Mental Health Nursing...aka Crazy People Management (and I mean that in the nicest way)

So I am a horrible blogger, as you can tell by my massive library of blogtastic musings. All I can say is that I'm inevitably lazy, but when I DO write something, it's because it's worth it. Thus, a little blurb on the mental health community.

What I learned in my psych rotation will always be valuable to me, this much I know. I learned that people (it could be anyone really) have the capacity to (at any moment, anywhere) crumble into tiny little human jigsaw pieces right in front of your very eyes. And, it may not be their fault...it may be genetic, chemical, or situational...but there is a good chance that they will expect you (as the nurse or ultimately the smidgeon saner person in the room) to put them right back together as if by magic. This expectation is a strange one to take on when it does not involve applying bandages, poking the patient with needles, or monitoring labs (not to say you don't do these things, just not as much). Even patients who hate you, who don't want you around to fix 'em up, seem desperate for a solution. A very, very subjective, guesswork, kind of solution...because not everything goes away with a pill...and if it does, there's a chance you won't be able to sit still, stay awake, or worse...poop. So, how do you, someone who feels seriously lacking in the knowledge department, relate and communicate with the broken individual? Luckily, we were given a few tips..."Therapeutic Conversations" abounded...and there was a lot of "what's better? tell me more about that? and how did that make you feel?" going on. Of course, it's a little more complicated than that, and to be honest, much harder to put into action with real people. I practiced on unsuspecting friends :)

I had a variety of patients while on this rotation; some were addicts, others depressed/suicidal, there was the occasional manic, and the amazingly entertaining yet unsettling psychotic patient. Some of them were adults, others adolescents, but all of them were mind-bendingly interesting. Their charts were like soap operas and Dateline mooshed together, and sitting in the "day room" while the patient population went about their business was more captivating than people-watching at a gay pride parade.

One conversation involved a subject switch that left my head spinning. I seriously had to recover, mentally that is, when a discussion went from the benefits of yoga to fireball chucking demons in literally two sentences. I also had to resist the temptation to get into a philosophical discussion with a manic young man concerning the idea that water is the most living, non-living thing in the world (because it has different states and is fluidly adaptable of course). But this was just the tip of the iceberg...what about the woman who sat in the day room and stuck a banana in her nether regions, but then was mortified just hours later? Or the teen who was raped by every member of her family (including her grandmother), but greets the staff with a beaming smile and a card trick every day?

This is heavy stuff people. More power to those psych nurses, cuz I ain't one of em.