When I got in, I heard that Sally, who's eyes had been rolling back in her head, had already been restrained twice this morning. She'd soiled herself in the restraint chair and had to be given a shower.

I learned of a new girl who was from California. She had lived in a 'home'
there and travelled (by numerous truck driver) to Texas. Somewhere along the way she'd been raped. She was arrested by the cops shortly afterward and taken to the hospital where they wouldn't do the exam because APD refused to pay for it. She was brought to us with no clothes, bruises all over her body and face, and constantly sobbing all day.

The most lactose intolerant Tonya didn't eat dinner tonight. She later sat with me and told me that she thought she had an eating dissorder. She has claimed to numerous people that she's been throwing up her food. There's been no evidence of this at all except her weight loss. She shakes violently when she's angry, which is often, and seems to pick up on other people's mental illnesses. We think that she's claiming to have an eating dissorder because another girl on the unit really does have one, but she's anorexic, not bulimic.

Another girl; I swore was a lesbian when I first laid eyes on her. Short brown hair, short stocky figure, deep voice, flat chest. She's the nicest on the entire ward, very motivated - catches on quick to the game - and shows no reasons as to why she's there. She's allowed to play her guitar, which her parents brought her, granted that she plays it away from everyone else because of the metal strings, which could be used to strangle some one. Her doctor (some fucking QUACK) has told her that she suspects she is a transgender, meaning that she's a boy trapped in a girl's body. WHAT SHIT! They've been doing tests on her all week, the results of which will come back by the end of the week, to see whether she has normal chromosomes. Her parents were SO believing when the doctor announced the diagnosis that they wanted to CHANGE HER NAME to a boy's name. I shit you not. The staff today each had a long talk with her about what shit that idea was and that her chromosomes didn't change who she was, nor did the opinion of one doctor.

At med time, Stacy (loud mouth cunt of a girl. I want to slap her.) came up to me with a large pill in a cup asking to use the restroom. I asked her why she hadn't taken her pill and she said she needed to use the restroom. I took her over to the door and began to unlock it asking again why she hadn't taken it. She said "I need to put this in my anus, Ms. Heather." Earlier that day, I peaked over her shoulder and saw that the paper she had been working on for the past hour had the same sentence over and over again. "I hope I die."

After phone time, the girl from California was sobbing harder. She'd called her mother, who she hadn't spoken with in a month. Phone time makes many of the patients cry. The girl from San Antonio, the 17 year old who sold pot, she was sobbing in a corner and asking for me to come talk to her. I sat down on the floor and she told me about how her father had been out of prison for 3 months now, but her case worker just told her today on the phone. She was angry because she could have known her father all this time. She claimed that he had gone to prison when she was 2, and that her mother had put him there saying that he had raped her (the girl). She told me that she had no memory of her father raping her, but her step father raped her up until she was put into foster care. She turns 18 this Friday and is being discharged the same day. She says in San Antonio she's going to live in a place that will teach her how to get a job and keep her own place. She doesn't want to leave the hospital and she's scared.