round the mulberry bush

We found out our placements for January today. I’m with the Camhs (Child and Adolescent Mental Health Service) team, in our city which is a 10 minute drive from my house. Brucey Bonus . I haven’t had any involvement atall with Camhs so far so it will be a new experience. The closest I have been is working with a couple of people who had recently made the transition into adult services.

On a less positive note, things have been a bit fraught in the household this week. We had a family meeting the other night, to have a chat about what we all felt was making things stressful. It has made things better overall, but one thing that did come out is that the piggies and Rumple are a bit pissed off with my course. Big piggy said that I am always doing homework. Rumple had a moan about the fact that I get stressed regarding coursework etc and take it out on him. I was gutted at the time. And really cross. I do feel that I try my best in this house and find myself doing the lions share of the work alongside a really demanding course. I got arsey and said that I felt like they didn’t want me to aspire to do anything. Thats exactly how it seemed. It might not be the actual case, but even so.

I have calmed down about the whole thing now and mulled it over a bit. I have come to the conclusion that theres not a lot I can do about it. Try and stress less when I have a massive workload I suppose (mmm…not easy). I can’t not do my coursework obviously.  I always make sure that I find time to do the piggies reading and cuddles and stuff, whihc again is why I was so pissed off aswell. I explained to them aswell that I’m not perfect…just human and I will get things wrong sometimes.

Anyway, moan over. I knew this year would be intense in every way.

I still have an essay, a presentation and a dissertation to be getting on with. I have a week off next week so will get on with all of them. Honest. Usually I would have at least got the essay out of the way by now. I get things done and out of the way early on. I really can’t get round to it though. I have read loads, collated all my research etc but it’s just the thought of starting that I am dreading. I know the thought of doing it is often worse than the actual doing. But still.

The child nursing students organised a child protection conference yesterday. It was a really good but extremely emotive day. There were speakers from the NSPCC, the safeguarding board, the child abuse unit from the police etc. They did a presentation slide show at the beginning with lots of pictures of little people all bruised, battered and burned. It was so sad.

When the police did their talk the Detective Inspector made some comment about sex offenders having their bits chopped off. For me, it strengthened my position on the fact that sex offenders should receive treatment. The crimes that they commit are heinous. Fact. But chopping off bits/hanging/all of the things that people suggest isnt going to happen. And neither do I think they should. I’m not a fluffy bunny do-gooder or whatever but I have seen the effects of child abuse..both professionally and personally, and I think we need to educate children. Of course. But we also need to step up our work with the perpetrators. Get to the core of the problem. I think that if you can work with one offender and reduce his rate of recidivism then thats however many children that won’t be damaged for life by their actions. I know its not as black and white as all that but it is something that I feel quite strongly about.

I don’t know how to do one of those link things that magically transport you to somebody elses blog. But on Cellar Doors blog (see blog roll) at the mo there is a comment about her/mental health nurses use of dark humour. I would say that 90% of the nurses that I have worked with so far use humour that some people may consider distasteful.  I happen to think that its often a necessary way of coping. This work is really stressful sometimes. As long as patient care is not compromised then I don’t think theres anything wrong with it.

It’s Rumples birthday today. He’s 36. We are actually going out of for a meal together this evening. We haven’t been out together for aaaaages so I am really looking forward to it. We don’t do enough things as a couple without the piggies around, so it will be lovely

Anyway, I am off for a brew. It’s only 7.20 am. Little piggy likes to get up VERY early. He woke me yesterday at 4.50am with a rousing rendition of “ten men went to mow a meadow”. Lovely!

I forgot to say that during the police speech one of the child nursing students asked whether there is a lot of “insane people” that commit these crimes. That went down like a shit sarnie on our row of mental health students. There was also a talk by a lady who had been with CAMHS (Child and Adolescent Mental Health Services) through most of her teenage years due to anorexia nervosa. The same child nursing student asked her how much she thought her 8 years of mental health care had cost….the lady had a rough guess….the student nurse then commented that she could have bought three houses for that. And they say mental health nurses are inappropriate???

I feel that I should be doing some reading for my assignment. So what I am doing is avoiding it. I’m really tired today. I did a shift at the hospital this morning, so was up at 5.45. Good old Rumple has taken the piggies out for the afternoon so I can have some time dossing.

This essay is on borderline personality disorder and heroin use. I also have a presentation on wednesday. I have got to do some stuff for my portfolio and then there is the ever looming dissertation. If  I do all this and then there are bugger all jobs at the end of it, I am going to be well pissed off. So far, one person from the cohort in front of me has a job. The Trust is in a right old state. They are reconfiguring and so shuffling everybody around. People are having to reapply for their jobs etc. Shit one.

If all else fails then I am going to keep my fingers crossed that there are jobs at St Andrews Hospitals. They’re forensic services and I quite fancy that.

Nothing else is really happening in my world at the moment. I have no social life, but don’t think I have the energy to do anything about it….I have aged horribly since the beginning of this course aswell I’m sure. All along the streets where my Uni block is, there are pubs and therefore there are lots of people outside giving out promo leaflets. In the first year, I would get bombarded. Now these promo type people avoid eye contact with me and offer me naught.haha.

This actually sounds like quite a moany, dreary post. But believe it or not, I am still loving my training and can see the light at the end of the tunnel. Only 10.5 months to go