Today I had my mental health clinical and it was at the Southeast Behavioral Hospital again. So I got up and almost fell asleep again, but my mom called me to make sure I was up, and that got me up. I got ready, drank an Alani, and left.
I got to the behavioral hospital at 8 AM and went in. This week, I'd be on the adult side with CJ, Katie, and Tanya, since two weeks ago we were on the adolescent side. So we all met in the lobby and Dr. Twidwell led us to the breakroom in the back to leave our stuff. We had to sit in there for a while while Twidwell led the other three people who were going to be on the adolescent side over there. Then she came back and got us and brought us to the adult side. I was actually pretty nervous because I wasn't feeling any confidence to talk to anyone. I was thinking it might be easier to start talking with adults rather than children, but no, I think it was harder.
On the adult side, there weren't many there at first, I guess they aren't required to be up until 9 AM. There were a few, and one of them was a guy named Steve, who was very friendly. So we all talked to him for a bit. There were only two adult patients in there for a while and the two girls were both talking to them, so CJ and I were just watching Ice Age that was playing on the TV for a while. The next person to come in was a girl named Isabella and she came over and sat next to me after Dr. Twidwell convinced her to come over to one of us. So I talked to her for a good while and it was actually nice. I feel like I got to know her pretty well and I enjoyed talking to her. We talked about her experience here, her goals, my nursing classes, hiking, what to do in Cape, books she's read, journaling, all sorts of stuff. The room filled up pretty quick after that but no one else really came over to our table.
We went to treatment team at around 10:30 AM and got to listen to the psychiatrist and some other professionals discuss the patients. That was also kind of interesting and sad because you learn a lot about their background that you wouldn't learn just from a casual conversation with them. We went back in with the patients and there was a guy named Owen at my table now, so I sat with him and talked a little bit. He was a bit harder to talk to, but he said he's been to a lot of facilities like this. Then they all got the opportunity to go outside, so a lot of them did and we went too. Their outside area was a walled courtyard that felt like a lot like a prison yard. There was a grassy area, a sidewalk, and a basketball hoop. We all played basketball for a while, mainly just us students playing. We tried playing PIG but we all sucked. There was one patient who was doing all of these warm-up exercises and then sprinting full speed on the grass, so that was interesting to see. A lot of the patients were just sitting at some tables outside, and that's what I eventually did. I did that after I had to be the referee for Katie and CJ's little basketball 1v1, which took forever because neither of them could make a shot. The sprinting guy was having a worker there time him, and then he was trying to do all of these calculations to see how much he ran. Then Isabella came back out and asked if I wanted to throw a football some, so I did, and I kind of sucked at first, but I got a little spiral eventually. And we had another good talk, we talked about my college experience, Spanish classes, sports we've played, that kind of stuff. I don't really like how that's the most normal and friendly conversation I've had with someone in a long time. Like, I could see myself being her friend, but she's a patient here and has done some troubled things. But it was really nice talking to her.
We were able to leave for lunch after we went back in. We had from around 11:50 to 12:40, so I went to McDonald's and got a cheeseburger with my points and a frozen Coke because I was craving one. Then I sat up in the trailer park that overlooks the behavioral hospital and where I used to go for piano lessons and listened to music in my car.
We went back in at 12:40 PM and were able to get out charts. I did mine on Isabella because I definitely talked to her the most. So we got a lot of our packets filled out and were in here for an hour or so probably.
After we got all the information we needed from the charts for our paperwork, we could leave and go to post-conference at SEMO, so that's what I did. At post-conference, everyone just talked about their experience at their clinical site and that was about it.
Then I left and went to Frank's Hill, where I didn't do much. I sat outside on my porch watching it rain for a while, took a nap, and then got up and started working on my clinical paperwork from two weeks ago which was due tonight. So talk about waiting until the last minute. I got all of that done after a couple of hours and then started working on this blog entry. I also realized a book that I started last night, The Stand by Stephen King, is a lot like the book that Isabella was reading today, Station Eleven. So that was a weird coincidence. Then I went out and decided to smoke the rest of a cigar that I started a few weeks ago, and I just decided to try and finish it. So I was out on my porch smoking this and listening to music for at least an hour, and it was kind of nice. I think towards the end, I started to get a little nic sick, I felt a bit nauseous, so I quit and drank some water and a couple of sips of Coke. And I still had probably a fifth of the cigar to go, so I really only smoked a little over half of it in this session. Then I took a long shower and went to bed at around 2 AM.
So I guess today was pretty good, I did enjoy the behavioral hospital. So 6.5/10.
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