BS: stay afloat while others don't

Subject: RE: BS: stay afloat while others don't
From: Mrrzy
Date: 29 Dec 20 - 07:08 PM

Good to read, k.

Subject: RE: BS: stay afloat while others don't
From: keberoxu
Date: 31 Dec 20 - 12:45 PM

This has been one heck of a year.
It's ten months I've been at this clinic.
The self-governing committees and activities
of the collective body of patients
has been the most heartbreaking experience for me.

One-on-one work with clinicians and therapeutic staff
has been the most satisfying part of my treatment,
although it took time and trouble
to switch from an unsatisfactory therapist and pharmacologist
to new clinicians with whom I am happier.

So, not a total loss: far from it.
Still, I am going into the New Year with a lot of sadness and disillusionment,
and seriously calculating the conditions
by which I can transition off the clinic campus.

Subject: RE: BS: stay afloat while others don't
From: keberoxu
Date: 08 Jan 21 - 08:23 PM

This week, the bedrooms at the in-patient residence
began getting re-wiring for the telephones there.
Including my bedroom.

The job took two days in my bedroom alone,
not because of what my room is like,
but because they checked the cables going from my room
through the wall down to the main electrical connections below.
And found cable with rotting wires in it,
so the cable had to be replaced ...

Subject: RE: BS: stay afloat while others don't
From: Mrrzy
Date: 09 Jan 21 - 01:20 AM

That sounds like a good thing.

"Is this supposed to be a good thing, Miri?"

Subject: RE: BS: stay afloat while others don't
From: keberoxu
Date: 17 Jan 21 - 04:43 PM

Last week there was another failure-to-communicate deal
from staff to patients.

Noise of the conversational variety is still going on
about the patient who was kicked out one month ago:
more generally, this patient has become representative of
all the self-harming presentations amongst all the patients,
and this is a significant percentage of all of us.
Though I say it who shouldn't,
self-harm is not one of my issues --
I have issues, all right,
but I don't cut myself etc etc, as some do,
and I do not have intrusive suicidal thoughts as some have.

So, a communiqué which I will not quote here, went out,
a very bureaucratic memorandum-sounding thing,
in writing and posted where all could see it.
And to boil it down to the fewest possible words,
the staff (group facilitators and program managers, as opposed to
psychiatrists or psychotherapists or social workers)
demanded of the patients:
Help us help you.

And the response from many of the patients is ... unfit to print.
And I for one do not blame them one bit.


At this time a little over a year ago,
when I was admitted to this clinic,
I freely said that I dreaded leaving, that I was afraid to leave.

A year later,
I am afraid to stay.

Subject: RE: BS: stay afloat while others don't
From: Mrrzy
Date: 17 Jan 21 - 06:23 PM

Oh, dear. I can't think of anything helpful to say, but I wish I could help. You have been a sweetheart to me.

Subject: RE: BS: stay afloat while others don't
From: keberoxu
Date: 20 Jan 21 - 02:49 PM

I'm going to show up for one of the infamous
Community Meetings today, heaven help me.
Because I probably ought to actually say something,
short and simple.
I will catch all kinds of flack for saying it, as well.

Subject: RE: BS: stay afloat while others don't
From: keberoxu
Date: 20 Jan 21 - 09:15 PM

It made me feel better to see
Senator Bernie Sanders wearing his mittens at the inauguration.

Subject: RE: BS: stay afloat while others don't
From: keberoxu
Date: 23 Jan 21 - 09:22 PM

It was bound to happen, and now it has.
Nearly twelve months into the United States crisis over
the coronavirus pandemic
(which actually broke out more than twelve months ago),

the twice-a-week testing here at the clinic campus
has yielded positive-for-COVID-19 test results in three persons.
One works in the patient dining-hall kitchen -- yikes!!
One is a patient living off-campus, on a day-treatment plan.
One is a patient living right here in the on-campus residence hall.

Contact tracing began once the test results came out.
At latest report,
NONE of the three individuals with positive test results
have symptoms.
All three, wherever they live, are isolating in their homes.

Here at the largest of three on-campus residences,
not only is that one patient under quarantine,
but TEN other patients are now in isolation in their rooms,
as a result of the contact-tracing work.

The staff in the nursing/mental-health-worker department
are being run off their feet,
fetching meals on trays to the patients who may not leave their rooms.
The kitchen was understaffed already, and now it's worse than before.

Well, the whole purpose of twice-weekly screening tests has been
to catch the thing early so people don't fall seriously ill.
The three people are relatively young in years, and healthy.
Ditto for the ten people in isolation.

We will see ... what we will see.

Subject: RE: BS: stay afloat while others don't
From: Mrrzy
Date: 23 Jan 21 - 11:05 PM

Yikes. I have a stuffy nose... Not a usual 1st symptom, at least.

Subject: RE: BS: stay afloat while others don't
From: keberoxu
Date: 25 Jan 21 - 11:24 AM

The weather outside is clear sunny dry and
very pretty to look at,
and bitterly cold today.

My internal weather is dreary with despair and depression.
I better do something.

Subject: RE: BS: stay afloat while others don't
From: keberoxu
Date: 25 Jan 21 - 07:27 PM

On second thought,
what I need is a rest cure, and this is a better place than most to have one.
It occurred to me that
I'm recovering from four years of waiting to exhale
while the Trumpasaurus Rex, who did not get MY vote,
was in the Oval Office.
No wonder I feel overstressed.

Meanwhile,
the hearty extroverted kitchen staffperson
is still out and in isolation after his positive COVID test.
But the patient who tested positive (screening test)
and lives here in the in-patient residence,
has now gotten back negative results from the latest screening test,
and been released from quarantine.
Of the ten contact-traced patients isolated in their rooms,
all but three have gotten back
the negative results from their most recent tests,
and been released from isolation.
The other three, I gather, are still waiting for test results
but are asymptomatic.

Better too much caution than too little.
My latest screening-test results just came back negative (whew).

Subject: RE: BS: stay afloat while others don't
From: Mrrzy
Date: 27 Jan 21 - 05:21 PM

Water started tasting horrible so I got scared, but then read the fine print on the antibiotic rinse I am using till allowed to brush again, and it says Don't rinse with water or it will taste horrible.
Whew again.

Subject: RE: BS: stay afloat while others don't
From: keberoxu
Date: 08 Mar 21 - 10:12 PM

Things are better now.
The weather is improving, not so bitterly cold or snowy.
We have sunny days now.

A number of patients have discharged.
Two staffpersons are getting ready to retire in a month or two,
and it looks like some others will follow.
After New Year's, suddenly we had
three new people to facilitate therapy groups:
new hires, all of them. Not sure of backgrounds,
they are not clinicians as such.

What this amounts to is
conditions are improving here.
Sure, there is still drama and breakdowns and all.
But some sort of balance is being found,
after the utter debacle of the year-end holidays
when patients were acting out like mad.

And some of the patients who have recently discharged
have occasioned great sighs of relief, as they were
causes of upset and conflict while they were here.

The holidays, I was quite safe here
but it was also rather sad and heavy.
Now I am getting a second wind,
and doing some really good therapeutic work with my clinicians.
Even when I find myself in a distressing situation with someone
( one of the staff, God help me),
I have plenty of support at every level,
including other managers and directors
who take my part, so I never have to feel isolated.

It's a good thing I stayed the course and did not quit.

Subject: RE: BS: stay afloat while others don't
From: Mrrzy
Date: 11 Mar 21 - 06:28 PM

Bully for you, k!

Subject: RE: BS: stay afloat while others don't
From: keberoxu
Date: 17 Mar 21 - 10:07 PM

An earlier post reported
a distressing conflict with a staffperson. Today my request was granted,
and a brief mediation session was held
in which I aired my complaint with the staffperson,
with another staffperson present.
The person with whom I had the conflict apologized.
And it was all very civil and quiet,
and we all went our separate ways after.


The strange thing for me is how difficult it was for me to speak.
I felt like I was having to lift this impossible weight,
it was just this insupportable heaviness.
I said what I had to say,
but it felt almost unbearable.
I have been resting for the rest of the day.

Subject: RE: BS: stay afloat while others don't
From: Mrrzy
Date: 18 Mar 21 - 10:58 AM

Did it feel like that weight was off your shoulders, afterwards, k?

Subject: RE: BS: stay afloat while others don't
From: Jon Freeman
Date: 18 Mar 21 - 11:49 AM

I sometimes try but fail to work out what it's like.

I've had a couple of stays in mental hospitals.

The second, and longer one was probably around 2012 when I was in for an alcohol detox. It was a bit odd as I'd made, before admission, a comment about a demon that disturbed the consultant who wanted to see how I went for a week without alcohol. The end result was that for the second week of my stay, I was there and on no medication at all (and was given a clean bill of health).

Overall, I enjoyed (well after the initial higher doeses Benzodiazepines [Librium] were over) my stay and this is from someone who doesn't usually get on with hospitals. Yes, there were restrictions in getting out but very friendly staff, very nice (home cooking, I'd call it) meals and I found myself fitting in well to make up a group of (in jest) 3 grumpy old men who would sit in the canteen, go out for a fag (UK cigarette which, yes, was allowed then) and generally put the world to rights. Perhaps I could have become institutionalised...

I was saddened to read a few years later that the Hospital (Helesdon, Norfolk) had become part of the worst rated mental health trust in the UK as, during my time, I felt they did a lot right.

Subject: RE: BS: stay afloat while others don't
From: keberoxu
Date: 19 Mar 21 - 10:24 PM

The deflating answer to your question, Mrrzy, is no:
that weight is still inside me.
I experience it as resistance to confronting conflict or disagreements.
The whole point of being in treatment here is that I don't have to deal with this all alone,
but they can't make it go away -- I have to confront the resistance inside of me.


Jon Freeman, destiny is a mysterious thing.
Although your hospital had a low rating,
your experience there was somehow destined to be constructive and salubrious.

I'm having, on balance, good treatment at this institution where the patient milieu is a little ... unpredictable.
I don't name it, as you see.
The institution for one thing
would probably be all up my you-know-where,
did they know I was describing them online like this.
For another this institution has a reputation to uphold:
within its niche of long-term residential treatment
it has made a name for itself. So, I withhold the name.

And it is no secret at all, however quietly told,
that some patients have come to this very institution
and have had experiences that were thoroughly unfortunate.
You just never really know how things will work out,
no matter how you plan.

Subject: RE: BS: stay afloat while others don't
From: Donuel
Date: 20 Mar 21 - 11:23 AM

I welcome confronting conflict or disagreements and think destiny is 20/40 hindsight but who says this is the way to go. I know overall it doesn't help but I do it anyway. Sounds like your way is a perfectly fine way to navigate this diverse world. Persona is more varied than skin color.
As for staying afloat I've mastered the dead man's float and save energy compared to treading water. ;^/ I know there is no cure for dyslexia and am fine with it.

Subject: RE: BS: stay afloat while others don't
From: Mrrzy
Date: 20 Mar 21 - 11:55 AM

Well, k, years of therapy... Decades... helped me, so I have hopes for your future emotional-weight loss.

Subject: RE: BS: stay afloat while others don't
From: keberoxu
Date: 09 Apr 21 - 12:40 PM

Requested, as an in-patient, and had scheduled for me at a local hospital,
my first colonoscopy.
Sound choice. Of course the bowel prep is miserable and all.
Much better to do it as an in-patient, with support,
before and after the procedure, from the clinic's nursing department.
The in-patient residence kitchen supported me during that day of fasting and cleansing
by heating clear chicken-soup broth for me.
All the comforts of home, really.
And they tell me -- at the hospital --
to come back for another procedure in ten years.
Thank goodness that's over.

Subject: RE: BS: stay afloat while others don't
From: Mrrzy
Date: 09 Apr 21 - 04:08 PM

Ooh no fun at all!

Subject: RE: BS: stay afloat while others don't
From: keberoxu
Date: 20 Apr 21 - 06:31 PM

Nobody but me is gonna care about this, that's okay:
today, after months months months too many months,
the auto service and repair required
FINALLY got done, and done right.
Sure it was expensive. I paid in full.
It was the time more than the money that was an obstacle.
Being an inpatient at a clinic, and getting the car serviced ...
harder than I planned on.

But here in this part of the US, this week in April, for some reason, is a vacation week;
and all my clinicians took their vacation this week, so I said:
Fine. I'll take a few days off from the clinic, go back to where I rent an apartment,
and make an appointment for the service mechanics I have a history with,
to evaluate and repair/replace things on my car.
This included a manufacturer recall involving seat belts,
that is something one does not leave to chance.

So the work is done, the bill is paid, and in a few days
I can drive back to the clinic and get back into the schedule.
The weather, thankfully, has been cooperating nicely.

I just feel hugely relieved.

Subject: RE: BS: stay afloat while others don't
From: keberoxu
Date: 16 May 21 - 04:01 PM

Working out what to do next with my in-patient treatment.
No longer feeling stuck, if anything
I'm spoiled for options to choose from.

Looked at another in-patient, on-campus residence
which can be lived in, at a lower daily/monthly rate
than that charged at the main residence.

The main residence has the dining hall;
the smaller cheaper residence has its own kitchen,
and tenants may choose to continue to dine at the main residence
while sleeping in bedrooms at the cheaper treatment-plan building.


I could do this.

I could also move off-campus.
Thinking hard, very hard, about it all.

Post script:
most of the patients who were making life hell
for the rest of us,
have either discharged or
are in day treatment off-campus.
It's almost like a different community of patients. And yet.

Subject: RE: BS: stay afloat while others don't
From: Helen
Date: 16 May 21 - 04:07 PM

Choices, choices! :-)

Can you try out the alternative residence to see if it suits you and works for what you need?

Subject: RE: BS: stay afloat while others don't
From: Mrrzy
Date: 16 May 21 - 04:27 PM

Take your time over your decision, too...

But this is all really great to read, keb.

Subject: RE: BS: stay afloat while others don't
From: Jerry Rasmussen
Date: 19 May 21 - 04:36 PM

Hey, Keb. May I call you Keb?

I'm sorry I am so late to this conversation. I can see how many people care about you. I'll add something uncharacterstically short for me. In the Christian faith, it is fundamental, and yet often forgotten. It's good advice, whatever your faith or beliefs;

"Love your neighbor AS YOURSELF."
Love for others is built on the foundation of loving yourself.

Sometimes you have to separate yourself from those who are destructive, even if you love them, and they are family or close friends.

You clearly know this.

Subject: RE: BS: stay afloat while others don't
From: keberoxu
Date: 28 May 21 - 11:02 PM

Welcome, Jerry, and you may call me that or whatever else.

After taking time to think it through,
while the visit to the other on-campus residence was worthwhile,
my decision was to stay where I am probably through the summer:
I have settled comfortably into this program
and want to enjoy it a little longer.

When it is the right time to move,
I will feel better about my options for having looked around now.

The Memorial Day holiday long-weekend is upon us,
and many of us remaining here in the campus residences
are surprisingly over-sensitive and cranky,
snapping at each other,
breaking down and crying,
or just expressing exhaustion and impatience with listening to each other.

Oddly, after joining in with my own complaints
and hearing somebody say I hurt their feelings,
I feel ... very brave for having spoken up to complain in the first place?

How weird is that?! I'm supposed to be nice to people
but I'm proud of myself for taking the risk of
saying how I feel even when someone else's feelings are hurt.

I guess that's how you think and talk
when you've been in treatment for over twelve months ...

Subject: RE: BS: stay afloat while others don't
From: keberoxu
Date: 13 Jun 21 - 10:45 PM

Instead of moving to a different residence on the campus,
with a different program rate,
I moved to a larger bedroom in the same building at the same rate.
And I'm sleeping better at night, strange to say.
(Private bathroom, I don't share it in a suite like before.)

Subject: RE: BS: stay afloat while others don't
From: keberoxu
Date: 19 Jun 21 - 06:26 PM

The new and different bedroom is an adjustment but overall a good thing.

What I may do next is something different than I considered before.
I was looking at a cheaper plan on the institution campus.
Now what would answer my needs best is to get
more support from nursing while staying in the present building --
and this, of course, means switching to a more expensive plan.

My present plan features a little bit of contact with nursing, per week,
with a lot of group therapy sessions.
Now, doing some particularly delicate and painful emotional work,
I feel more trusting of nursing than I feel about the group.
It doesn't help that, in the past two months,
the group membership is so greatly changed.
I would feel better cared for, right now,
with less group therapy and more time with nursing.

Two months ago the group-therapy membership was
a pretty chill group of people.
We could be together and separate, in a positive sense,
at the same time: giving each other space and respect.
Some of us -- not necessarily me -- behaved like adults most of the time.

Well, many of the respectful adult members discharged within the past eight weeks.
The group membership now is dominated largely by patients who only arrived recently, some more recently than others;
and they are as needy and intrusive and boundary-oblivious
as the previous members were respectful.

I have felt myself going along with the group dynamic,
and on looking more closely at my behavior,
I see things I want to change, for myself and for the sake of others. Some of it strongly influenced by the drama in the group now.

Certain group members will fuss, like tantrum-prone children,
when I set a boundary and tell them that
my treatment is no longer any of their business;
all the more reason to do so, and that firmly,
and to have the support of clinicians and nursing while doing it.
It won't be easy.
Asserting myself in this fashion is something I haven't done often.
I believe I will be better off for doing so now
and getting on with the uncomfortable parts of my treatment
amongst people I can trust.
Thanks for listening, it means a lot to me.

Subject: RE: BS: stay afloat while others don't
From: Helen
Date: 20 Jun 21 - 04:03 PM

Hi keberoxu, I always listen because I want to know that your life-project is progressing well. And it seems to me that you are fairly clear about what you want and how you plan to get there, and that the plan appears to be working.

I'm thinking again of the idea that life and learning is a spiral. I talked about it in this thread on 01 Jun 20 - 01:12 AM

"learning is not walking around and around a circular path, seeing and doing exactly the same things over and over again. It's a spiral going upwards, so when you encounter a situation which you have been in before, you are different than you were previously."

Subject: RE: BS: stay afloat while others don't
From: keberoxu
Date: 30 Jun 21 - 10:11 PM

Just when I thought I had witnessed everything:

I haven't seen all the players in this saga.
However, a patient whose room is not far from mine,
is under the rather worried and definitely harried scrutiny
of nursing, program managers, and other staff.
Calling this patient eccentric is ... euphemistic.

The patient is almost routinely flunking
the weekly room inspections, what with clothing all over the floor
and I forget what else, never puts anything away.
Until, having flunked room inspection, they are forced to do so.

In the meanwhile, this patient has so desperate an attachment
to their pet dog that
a relative has sort of moved into a nearby hotel, WITH the dog,
and
the patient spends nights and weekends, not in their room,
but at the hotel with the relative and the dog.
This family has the smarts, at least,
to keep the dog away from the clinic,
so I've never observed the dog,
just had second-hand info about the patient being with the dog.

The patient is not from this area,
and is also desperately homesick,
crying themselves to sleep until hitting upon
this scheme of the hotel room, the relative, and the pet dog.
Mind you, this clinic is NOT cheap,
and neither are the hotels, not the ones where
a pet dog is permitted anyhow.
So this family is tight-knit and, erm, spendthrift??

As for me, for the time being I have negotiated that
I will stay on my present treatment plan.
Not step up to that more intense nursing option.
And, with the understanding that I keep my clinical team informed,
I will stay out of the group therapy sessions:
these are voluntary anyhow, no one can force me to attend.
And as long as I stay in touch with, and work with,
my doctor, my therapist, my nurse, my social worker,
my program manager and so on, then
I can pick and choose, and work out how to continue treatment.
We'll see how this goes for a while.

Subject: RE: BS: stay afloat while others don't
From: keberoxu
Date: 15 Jul 21 - 10:38 PM

Today,
stay afloat
felt more like
drag my tail.

The work I did in my therapy appointment was necessary and promising, but it hurt like the dickens, and I cried a lot,
during and after.

I misplaced the key to my room, which, thankfully, somebody else found for me and returned. I NEVER lose my room key.

The humidity and dew points are so high hereabouts, that
the humidity sensor device in my room's bathroom
keeps turning on the exhaust fan.
Even when I have neither bathed nor showered.
That happened earlier this week.
To adjust the switch on the sensor device,
I had to pull an occasional table into the bathroom
and stand on top of the table
in order to get my fingers on the switch.
The switch is so high up the bathroom wall that
even when standing on the table top, I cannot see the actual lever,
on top of the little component box that says Honeywell.
The exhaust fan, of course, is a ceiling fixture.

I just showered and shampooed and dried off,
so the exhaust fan is going as I enter this
at the room desk on my laptop.

If I have got to have a nervous breakthrough,
this is a really comfortable bedroom in which to have it,
I will say that.

Subject: RE: BS: stay afloat while others don't
From: keberoxu
Date: 16 Jul 21 - 03:08 PM

The saga of the pet dog has taken a new turn.

Earlier this week, our needy patient was approved to step down their treatment, by moving out of the main residence (where my room is) and relocating to a different building here on the clinic campus, where the treatment plan rate is cheaper.

The move happened immediately upon approval, the patient cleared out of the room here, and relocated to that other building.
And on that same day, their puppy dog went missing.
Now, HERE AT THE PATIENT RESIDENCE,
a Lost Dog Notice has been posted with a photograph of the seven-month-old puppy dog.

As if!
I'm sorry ... under no circumstances are we patients permitted to have a pet animal with us, and here is this Lost Dog notice on the patients' community bulletin board.

There are a bunch of questions I don't know the answers to. Like, what about the relative who paid for a hotel room somewhere close by where they looked after the puppy dog. And where, often as not, the patient would spend every night.
I recall being in my room after hours, and hearing in the hallway outside,
the nurse on duty coming to the other patient's room, knocking on the door, calling the patient's name, then shouting that she, the nurse, was going to unlock the door and let herself into the patient's room to see if anyone were there. Then the nurse would unlock the door, I would hear the key in the lock and all that, and the nurse would confirm, No, the bedroom has nobody in it, either human or canine, and would lock the room back up and return to the nurses' station to report.

Sigh.

Subject: RE: BS: stay afloat while others don't
From: keberoxu
Date: 21 Jul 21 - 03:47 PM

When first admitted, my assignment to one therapist
was a source of much distress and frustration,
so I switched clinical teams, last year,
and have since been much happier
with my present psychiatrist.


As to that psychotherapist (not an MD)
that I could not get on with, last year,
this clinician has completed their fellowship at the clinic, and ...
been hired to work full-time on the therapy staff.

The ways of bureaucracies are beyond me sometimes.
If this were one year ago, I would be up in arms.
But now ... c'est la guerre, or some such.

Subject: RE: BS: stay afloat while others don't
From: keberoxu
Date: 18 Sep 21 - 01:19 PM

I have been locked out of my residence bedroom.
The funny thing is, I have the device to unlock the door mechanism,
right here in my hand.
It just doesn't function.

You see, after a rash of thefts this summer,
a decision was arrived at.
All the residence bedroom doors,
which had conventional locks in the doorknob with metal keys,
would change over.

So the past week was spent collecting those metal keys from us,
after fitting each door with an electronic lock device,
activated (unlocked) with an electronic key fob.
Not just any device, but the sort with a
"high-security" rating,
which means you have to hold the fob up to the door device panel
just so,
you cannot merely wave it about, or touch the panel anywhere.

It was working yesterday and the day before.
I left my bedroom this morning, key fob in hand as it ought to be.
I come back, and the lock mechanism does not respond to the fob.

I go to nursing. The charge nurse is on the phone,
demanding to somebody else to tell her where to find the master
which will unlock any and all bedroom lock mechanisms.
Another nurse, on hearing my complaint,
accompanies me from the nurses' station to my bedroom door.
She has her own key fob with her ...
and her key fob also will not open my door. Nothing will.

Then it is explained to me that I am far from the only patient with this dilemma, as there are
other patients who are shut out of their bedrooms because the key fob stopped unlocking their door today
after functioning correctly yesterday and the day before.

I dunno.
As I always kept my door unlocked regardless, and am careful
with personal effects,
the series of thefts left me unscathed anyway.

Of course, as you would expect in a psychiatric treatment place,
the patient population includes people who feel out of control
if they can't control their bedroom doors.
One example is a patient
whose history of abuse and trauma includes
being shut up in closets.
For this patient, it is essential to be able to open the door
under any and all circumstances;
they lock the door on leaving the room,
but while inside the room
they feel anxious, or worse, behind a locked door.

Sometimes the solution makes a problem worse?

Subject: RE: BS: stay afloat while others don't
From: Mrrzy
Date: 19 Sep 21 - 09:30 AM

Oh, keb, life just sometimes has it in for the living.

I am still fine. Fall does not seem to be bothering me. Pourvu que ça dure, comme disait, avec son accent corse, la maman de Napoléon...

Subject: RE: BS: stay afloat while others don't
From: keberoxu
Date: 19 Sep 21 - 04:32 PM

Yesterday maintenance got the door mechanism re-set
and now the key fobs will let the door open at last.
Meanwhile most of the doors on the other bedrooms did the same
sputtering-out of the lock mechanism
and all THOSE had to be re-set.   

Nurses' station staff is still growling about it,
but at least we can get in and out of our bedrooms now.

Oh, I still find the whole missing-dog saga too complicated to work out.
That patient is still in treatment.
They got their treatment stepped back up to the main residence.
Now, at last report, they have got a significant friend living nearby, somebody they met after admission to what they call "the asylum" . That significant friend has stepped up to dog-care duty. And there is now more than one dog, don't ask me how many, but "my dogs" it is, now, plural instead of singular.
Right this moment, however, the patient is out of the country, visiting the wealthy and spendthrift family for a week.
No more hotel rooms with relatives,
as the significant friend living nearby can keep the dogs ...
all most irregular ... but when you have got the money,
somehow, all manner of things can be negotiated.
It's all a bit much.

Subject: RE: BS: stay afloat while others don't
From: keberoxu
Date: 25 Oct 21 - 07:49 PM

The hour of reckoning could no longer be postponed -- not for ME, don't worry --

but for that patient whose family seems to have limitless wealth
and very little discipline or sense,
and who went so far, this summer, as to post a notice for
a lost dog ...
why does a patient post a notice for a lost dog when
it is against the rules for patients to have pets anyway!
I never did encounter the dog, or dogs, anyhow.
This patient for months has come up with this or that excuse
to get out of the buildings, off of the campus, and
do anything other than treatment or therapy.

Today the patient was served with an administrative discharge.
And, I might have guessed this,
substance use is involved.
So often, in the cases when a patient here is forced to discharge,
there is some sort of controlled substance amongst the contributing factors.
Add to this, that fact that this patient is one of those
who conceal and hide and deny drinking or ingesting anything.
Until their bedroom is inspected and the inspection turns up ...
containers for alcoholic drink, containers for prescription meds that they were NOT supposed to have ...

I suppose during the time this patient was here in treatment,
we are all fortunate that there was no overdose!
It could have happened, but did not, in this case.

I really wondered about this patient's treatment, all these months,
on account of the patient's presentation which seemed so at odds
with getting any constructive work or support here.
Sometimes a person and a place are a poor fit with each other,
and I wondered about it the whole time.

Well, the patient is going home to Mother, and home to all the money
and the relatives who are, shall we say,
a questionable influence on somebody who needs professional help.
This clinic/institution has done what it may do
and it's out of everyone else's hands now.
It could have ended much worse than this,
and at the same time, it is a somewhat sad conclusion.

Subject: RE: BS: stay afloat while others don't
From: Mrrzy
Date: 26 Oct 21 - 07:31 AM

Under the heading of Not Helping...

Subject: RE: BS: stay afloat while others don't
From: keberoxu
Date: 06 Nov 21 - 11:56 AM

This morning I just sat down with someone at the nurses' station to alert them
of a community conflict.

Two patients have got a drama going on between them, about which it is prudent not to disclose too much.
They are both very young people, close to the minimum age for admission to this clinic. Both are deeply troubled.
At least one of them has a history of suicide attempts and hospitalizations.
I have hope for one of them, who is breaking the silence now, and coming forward and telling the truth about getting hurt, and asking for support.
It's the other one I'm worried about.
Not so much malice, but, sadly, impulse-driven, and desperate.
I'm afraid that this patient CAN'T stop -- that's exactly what I told nursing.
And the kind of neediness and obsession driving this patient
is the kind of thing that damages an entire community, one fellow patient at a time.
At this point, the rest of us need to protect ourselves and each other,
and the impulse-driven patient ... I don't know what hope there is for them.

Subject: RE: BS: stay afloat while others don't
From: Mrrzy
Date: 08 Nov 21 - 07:53 AM

The more desperate the more likely help might be accepted? My version of home.

But in the meantime... Yikes.

Subject: RE: BS: stay afloat while others don't
From: Donuel
Date: 09 Nov 21 - 09:32 AM

https://www.helpguide.org/articles/mental-health/mood-boosting-power-of-dogs.htm

Subject: RE: BS: stay afloat while others don't
From: keberoxu
Date: 18 Nov 21 - 08:30 PM

This is to keep me from giving in to a terrible temptation,
I speak tongue-in-cheek but really it's a big distraction.

I want to blurt out something in group therapy
on behalf of the entire group of us
to one patient who is impossible to communicate with.
It goes like this,
and if it sounds familiar, it ought to:


Whatsa matta you?!
Gotta no respect!
What you t'inka you do?
Why you looka so sad?
It'sa not so bad,
It'sa nice-a place
AH,
shut uppa you face.

This patient attends group now and then.
Every time they show up, we never know what to say,
because mentally they are just ... somewhere else.

Tonight several of us talked in the person's absence about
how frustrating it is to try to talk with the individual.

One fellow patient used the a-word: Autism.
And I had to respond, "I really don't know what 'Autism' means.
Does it mean that a direct conversation is too much to ask for?"

It's just that I dread telling this fellow resident
how I REALLY feel about the invisible gap between us which seems
impossible to bridge with words.
I don't want to get too specific here, it would invade privacy if I did.
But the more any of us try to talk with the person ,
the more bewildering and hopeless it is --
tonight we were all comparing notes on conversations with the person
and how remote and unreachable the person seems to be.

So now,
maybe having said what I feel like singing/saying online here,
there will be no need for me to
make a fool of myself by blurting out Whatsa Matta You
in group therapy sessions . . .

Subject: RE: BS: stay afloat while others don't
From: keberoxu
Date: 20 Nov 21 - 11:45 PM

The simplest thing to say about that odd post before this one,
is that my old buried anger is coming up --
and the trigger is shame.
It's too tedious and messy and private to spill about here.
The year-end holidays plan is to spend them here at the clinic.
Plans can change, but that's the plan, for now.

When my situation overwhelms me with discouragement at times,
it is really helpful to consider
that had I chosen differently in the past,
my situation now would be altogether worse than it is.
Helen is right about that one.

Subject: RE: BS: stay afloat while others don't
From: Mrrzy
Date: 22 Nov 21 - 11:02 AM

Still ok here... Relaxed the keto thing through chocolate because it wasn't making me labile, but then I noticed the number of bandaids I was sporting because of cuticle-picking. So I got back on the diet. Picking compulsion went away.

Subject: RE: BS: stay afloat while others don't
From: Helen
Date: 22 Nov 21 - 02:10 PM

Good song choice, keberoxu. The *other* Aussie anthem (well, not counting Waltzing Matilda).

Shaddap You Face - Joe Dolce

The interesting thing about the song is that it sounds aggressive when you first listen to the words but it is actually warmly funny and sends the message about being involved and inclusive in your living situation and with the people around you, even if you didn't choose to be here - i.e. a child who migrated with your family to a different country. That song always makes Aussies smile - well, almost all of us. Some people get antsy about it.

(An aside: the influence on Australian life and culture from the people and cultures who came here to live is immeasurable. I can't imagine what Aussie life would be like without all those amazing people living here.)


Mrrzy, have you tried carob as a chocolate substitute? It tastes very similar to chocolate and can be used in similar ways in cooking. Also, I found that when I stopped eating chocolate bars it was the excess sugar which was addictive and eating dark chocolate with a high percentage of cocoa made it a lot easier to limit my chocolate intake. It was quicker getting the chocolate hit. That's just me, but it worked for me. My current trick is melting dark chocolate and mixing nuts and some dried fruit into it. It gives me the chocolate hit without the high sugar content.

Subject: RE: BS: stay afloat while others don't
From: Mrrzy
Date: 25 Nov 21 - 09:41 AM

I don't sub chocolate. Just eating less of it... Dessert after dinner, but not after breakfast, lunch *and* dinner.

Carob was a thing when I was in college. Tried it, didn't like it. Anybody remember Postum? Might look back into that for caffeine avoidance...

Subject: RE: BS: stay afloat while others don't
From: Donuel
Date: 25 Nov 21 - 10:09 AM

Ovaltine?