard on which to write the oh-so-useful tidbits offered in that daily group. The kitchen area also serves as a nice quiet place in the times between meals and groups when you're trying to avoid your roommate, the staff, or even the other patients. When you just want a bit of quiet.

There are three long, rectangular tables that hold about ten chairs each, a bunch of locked cabinets that hold art supplies (except the one unlocked drawer that has construction paper and markers), the drawer of extra condiments, the whiteboard which occasionally sports anonymous messages from the patients, and... the Coke machine.

The type of machine we had. Who knew it'd cause such drama.

This example is from At Your Service vending.

I didn't pay much attention to the Coke machine since I believe that Diet Coke is the elixir of life, but the machine only dispensed caffeine-free Diet Coke and that's just unacceptable. Also, everything was $1.50 and it's not like I was carrying my wallet with me on the ward. But having a Coke machine adds a certain amount of normalcy to the situation. Yes, we might be wearing hospital gowns and taking fistful of pills, wandering aimlessly around the nurses' station in endless laps, but at least there are Coca-Cola products available. But the machine was really more for visitors and staff than the patients.

Patient F was undeterred by this generalization about the machine's purpose. Now, Patient F was a source of some interest for me, if not great irritation. For one, when he bothered to go to groups, which wasn't often, he was one of the mysterious patients who refused to say why he was there, leaving me to just wonder what his problems were. He would only say either that he "just wasn't supposed to be here," or he'd say something along the lines of "I must have said something wrong down in the ER." When pressed as to what he said in the ER, he'd just say that he'd rather not repeat it. And that was the end of it. Not a lot to go on, but enough for my imagination to wander. My favorite of my ridiculous theories was that he drank an entire bottle of Ranch dressing that was probably expired and the ER staff assumed it was an attempted suicide via buttermilk overdose.

But back to the Coke machine. Patient F was the primary patron of that Coke machine. After he'd used all his own money on Fanta (if he'd even had any money to begin with), he would start asking staff and other patients for spare change so he could get another taste of that sugary orange goodness. Somehow he got enough money at least twice, for twice he disrupted Education Group with the chikchikchikCLINK, chikchikchikCLINK of dropped coins -- coin after coin after coin -- into the machine. The disruption infuriated Therapist Chipmunk. Both times she asked him to leave, so he would press the button to get back what coins he'd already put in (clangclangclangclang!), then go wait outside the kitchen area until group was over.

The first time he asked me for change, I just shrugged it off and told him, "I got nothin', dude." (For some reason he struck me as a "dude.") But the panhandling was a daily occurrence, and he asked everyone for change, staff and patients -- even the patients who were practically comatose. What was he expecting from them? They'd snap out of their stupor and dig through their pockets for him? Also, what patient on a psych ward is carrying money on them anyway? It's not like there's much of a use for it.

Then, one day, the Coke machine broke.

It's like Patient F couldn't handle the loss. He kept trying to use it, despite the OUT OF ORDR that would flash across the tiny display (yes, for some reason there was no E, it indeed said ORDR because the display was too small for five letters). Like, if he just ignored it, the machine might work anyway. To fight his denial, Patient L and I made a big "OUT OF ORDER" sign out of construction paper and put it up on the machine with tape requested from the nurses' station.

(Unfortunately Patient X tore the sign down with his inexplicable, silent focus. Patient L yelled and screamed at him but it made no difference. Either he didn't understand her because he doesn't speak English, or he just wasn't in a mental place that allowed him to notice others. Patient X just calmly crumpled up the paper and threw it in the garbage as the staff came running. Patient L tried making another sign, but Patient X just tore it down again within an hour. But that's beside the point.)

When Patient F finally came to terms with the loss of the Coke machine, he changed his tactics. He noticed that I drank Diet Coke, which my parents brought for me whenever they visited. He started asking if I would give him any Diet Coke. Since I only ever had one bottle at a time, I of course told him "no." Tch. Not that I would ever give him any my precious Diet Coke. It's the elixir of life, for chrissake. I'm not sharing.

But my negative responses didn't stop him from asking me every day, whether or not I even had a Diet Coke in sight. He'd focused his sights on me as a potential source of carbonated beverages, and he wasn't going to give up easily.

It was when he asked me if I would give him a Diet Coke, while I was on the phone, that I snapped.

"Dude," I enunciated, as if I could express in one word all my exasperation with his rudeness and futile doggedness. "No. I don't have Diet Coke for you. I will never have Diet Coke for you. I'm on the phone. Leave me alone."

He never asked me again.

Patient F still asked other patients for things, though. As I mentioned in the previous post, he was the master of "Are you gonna eat that?", and was a post-meal scavenger of the tray cart. Watching him pick at someone else's discarded and undoubtedly cold fries was a little disturbing, though not as disturbing as when he'd come into the kitchen area and raid the condiment drawer. He would eat the little packets of apple jelly and Ranch dressing. Just open them up and squeeze them right into his mouth. The Ranch packets he'd do three at a time. I gagged a little every time I saw him do it. Grrroooossssssssssss. Gross, gross. (It was the sucking down Ranch packets that made me imagine him going to the ER for a buttermilk overdose.)

Combine the panhandling with the scavenging and the fact that he never seemed to shower (seriously, Patient L called him "Mr. Stinky"), and it's hard not to come to the conclusion that maybe Patient F was homeless. Homeless patients aren't entirely unheard of. Patient Ji admitted outright that he was currently homeless, and I'd be shocked if Patient Monsieur LeRoi wasn't homeless.

Anyway, after the Ranch packet incidents -- yes, plural -- it was hard to get the thought of Patient F being homeless out of my mind. Scraggly beard, constantly begging, digging through discarded food, smelling bad. While those certainly aren't the core issues of being homeless, they tend to be symptoms. Maybe the thought of him being homeless should have made me think of him with a little more kindness and compassion... but no. I don't share my Diet Coke with anyone. And being constantly bugged for stuff is annoying.

The only time my homeless theory came into question was when he got into an argument with Therapist Hard Stare during breakfast one day. Therapist Hard Stare must have said something about Patient F needing to shower more often, and Patient F flipped out. For the most part, his outrage was expressed unintelligibly, though I did catch him claiming to be more educated than Therapist Hard Stare, so what did he know? That was just hilarious to me. Patient L and I had to stifle our laughter in our paper napkins.

Unfortunately, Therapist Hard Stare made the mistake of touching Patient F on the arm to try to lead him out of the kitchen so that, if he was going to make a scene, it wasn't going to be while the rest of the patients were trying to eat. That brought on new outrage and shouted accusations of assault. (Because any sort of unwanted physical contact, no matter how minor or maybe even unintentional, equals assault.) The "more educated than you" comment made me question my homeless theory, but the general unpleasantness of the fit that he threw (and so early in the morning) -- it solidified my dislike of him. Even intensified it.

Patient F was still there when I was discharged. And I never got to see the Coke machine fixed. It's probably still broken even now, if that one broken phone is any indication of the state of hospital maintenance.

I can't see a bottle of Fanta now without feeling inexplicably irritated. Ugh.

Orange, sugary goodness.

From the official Fanta website.

Cold Eggs, Coveted Coffee, Etc. (a.k.a. Meal Time)

 

What fuels normal people.

(Image from Corbis.)

 

What fuels... us.

(Image from Getty Images, by Steven Errico.)

In the hospital ward, we get three square meals a day, even if they're slightly rounded squares. Roughly, at 8:00am, 12:30pm, and 5:15pm, the big cart is wheeled through the airlocks and into our domain. Every time it arrives, a herd of patients forms around it, lying in wait until the cart is unlocked and they can fall upon it like ravenous wolves. ...No, that's not actually a very accurate description. While the circling, waiting, and falling-upon is all true, it's all done in a shuffling sort of slow-motion. It's more like a swarm of shambling zombies than a pack of wolves. Even the smaller 9:00pm snack cart gets this intense amount of anticipation and attention. Food is important in the ward, not because of its nutrition value (because there is none to this food), or even just the need to eat for survival; it's that meal times make structure.

While several things mark the schedule of each day written on the big whiteboard, each assigned to their specific time, it's the meals that give order to the day. Sometimes groups or activities aren't held due to under-staffing, and sometimes you don't get a visitor during visiting hours, but you will always get a meal at the designated times. I hate to say that they're the highlights of the day, but... well. Sometimes you get cookies for dessert.

What surprised me about the hospital meals is that you actually order your food. I assumed that you were just given whatever and you ate whatever was given to you, dammit. Not so. Every morning, each patient is given a menu for the following day's meals. (Each menu is marked by a sticker with a patient's name so that there's no confusion in the kitchen.) You take your menu and your little pencil, handed out for this exact purpose, and circle what it is you want. If you don't turn in a menu or just don't circle something, you get whatever was first on the menu for breakfast, hamburgers for lunch, and chicken tenders for dinner. That's the way it works.

Quite frankly, it's sometimes the only real choice any of the patients are given.

We may not be masters of when we get to leave the hospital, or masters of what we do that day, or masters of how we feel, thanks to medication changes, but, god dammit, we do get to choose what we eat (out of a few options, that is -- there are limits to everything).

Sadly, the eggs at breakfast are always cold. I learned quickly not to order eggs. The cheese pizza is great, though. (Or as great as anything made in a hospital cafeteria can be.) Very cheesy.

While this isn't my favorite picture of hospital food from Getty Images,

I had to post it because that tray cover is exactly the type used by this hospital,

except ours were blue instead of green.

(Photo by Stewart Cohen.)

As if we're all elementary school children in the cafeteria, we sit around in the kitchen area of the ward and swap food with each other. Desserts are traded for side dishes, or sometimes just given away out of kindness for our fellow man (or disinterest or disgust with the food). Spare ketchup and salad dressing packets are begged for. Coffee is the most precious commodity of all. Patient G in particular would beg for others' coffees. It was possible to order more than one of anything in particular by writing a "x 2" next to the item on the menu, but they'll never give you more than two. Patient D always ordered two coffees and was very protective of them, despite Patient G's pleading. Patient G would drink his two coffees and then always beg other patients' for more. Eventually some of the other patients started ordering extra coffee just to give to Patient G and shut him up. (Not that requests for more of anything were certain to be granted) By around Day 4 of my stay, I stopped drinking my own coffee and just gave it to Patient G. Not only did it shut him up, but then I got to feel like a saint for a little while.

Trading food amongst ourselves is acceptable behavior. It's not creepy or anything. The creepy behavior always came during the brief in-between time after everyone had finished eating and before the cart (with all the empty trays) was taken away. During that window of time, there were scavengers. Patient G would go searching for coffees he had somehow missed, peeking into every Styrofoam cup in the cart, and Patient F would grab any uneaten thing he could find, either squirreling it away or shoving it into his mouth right then.

Just as Patient G begged for coffee, Patient F begged for anything. He was the master of "Are you going to eat that?" Always preying on the weak-willed patients who didn't know how to shake him off; they'd usually just give him something to make him go away, like throwing a bone at a dog and running away while it's distracted. I always wondered why the nurses and therapists didn't stop the creepy scavenging of the tray cart, but I guess creepy-but-basically-harmless behavior isn't high on the list of priorities for an understaffed nurse or therapist. They're busy enough trying to keep Patient X from taking his pants off.

A great discovery came from Patient L late in my stay. I probably would have abused it if I'd known about it sooner. She discovered that if you wrote "please" or "thank you" next to any request on the menu (like for "x 3" cookies, for example), you were more likely to get them. A shocking idea, I know. Usually requests for multiple items were ignored, and, even when they were granted, they never gave more than two of anything. But Patient L discovered that the cafeteria workers' hearts could be softened by a kind word and a smiley face, and that got her three cookies.

They were pretty good cookies, too. The eggs were cold, the salads were just lettuce, and the jello was inexplicably lumpy, but at least the cookies were good.

So eat up.

Yum.
Getty Images, by PhotoAlto/Milena Boniek 

Cast of Characters, Part 2: The Perv

From Getty Images, by Tristan Paviot.

Perhaps my favorite patient of the whole motley crew was a young Hispanic male who was present in the ward before my admittance and remained past my discharge (i.e. he had issues that kept him there past the average five days). We'll call him Patient X.

He spoke only Spanish. It's hard enough trying to communicate with psychiatric patients in the same language; add a language barrier on top of that and it's next to impossible to convey even the simplest idea. The staff really struggled to treat him. There was occasionally an interpreter for Patient X, but not always. With or without an interpreter, he had to be watched by a staff member at all times.

Why, you ask? Well. Patient X was a pervert.

He would come into female patients' rooms while they were changing and give inappropriate hugs. Physical contact between patients isn't allowed anyway; a lingering hug with a hand drifting toward a boob is definitely not allowed. Thankfully, outrage is an emotion easily conveyed across all languages. Patient L frequently threatened violence, and he seemed to get that.

Patient X was strange in other ways. The staff always referred to him as "confused." I'm not sure why he was in the ward (The Big Three, schizophrenia, bipolar, whatever). Even when he had an interpreter translate for him during groups, his comments weren't entirely coherent. Something about "healing his wounds". Nice and poetic, but doesn't actually say much.

When he wasn't watched, he'd move mattresses from room to room, rearrange the furniture in the TV room, or just crawl on/under the furniture. During an evening wrap-up group, without warning, he did an army-crawl under the coffee table and had to be escorted from the room. Another time, during a morning community meeting, Patient X climbed on top of a chair, peeled an inspection sticker off a ceiling tile, and ate the sticker. Things like that. Therapist Hard Stare yelled at him, "[Patient X name], down!" -- like he was a dog. It's easier to get through to a dog than it was to get through to Patient X. I suppose when you're particularly frustrated with the failures of communication it's easy to devolve into such base methods. Down, boy!

He also made a complex tower of Jenga blocks in one corner of the unit. For someone who crawls all over the furniture, I was impressed by the detail and care that must have been put into the two-foot-tall skyscraper, complete with window arrangements and a lightning rod. The staff summoned the interpreter to ask Patient X about the tower (for it was truly unusual behavior for Patient X), but they couldn't get a coherent answer from him, Spanish or not.

While this "confused" behavior was entertaining (and frustrating), it wasn't nearly as interesting and funny as his more licentious behavior. I saw him drop his pants in the TV room in front of at least other three people, and when I told Therapist Verdigris about it, she just sighed and said, "Again?"

He also dropped trou and whipped out his dick at Patient Y.

While I was not a direct witness to that event, the heightened level of scrutiny over Patient X supports the validity of the story.

Strangely enough, Patient Y didn't seem particularly bothered by the flashing incident, despite being upset by things like Patient L's goth wardrobe. Alternatively, Patient L flipped out every time Patient X tried to touch her or come in her room. Guess you can't predict how people will respond to... "confused" behavior.

At least he wasn't dull.

From Getty Images, by Ghislain & Marie David de Lossy.

"Confused," indeed.