My quest for getting into the medical field has taken me to the psychiatric ward. Not as a patient but as an observer, shadowing yet another DPT as she is going on with her work day.
In the elevator ride up to the inpatient psych floor I felt exhilarated. I was going to see REAL crazy people. Sure, I've seen crazy people before, several times - on the subway, at the gym, in offices. But to be in the psych ward, that's another story, that's
official; if you have a room here, you must be nuts.
The first patient we ran into did not disappoint. He was shuffling along the hallway in his socks, unkempt, head cocked to one side. Occasionally he stopped and stared into space. But where were the rest of them?
Turned out that most of the patients blended in quite well with the hospital staff. Both parties were wearing regular clothes. The only way to tell "crazy" apart from "normal" was the white patient wrist band. I looked at the wrist-banded people with awe, many questions flying through my mind.
What's wrong with you? What's happened to you? Is there any hope? Will you get better? These were the exact same thoughts that went through my mind the first time I met a person who unabashedly admitted she was a registered Republican.
Our first patient was a bipolar elderly woman who had been admitted after feeling suicidal. To top it all off she also had trouble walking. "You know, they're letting me go home on Monday," she said as the PT had her do calf-raises in the hallway, "do you think I'm ready for that?"
"Yes I do, I'm happy for you. How do you feel?" the physical therapist replied.
"Well, I guess ok. Much better than when I got here. I can hardly even remember."
"I was here. You are doing much better. I think you will be fine going home."
"That's good," and then she lowered her voice to a whisper, "because my new room mate over there... she's crazy...screams at night."
I looked over at her room mate. She was sitting on her bed, reading. She's young, college-age, and pretty. No hint of any screaming or thrashing around. Just reading and looking pretty. Her side of the room was messy, socks strewn about, bed unmade, tea cups everywhere, glasses of water, newspaper on the floor. Just like my bedroom at home!!
And that's when I remembered what Amy, my nurse friend, once said: "You know, there IS a huge difference between people who are psychotic and us who are just neurotic. But sometimes it feels like a very thin line."
He's not walking towards me. He's just walking in the middle of the road. Actually, he's walking away from our car. "You fail."