I have the flu. I spent the most god-awful day at work, periodically dashing to the bathroom to vomit as I vainly tried to have a heart-felt therapeutic interaction with a young woman the morning after her failed suicide attempt. It was beyond ridiculous. I walked in to work, sat down for report and waves of nausea washed over me. The day went downhill from there. I was so chilled, I had on 3 layers. I finally got to leave early -- at 4pm instead of 7. Yeah baby. (and yes, of course I got a flu shot.)
From the couch, I got to watch Lance talk to Oprah. I'm aware that I defended him in one of my previous posts -- I always liked the guy, guess I bought into the myth he created and of course there's LiveStrong (which I still salute him for). Can you hear the "but" coming? I was intensely turned off by his act on Oprah. Yes, it seemed an act to me. He's a fame whore and a narcissist. And I'm mad at Oprah too. He bizarrely said about a teammate's wife that testified he was doping, "I called her a crazy bitch but I never said FAT crazy bitch.". She gave him an awfully strange look but she should have said WHAT IS WRONG WITH YOU?
Last semester has commenced. Things seem good, but it's early. And the job hunt is on too. I have a meeting next week to start some discussions with a potential employer. It's nice to be a nurse, even nicer to be an NP.
I had a terribly interesting therapy experience recently -- and it was actually both terrible and interesting. It was my first session with a client, and I had this feeling of repugnance afterwards. At first it felt like anger, but then I figured out that I was convinced he was lying to me, and I mean big, juicy lies. Critical information left out, bizarre answers to questions (no, he wasn't psychotic, believe me, I know psychosis). But since I'm new at this, it was good - I learned a lot. And I certainly will handle things differently next time. For one thing, I've been practicing this: "I think you're leaving something out." But I keep thinking about this: why would you pay someone to listen to your lies? Guess that's a topic for my next supervision session.
I enjoyed working so much over the break. Found I could still give emergency injections with flair. I realized that because I've worked in an acute psych hospital this long, I've seen a lot. I mean, reading in a chart that a patient killed his brother and just got out of prison is not eyebrow-raising. Some of my patients on almost every shift either came from jail or recently got out, or have that in their history. The worst is when you read about someone in the paper, show up to work, and there he is. Another thing that I've noticed is how pissed off the nurses get at these young women that try to kill themselves over some loser boyfriend that either left them or is cheating. It's an almost uniform reaction, I've noticed, and I try to remind myself to keep my own reactions to myself. Many patients are really good at driving others away. Let me give an example. I was assigned a patient with long-standing borderline personality disorder. I bring her morning meds to her with breakfast and she immediately complains that I'm rushing her. She apparently needs extra time to swallow her pills, which actually is fine with me, I am not aware that I'm rushing. I sit across from her and ask how she slept, how she feels (might as well collect some data), but instead of replying she notes what an ugly color my nails are. Later, she comes to the desk, says she can't remember my name ("it was something weird") and then harangues me because my badge is clipped to my waist and she can't see it right then. OK. I feel my reaction but I don't display it. At lunch, I bring her another pill and then she gushes about what a great nurse I am and wants to talk like old girlfriends. Really? What's sad is that she's done this exact sequence to the close people in her life and driven them away. Now she's old and alone, in poor health and suicidal. Yet a characteristic of borderlines is they don't want to change. I'm attending a workshop in late February on working with them, boy do I need it.
One of the standard frustrations at work is dealing with the prescription narcotic addicts, which is an epidemic in the United States. Did you know more people die from prescription drug overdose than from illegal drugs? Addicts are skilled at feigning both pain and psychiatric illness to obtain more drugs. Where it gets squirrely is when someone starts with legitimate pain but has become an addict. How can we help them? They need a detox, treatment facility and we're not that. But they don't want that. Most of them are so deeply self-deceived, it is comic. One of the docs told me that the United States writes 95 percent of the world's narcotic prescriptions. And we are only 7 percent of the world population. So why don't other advanced societies do this? Like Europe, Scandinavia? Ah, because of socialized medicine. The public isn't willing to pay for it. I haven't fact-checked these stats by the way. Something to think about.
