Boobie Tassels For Buddha

The chalkboard along the back wall of the room reads “JESUS. JEHOVAH” in yellow chalk in the lower left corner. Nothing else.

Ok….

I take a seat against the right wall towards the front of the room. I wonder now if  I chose this spot subconsciously because I’m in a direct path to the door… No matter because then I hear the tumblers click into place locking the door so that patients on the outside can't come in and disrupt our group. It's a safety measure, I suppose, but I feel a momentary surge of anxiety which increases my heart rate a bit and makes me fidgety because it only reminds me that if something goes wrong and i make it out the door, I'm still locked in the hallway. There's no escaping without the keys and code, and I don’t particularly want to be locked in this tiny part of the building. Being here is one thing…being locked in here, not cool. Pretty much, the only guarantee you really have when working with psychiatric patients is there are no guarantees...no predictions. You never know. Supposedly, I’m trained to handle all sorts of what ifs but I don’t think knowing how to do a side arm body hug or a one arm restraint will help me much if the 6’4, 250 lb man across the room from me hits crisis mode. Big boy looks calm enough for now, though, thankfully….

It’s 3:15 p.m. and I’m sitting in on a medication adherence group therapy session. We talk about medications, what they’re for, and the importance of remaining on the meds after (perhaps if) being released from the hospital aka psych farm, loony bin, nuthouse.

“Who dat? She new here?”

“She yo sista?”

“What she do?”

They’re referring to me. I’ve been shadowing a psychologist from the forensic unit here for a few weeks on my off days…another step on the career path. Interesting work. My first day…a guy started jerking off in relapse prevention group. Relapse prevention is all about discussing ways to prevent a return stay in the hospital. Obviously, this guy’s first step in doing that—yeah—don’t pull it in public. Actually, if you want to get your ass out of here at all, a little restraint would be good. I also realize this day that I must have been born for this work…my reaction? I simply turned slightly away from him, subtlely. I had to prevent getting hit in the face. Gut instinct. Getting a cum shot in the face from a random stranger who smells like urine and drools slightly is just not my idea of a good morning…

So, I’m introduced to the group which consists of 10 patients, 3 females and 7 males. A nurse leads the group, the psychologist records behaviors, and there are a couple of nursing student observers in addition to me. The nurse gets a vid set up and from the back of the room:

“I’m tired of movies. We already seen this. The same, the same, the same. Man, come on.”

 Then I hear snoring. It’s the jerker. (fucking a...he's in here. are you kidding?) He’s drifted off 5 minutes into group. Thankfully. Could be from the massive amounts of meds these people are all on…most of them look sleepy. The snoring gets louder and no attempts to wake him are successful. Yay.

“Fine,” the nurse says. She sounds exasperated. It seems to have been a long day for her. “You want something different? We’ll go around the room and each one of you will discuss one of your meds. Then you can do a word puzzle.”

First response is from a guy I first think is in his mid 40s…closer inspection though and he’s actually near my age. He says he takes a vitamin. That’s all. Just a vitamin. When pressed for the name of said vitamin, he responds with risperdal. Risperdal is an atypical antipsychotic drug used to treat schizophrenia or manic and mixed episodes of bipolar disorder.

The next person discusses her list down to Tylenol and Advil. She takes Seroquel, Risperdal, Haldol D injections, and more. She also talks about how many times she eats a day. This is likely due to the antidepressants she takes. Serotonin regulates the appetite…fuck with that and your eating habits change. She's a perfect case study. She has about 7 meals a day and is well over 200 lbs and maybe 5'5.

Big boy talks now. He is articulate and surprisingly knowledgeable about his medications. He discusses a recent change, the need for bloodwork on this med, the reason for the change and so on. I’m impressed by his ability to communicate so well on the issue. Most people who come in the pharmacy...even well spoken, educated, reasonably sane people...can only tell you to refill their pink pill—like we just know the colors of every med on their list.

A middle aged man with a mullet of sorts then tells us it’s none of our goddamn business what he’s taking.

From across the room, I hear laughter and incoherent mumbling…more laughter. I glance over and big boy is talking to someone in the chair sitting in front of him. No one’s in that chair. Well, no one in this reality is in that chair. I’m not sure what reality big boy’s in…but wherever he’s at, the conversation is rich.

A female voice draws my attention back to my side of the room:

“I take Phenobarbitals for seizures, you know, cause I got the epilepsy. I have seizures from takin’ too many hits to the head, too many injuries, you know? I take Risperdal for sleep. I take something for my blood pressure, and aspirin a day, for my heart. I like taking shots. No one has to hold me down for my Risperdal. Shots are easy. I have epilepsy…….”

(more laughter and mumbling…god, I want in on this joke. It’s hard not to watch him. He looks happy. The nurse looks like someone threw piss in her face. Maybe his reality is better than ours.)

A look around the room shows the telltale signs of tardive dyskinesia in many. It’s a condition caused by heavy treatment with antipsychotics especially the older drugs like Thorazine. Symptoms are involuntary movements of the muscles especially of the face. Rapid movements of the lips and tongue, lip smacks, tongue protrusion, rapid blinking and so on….  Even with discontinuation of the meds, the dyskinesia remains. Irreversibly damaged…

(The snoring gets louder… the nurse tries to wake him. He never even opens his eyes. Sleep as an escape. I dig it. I sleep less and read more when I need one. Maybe we should get him an outlet besides sleeping and masturbation.)

“I take, uh, Depakote, Risperdal, Seroquel, and some others,” a yonger guy says. He has to be younger than me and jesus christ if I took all that I’d never be able to move much less sit here and discuss the meds coherently. “I, uh, they give me this stuff they say for bipolar but I don’t…I don’t have that. Like they just give me these things for something they think I have. I don’t need them, though. I have control of my mind. I can control my mind. I’ve studied psychology. I know what abnormal behavior is. I’m just gonna tell ‘em it works so I get out of this place. Whatever it takes to get out of hell…”

At this point, half the group is asleep and the nurse gives up. She puts on the movie to no more complaints. Big boy’s laughter and gibberish continue for the most of it and the jerker’s snoring alternates between a slight purr and a thunderous rumble depending on how far down his head slumps…

There is a little talk after the vid including a discussion on my hair and my current position as a pharm tech. I take the compliments with a smile and answer all their questions. I'm nervous about it still. It's going to take some getting used to.

The baby killer (yes) smiles at me from across the room. I actually feel sorry for him. Long story. I smile back. He has a tendency, as a lot here do, to totally violate any sense of personal space, but I imagine I’ll eventually grow accustomed to it. When they talk, they’re right up on you. It’s like “Hi, baby killer can you give me room to breath, please? Thanks”

“Billie Holliday was a jazz singer not a blues singer. She was known as a jazz singer. Like Ella Fitzgerald. Jazz singers.” Okay, jedi, explain this perserveration of topics if you have control of your

Time is up. Patients shuffle out and I’m asked to speak at these sessions now and then, maybe once a month for something different. Somehow I feel like I’ve just been thrown to the wolves. I need baggier pants and oversized sweaters. Pronto.

I head down the hall ready to get out of here and head home. In a room to the right, I see Poison Ivy. She compares herself to a beautiful flower ripped from the garden of life and forced to live as a houseplant…She’s aggressive, unmedicated, angry…crazier than a shithouse mouse, she is. Once she dug a bullet out of her own foot after accidentally shooting herself. She refused treatment because duh, of course, the doctor would poison her over her beauty. I look away fast and hurry my ass out of there. Who wouldn’t?