Archive for June, 2008
June 29, 2008
· Filed under family · Tagged flower fairies, good fairy, ironing, Miss P, starch, work
I have had a pleasant couple of days. On Friday when I finished on the ward, I went to Miss.P’s and had the aforementioned coffee and baked goods. She made some more muffins while I was there and let me eat the mixture. Delightful 
Whilst I was there, Miss.P’s housemate came home from work. She is the twelfth fairy from Sleeping Beauty’s Christening bash. The good one. Reason being that when the evil fairy put the curse on SB, the good fairy said “I can’t undo the evil, but I can soften the spell”. That’s what she does at work to this very day. She is a good egg. Here she is, at the ill fated get together:
Twas a very enjoyable afternoon. When I got home I was tired (as per) and got into my PJ’s. I snuggled on the sofa, just recouperating. When the boys got back from the ma in laws, they were all loud and raucous (as per), but as the evening wore on, one by one they came and snuggled up on the sofa with me. I had all three piggies with me on the two seater. It was very squashy and I couldn’t breathe so well, but it was lovely. Lots of cuddles. They have missed me I think. We stayed like that for ages and I enjoyed every minute. It was one of those times that makes me feel all warm inside. Like toasted marshmallow.
Yesterday, I cleaned up a bit and then ironed my bedding, after spraying it with starch. It made it all crispy and fresh and made me very happy. I like starching stuff. I am weird you see.
I went to work with the flower fairies last night. I do love that job. Lovely babies. Here is a picture of them…you have to look carefully, see..
June 26, 2008
· Filed under uni · Tagged acute, big piggies, dementia, early night, patients, placement, restraint, vulnerable
I was in bed for 9pm last night. The two biggest piggies got in with me to watch some telly which was nice. Quality time.
I feel human again today. I was so tired last night. Doing a late followed by an early was very tiring. I’m quite enjoying my placement. There are a few things that have narked me slightly, but on the whole it’s been okay.
There are far more violent incidents on the ward than I expected. Very much more than the acute ward. I have witnessed 3 restraints in as many days and there have been about 4 more that I haven’t seen. I imagine that restraining patients on this ward is different to adult services. On adult wards, patients sometimes have to be restrained to the floor. Horrid but necessary. The restraints that I have seen on this ward however have been more of a “firm guiding” to a different area.
Dementia scares me. I’m not scared of PEOPLE with dementia. DEMENTIA ITSELF SCARES ME. It must be like living in a dream constantly. Its like one bit of fact gets twisted and confused and jumbled up until it makes little sense atall. Dementia leaves you very very vulnerable. I suppose that seems obvious, but it has really hit home seeing the patients on the ward.
I look at the patients and imagine what they must have been like when they were my age. Then I look at how they are now…confused, scared and with little control over what happens to them.
It’s very sobering.
June 23, 2008
· Filed under Uncategorized · Tagged academia, first day, pa-in-law, placement, shifts, tired
Placement day no.1 is over and done with. The first week is the hardest I think, with the first day being the very much hardest. Like in any new environment, it takes a while to settle in and get to know the routines etc. Even stuff like not knowing where the toilet is, is a bit of a drag.
It wasn’t as bad as I expected it to be. I think thats cause I was forewarned by a very good friend who was there for her last placement. So I knew what to expect. It didn’t come as a shock. Also I think it helps that it wasn’t my first placement and that I know that even the shitty bits aren’t what ALL placements are like cos the last one wasn’t.
I didn’t really get given any directives except to shadow one of the nursing assistants. I did that till about lunchtime and after that, I decided that I would spend some time with the patients and ask to read through the patient notes. Which I did.
I feel quite tired. I am on a late shift tomorrow which is a bonus cos getting up at 5.45am today was a bit horrid. I hope the weeks fly by in one way. However, when I think about the amount of academia involved along with working 40 hours a week, I hope the weeks go quite slowly.
I am on an early again on Wednesday, so though I might crack on with one of my essays. It’s only 1500 words which is okay. HOWEVER…my pa-in-law reckons he is coming round on Wednesday night…and he has the LOUDEST voice. it blasts the world away. It wouldn’t be too bad, except for the fact that he talks a lot of old tosh most of the time. Mainly self-righteous,often racist, and generally dull. I don’t like bigots. Piss me right off. Nightmare.
June 22, 2008
· Filed under general stuff · Tagged acute admissions, calm, dementia, patients, placement, psychosis, touched
I start my new placement tomorrow. Tis the second one I have done. Once I finish this, that is the end of my first year. HURRAH!
My placement is on an older adult ward at the local Psych. Unit in LaLa Land. It is an organic ward and so the patients have dementia. I am quite looking forward to it. I have heard some bad reports about this ward however, in terms of the staff not being that student friendly. In as much as they have a pathological hatred. Looks like I am going to have to try and prove myself. Pressure.
Although it is obviously the staff that will pass or fail me, and therefore they are an important component, I am more bothered about how the patients will feel with me being there. I hope I do well for them, and their familes. It must be really hard watching someone you love fade away. Dementia is cruel.
My last placement was an acute admissions ward. I loved it. The staff were brill and so were the patients. I learned loads and really missed it when I left. The highlight of that placement was what one patient said to me.
She was a young woman with drug induced psychosis. She was floridly psychotic most of the time with the occasional lucid moment. She was having one of these moments when I took her down for a ciggy one evening. She called me Miss..despite me having told her that it was fine not to. She had spent quite a bit of time in prison, so it was a habit to call those that she perceived to be in authority as Miss or Sir.
Anyway, she said “Miss, do you know what? You are so calm. My mind is always racing, I can’t keep still, but when I see you, I breathe a sigh of relief, cos you’re really calm and it makes me feel a bit better”
I was really touched by that. It meant so much. More than grades and marks and stuff. Here was a real person in distress telling me that I had a positive effect on her. I don’t think I will ever forget that ciggy break
June 22, 2008
· Filed under general stuff · Tagged ignorance, media, mental illness, paranoid schizophrenia, stigma, terrified, to be a mental patient
I have been thinking a lot lately about attitudes towards mental illness. Some people are very ignorant you know. It’s quite shocking actually.
Behind the kitchen, Rumple has built a playroom/study type area. You have to go through it to get into the garden. I have pinned a poem on the wall called “to be a mental patient”. It was written by a service user about 20 odd years ago and it is really powerful, describing the struggles that people face when living with mental illness. The reason I put it there is that you can’t miss it really and it serves to remind me and any other people that come to my house what life can be like for people.
The other day, my ma in law read it. Her comment was “that’s never been written by a mental person?!!”…my response was an incredulous “er…yeah” with the “whatever” face that I used to pull quite a lot in my youth…a mixture of disgust and disbelief.
She left it at that, obviously having seen that I found it offensive. And I did. Got me onto thinking about what peoples perceptions of mental illness is. I ruminated on this ridiculous exchange for a while later on and came to the conclusion that her idea muct be that of people that are either less intelligent than “normal people”, catatonic and drooling in a corner somewhere or not to be trusted with a pen incase they tried to eat it/insert it/stab somebody with it. Ignorant.
I think that society is to blame. The media probably being the worst perpetrator of creating a false image of what mental illness is about. To believe the media is to be left with the idea that all mental health service users are just teetering on the verge of a frenzied knife/axe attack. It is REALLY unhelpful in terms of tackling stigma.
Besides…the rare cases where mental illness does cause somebody to act in this manner are very much not black and white issues. For example, my lovely tutor told us about a guy that he used to work with back in the days when he was a CPN. This man had Paranoid Schizophrenia and when his illness was acute, he lived in constant fear of being attacked. So much so that he carried a knife with him. He was on the bus one day and started experiencing auditory hallucinations that came in the form of a voice telling him that everybody on the bus was going to ambush him and kill him. He became very afraid. He took the knife and started slashing wildly at people.
The very important point here is that he wasn’t an evil knife wielding monster. He was a very poorly man who was completely TERRIFIED, and GENUINELY feared for his life. I ask you, if you thought that you were about to be killed, wouldn’t you do whatever it took to survive?
I know I would.
June 20, 2008
· Filed under general stuff · Tagged bed, foundation, hair dye, nice day, picture, shopping, treats
I didn’t go to bed today. I decided that it was too nice a day to spend it sleeping, which is what would have happened had I gone and got in. I have treated myself instead. A little reward for my hard work
I bought two books today. One is purely fiction, the other is some case studies by a Child Psychiatrist. Should be interesting.
I also ordered this for my new bedroom..
For lots of reasons, this picture has a special meaning for me. I have had it framed in wood that will match my bedroom furniture. Brilliant.
I have bought some new foundation (not that exciting) and another hair dye. Bright red it is. Special.
I have had a nice day therefore and it’s just what the doctor ordered.
June 19, 2008
· Filed under general stuff · Tagged analogy, feeling better, hot bubble bath, images, mental health, miss.p, pictures, recovery model, rumple
It sounds like it is, but maybe it’s not. Anyway, for the benefit fo this post, lets say that it definitely is.
I analogise lots of stuff. The way that I analyse stuff is often in pictures. My understanding of people, the world, God and everything else is often in symbols. When people describe stuff to me, I often formulate an image in my head that helps me explain it to myself, or to them. I am making no sense I fear!!
For example…yesterday, I felt like this..
Today, I feel like this…
I am feeling lots better in other words. Rumple was very kind and surprised me by running me a hot and bubbly bath. i lay in it for ages, adding more hot intermittently and reading a dead good book that I have borrowed from Miss.P.
I think what probably happens is that when you have had any kind of mental health issues..at the first sniff of any similar situations/feelings…you tend to think “oh shite, here goes”.Hopefully it was just a couple of weeks of feeling a bit wobbly rather than anything more sinister. People who have never had mental ill health have those days too.
When discussing the recovery model at school, one point that stuck with me was that once you have been through that journey, you won’t ever be quite the same as you were before. Thats not necessarily a negative thing. It does mean that you will do stuff like panic a tiny bit that you’re going down again, when in actual fact it’s well within the normal range of human emotion.
Thats what I reckon anyway.
Something strange has happened to the colour of my font. Can’t be bothered to fiddle with it so it can stay like this.
June 18, 2008
· Filed under Uncategorized · Tagged baked goods, bed, fun, Marge time, Miss P, placement, plan, reading, watching films
I have a plan. Plans always make me feel better. I have blarted on Rumples shoulder. That was good. I have also decided that what I shall do is spend the whole day in bed on Friday, reading books, watching films, drinking hot chocolate and eating marshmallows. Then I will dye my hair again cos it’s getting quite rooty.
I will ignore the fact that I could be doing housework. It only gets messy again. I tend to feel too guilty if I am doing stuff and there is housework to do. On Friday I shan’t.
Next Friday, I am going to Miss.P’s to drink coffee and eat baked goods. We will probably have a good old natter about anything, everything and all that comes between. I will like that a lot.
Sometime the following week me and Rumple are going to go out for a meal with our friends. One of whom is 37 that week, with me being 32, 2 days later.
Tis quite a simple plan, yet involves me doing fun stuff. I start my next placement on Monday aswell, so will definitely need to be making some specific Marge time.
Thanks eye lady, you were right and correct.
June 18, 2008
· Filed under general stuff · Tagged black dog, depression, feeling like crap, postnatal, three little pigs
As the title suggests, I feel like crap. I have been feeling a bit rotten for the past few weeks. about 3. I don’t like feeling like this. It stinks. I know that it will pass and that very soon I will more than likely be feeling chipper and all. But right now, I don’t.
Ever the analyst, I have examined these feelings which can only be described as a general feeling of malaise. Kind of a heaviness. They are similar to the feelings that ended up in full blown depression a couple of times. But not quite the same.
I was diagnosed with Postnatal depression 3 times. After the three pigs. The first and second episodes were the worst. The third was bad, but I recognised it for what it was a sought help quickly by way of medication and counselling. However, when I look back in hindsight, I am unsure as to whether pregnancy/birth etc was entirely responsible. I can remember having episodes that I now recognise as depression as far back as childhood. They were just never picked up. I am quite good at seperating what I feel and what I project to the world, bar a few people. When the projected me and my real self become more and more different, thats when I know things are getting a bit hairy. I think the rationale behind my diagnosis was the fact that post pregnancy, my ability to project a different me dissipates somewhat and then I get busted!
I feel much more comfortable with my insides showing these days though (so to speak). If I feel like shite then it is fine. it’s allowed. Maybe thats why my feelings are kind of the same but different.
I have pinpointed a few things that are exacerbating my feelings of shittyness. Maybe some are even causal factors. Some of them are unavoidable unfortunately and when I am feeling ship-shape, I can deal with them fine. Not so much at the moment now though. Previously, this has created a vicious circle. the less able I am to deal with stuff, the more guilty I feel and the more I brood on my inability to deal with it. it’s a circle that pisses me off much.
Like I said, I am sure that very soon I will be feeling much more positive and will probably delete this post cos I will think it’s daft. If not though, then I will re-evaluate the situation and deal with it. What I do know though is if that black dog rears his ugly head again, I will kick it’s bloody head off!!!!
June 15, 2008
· Filed under general stuff · Tagged cobweb, flower fairies, God, mystical, sunrise, work
When I’m at work, every hour I have to do a patrol around the accomodation block, just to make sure that the Mummys, Daddys and Flower Fairies are all okay. My favourite patrol is at about 4 am, when the sun is rising and LaLa Land looks mystical.
I stand for a little bit and look out of the window. It’s beautiful. Lots of different colours spread across the sky, like a celestial watercolour. By 5.30 it’s gone, and most of the city hasn’t witnessed this awesome sight. It’s very easy to believe in God at times like that. I often find that I feel closer to God at those times, or when I stand and look at a cobweb, bedecked in frosted jewellery than when I have stood in any church.
Cause I have been feeling a bit grotty lately, it’s like a nice reminder that God is right here. He hasn’t gone anywhere and if I just take a minute to stand still, He’ll show me. 
