Where the fuck do I begin? *sigh*

I walked onto the unit and walked down the hall, checking all the doors to make sure they were locked. About halfway down the hall, Scott jumped out at me, both thumbs on either side of his head, fingers in the air, tongue hanging out. "blaaaaaahahahakjdhksjydfkhskdjfh!" he screamed. The children aren't allowed in the back hallway without staff supervision. I immediately told him that I'd take him to the quiet room if he didn't go sit down in the dayroom.

We all sat down to start the paperwork and we had all the kids sit in the dayroom. Normally on Wednesdays they have music therapy at this time, but today some other guy showed up. He brought 3 decks of cards, two small, one large. He played some kinda card bingo. It seemed like this fucker just made this shit up right before he walked in the door. Many of the children don't know what a "spade" or "club" looks like and had to be told repeatedly. All the children had to be taught the game.

Tiffany is a cute little thing; about 3'4" and weighs 60 cents. She's eight years old and has long black hair down to her ass. She's got a mouth like a midevil beer wench and an anger problem that would rival a raging abusive alcoholic father. Her brothers have also been to the hospital before. This is not her first visit. All of her and her brothers have been moved to foster homes. She was brought to us for getting in a fight at home. When things lost control and the police were called, she did cartwheels on their cars when they tried to take her away. One day last week, after she kicked a boy, it took three of us to pry her off the merry-go-round. She's gorgoeus. She's a little bitch. Tiffany wont the first round of card bingo. After she won, the rehab guy told her that there was no prize for the first round, because everyone was just learning how to play. She became very angry.

Since it took so long to pass out the cards and teach the kids how to play, the rehab guy was almost out of time. So there were only two rounds. Miraculously, Tiffany won the second round too. The prize this time was 60 cents; just enough to buy one snack from the vending machine.

Scott immediately started screaming as the rehab guy handed her the money. He threw his cards across the room and began picking up other people's cards and doing the same. He then curled up into a ball on the floor and started crying. I wasn't really worried about Scott though.

Elmo had sucked his bottom lip in and was sitting quietly with his hands in his lap. Everyone else got up but Elmo and the crying Scott. Elmo got up, quick like, and ran over to his room. He slammed the door. BANG. He opened it and slammed it again. BANG. I went over to the door and pressed it with my foot in case he decided to slam it again. A quick look through the window in the door showed he was sitting on the bed fuming mad. A nurse came over and went into his room to speak with him. I immediately rounded up the other kids and lined them up. I could tell that Elmo was going to escalate out of control, so for everyone else's safety, we had to get off the unit. I heard him screaming and screaming, and could hear things being thrown around his room; probably his clothes hamper.

I finally got Scott to sit up and get in line. He lagged at the end with his arms crossed, face like satan. He was asked by staff "Do you need to stay on the unit and take a time out?" To a child, this sounds like a punishment, but it's meant to give the person time to control their behavior and anger before something bad happens. Scott screamed "I WANT TO GO OUT!" Because he had screamed, I could not allow him to leave. I told him that he was going to stay on the unit and he threw his head back and unleashed this horrendous girl scream. I yelled to the other staff "Scott's staying!" As myself and another staff walked around the corner, I could hear Elmo banging the windows in the quiet room and the scuffle and screams of Scott and more staff pulled him to the ground. I turned to the door and quickly rushed the other kids outside before any of them got injured.

The kids played outside. There's razor scooters to zoom around on and big plastic trucks to move dirt around with in the sand pit. There's a swing set, the merry-go-round, the playscape, the tire swings. There's also an area to play football and kickball. Everything is fenced in (high fence) and locked down. Seven kids, two staff, and everything was just fine. I heard some one call my name, and turned to see that Scott had been brought outside. The staff told me "We don't have staff for him right now. Please take care of him for a moment. Elmo's going into the stretcher." I later heard that Elmo began hitting his head on the walls of the quiet room (it's not padded). When he was asked to stop, he began punching himself. Fight Club sprang to mind. He was placed in a five point stretcher restraint and given a shot of Zyprexa.

When Scott was brought outside, he immediately went to a scooter and began zooming around the place, smiling and laughing, playing with his peers. I thought he'd calmed down and was going to be ok until I saw that he had found a glove in the sand. Working at a state institution, I deal with great problems like this all the time. There's a million reasons why he shouldn't have a glove, but the most obvious is that he could choke himself with it. I told him to give it here and he took off running. There was only myself and another staff outside, so we only chased him for a short while and couldn't catch him. He ended up throwing the glove over the fence. I guess he thought that we wanted the glove, but in reality we just didn't want HIM to have it.....he's not too bright. anywho. When we finally caught him, off guard at that, I sat with him on the bench in a baskethold for a good while until it was time to line up. Everyone else did so and I released him, thinking he'd go line up like a good boy. Fuck no. The kid takes off running and there's three staff now. We chase him down and restrain him and take him inside, straight to the quiet room. I take the kids to dinner and then everything's fine.

We go back to the unit and shit just got..hazy.
A kid didn't want to shower: quiet room, banging, screaming, and shots.
A kid didn't like her roommate: quiet room, banging, screaming, and shots.
A kid's parents didn't call them this evening: quiet room, banging, screaming, and shots.

Absolute insanity.


Nine children. Five staff. Hell. on. earth.

When everyone was finally in bed, one kid who we've all dubbed "harry potta" began whispering to his roommates. He looks just like harry potter save for the scar and black hair. (his hair is blonde) Harry and me get along just fine. In fact, Harry gets along with all the adults. He's a picture perfect child, tattles nonstop and thinks he's a junior staff. He's sweet as pie to your face, a snack in the grass behind your back. I've been told he's a young sociopath and can easily lie his way out of a brick well. His roommates weren't even talking. He just..began whispering curse words to them, calling them names and flipping them off when they asked him to stop. We moved him into the day room. He immediately started talking to me. He's such a nice kid that I couldn't help but respond. I knew if I stayed there in the dayroom that I'd keep him up all night, so I stepped out for a smoke.

There's only two smoking areas on the building I work at. There's one in front with some nice picnic tables and then there's the one in back right by the construction site. There's not tables, just a large genie bottle to put butts in. Almost half the staff smoke and use this smoking are...BUT...nobody actually...goes to the genie bottle which is about 10 yeards away from the facility. Everyone sits on the docking ledge right outside the building. It just so happens that recently (because of the construction) a gas pipe broke. Two units had no hot water for a day and the patients were very pissed off at shower time. A makeshift gas line was put in and a small...trailer type thing is set up with 3 large natural gas tanks on it pumping gas into the place.

Now...I know it's gas, but I'd rather sit by it than walk 10 yards out and stand in the grass and smoke. So there I was sitting when a car pulled up. The person had already seen that I was smoking, so I felt no obligation to hide it. The guy immediately started checking the gas guages and then approahced me saying "You're smoking? You know this is gas right?" I told him that I did and was being careful. He then pulled out his own cig and started smoking, talking to me about the hospital and how long he'd worked there and how the gas line had come to be broken. He was a nice guy. I put out my smoke and went back inside. Harry was still awake and still trying to talk to me. Rather than be rude and ignore him, I grabbed the trashbags and brought them back outside. The guy had gone now.

I took the bags over to the trash, remembering that I still hadn't entered today's events into the computer. It was about..10:30 at this time, and I leave at 11:15. I quickly drug the bags to the dumpster and threw them in. I realized instantly that I'd had my keys in the same hand and had tossed them into the dumpster.

what. the. fuck.

So ....now..lol I'm locked out. I go over to the door and start knocking on it calling my supervisor's name. Of course she can't hear me. Luckily, the gas guy pulls up again and I tell him my problem. He opens the door for me and I grab the flash light. I came back out and shown it into the dumpster. Omg it smelled. It smelled bad. really bad. Itlooked worse. Luckily, all the bags were closer to the back. I climbed into this nasty dumpster. When I did so, my lighter fell out of my pocket and onto the nasty oogie trashbags. yuck. I grabbed it and my keys and climbed out, trying to forget that some stranger was watching me do all this humilliating shit. I quickly thanked him and ran back inside.

I washed my hands like..3 times and used hand sanitizer. *sigh* just then *grin* a friend from another unit showed up and brought me the hamburger and fries I ordered. I almost cried for fucking joy. *SOB* I literally..took one bite of the thing when a new admission walked in. She was such a cute little girl. Smile short curly hair. She had a babydoll with her and a bag of clothes. I opened the bag and began rifling through it so I could document it. I began taking items out and saying them as I did so. "ooo..lookie what we got here...these are cute pants. Oh, is this your babydoll?" kinda shit. When the girl didn't reply after the first few sentences, I got up and said "I'm Heather. What's your name?" and put out my hand. She just looked at me. I looked at her really hard in the face. She looked...almost exactly like VHS boy. She said "Hi." and smiled. Weirded out, I went and sat down. A few minutes later, she said "Hi" again, and smiled. The piece of paper on the table by the nurse's station said that her name is Kera. Kera's autistic.

10:45 I was told to give her a unit orientation. I finally got her to stand up and took her around the place. I tried to show her things on the walls, telling her about her rights as a patient here and showing her the hygiene room and showers. She began crying at some point, holding both my hands and saying "momma" over and over. She began talking a bit, mostly repeating things. She told us that she wanted to take a bath. We started the bath for her and were puting together her hygiene box when the nurse came with a small green pill. Kera told the nurse "Hi." Most patients get the green pill when they first arrive, to help them sleep. She put it in her mouth and drank from the cup of water. When she stuck out her tongue, the pill was still there. This went on about..5 more times. Each time she stuck out her tongue, the pill was more dissolved and her face was more disgusted. She couldn't swallow it. The nurse finally took it off her tongue..lol ewww..and said she was going to get some pudding.

She returned with a large wooden popsicle stick and a small cup of pudding. As soon as Kera saw the nurse, she started crying. It took three of us to coax her to eat it. She finally swallowed it down and smiled up at me. Then she spit up what looked like pudding, the pill, and some red stuff.

She started throwing up everywhere. ;X lol I din't catch any of it though! Another staff member got it on her and a towel that we had handy. We took her into the restroom and she sat on the floor, lurching over the toilet seat, vomiting over and over. We finally gave her a bath, made her a bed, and put her in a room to sleep.

Just before night shift came in, we could hear her still away in her room. "Hi" she said.

I'm so happy today is over.