How fast fourteen years fly when you're Mudcatting, Helen!


Meanwhile, back at the clinic:
It was bound to happen. I have stuck out four months before
experiencing this for the first time.
Five days a week, a general meeting is held, by and for the patients themselves, although staff members frequently attend and are welcome to do so. Patients themselves chair/facilitate these weekday meetings. They are voluntary, no one is absolutely required to come [although the patient who is community-meeting chair is elected to that office during a term of time, and that patient had darned well better show up during their term].
I have not attended each and every weekday meeting, myself, during my four months here, so what happened may have happened already during that time and I was just conveniently absent back then.

It's not unheard of for a patient to get up and walk out, although it is discouraged.
The patient who did it today, however, lost their temper before walking out, so we witnessed an outburst of anger and rage during the meeting.
Well, this is a mental health hospital, after all, so why would this not happen?
I suppose the wonder is that I have not seen it happen sooner.

Nor did it surprise me which patient it was, and of course
I cannot divulge too much here. I can say,
this patient has been repeatedly warning us all of two things:
their issues with rage, anger, and temper, which they're working on;
and their growing frustration with certain conditions, let's just say
they are related to the pandemic lockdown restrictions and
an enforced separation from family.
This patient is hardly alone in that latter predicament.
Nor the only one with anger management issues.

It's just that the two combined in an explosive fashion today.
Nobody and nothing was hurt or damaged.
A few people were 'triggered,' not least the poor patient who stormed out.
It certainly made for drama, though.

I'm all right, as I could see this coming, for a start,
and I know how to stay out of harm's way.
I also grasp that in the long run this is a positive development,
and can be used in future to make things better.
The people who had a hard time with this incident, of course,
were the ones who tend to merge with other patients and
who have a hard time letting go once they engage --
some of these were shaken.

So we had fireworks, you might say, before July Fourth.