I'd seen him walking around the hospital, but I normally have little contact with the teenage male patients. This particular guy, Billy, was on 1:1 for his safety and was constantly being taken to areas of the hospital that the rest of the boys didn't go - the playground, highfenced area - anywhere to keep him occupied.

When I first met Billy, it was a rather crazy day. New admits are to receive a "skin check" which consists of the patients disrobing and a nurse documenting where any markings, cuts, bruises, etc, may be. A new client was escorted into the restroom with two male staff. They asked him to remove his shirt and he began to do so. Then he decided to just punch my coworker in the face instead. Because he became aggressive, he was placed on 1:1 for patient and the staff's safety.

During this time, a doctor was explaining to another male patient that he'd be staying in the hospital for another week. He became angry and punched his wall, fracturing two bones in his hand. Two staff were needed to escort him to Brackenridge, because he's on escape precautions and 2:1 close proximity when outside. Needless to say, they were short staffed. I was called to the male's unit just to take up space.

I was sitting in the dayroom, coloring Razz, when Billy walked in with his 1:1. He was chattering nonsense. I could tell straight off that he was autistic. Then they told me that he also has tourettes. What a piece of work. A coworker told me later that day that the day before he'd been saying "Ostrich. Beauty Pagent." over and over. He'd interchange the two words and try them at different volumes. Sometimes stretching out the words, other times saying them quickly - rolling them around on his tongue.

When he's angry he talks about the move Polar Express. He also says "Bullshit! Bullshit!" repeatedly.

January 16, 2005

Maria is your classic mexican teenage girl. She's into tight revealing clothing, tejano and rap music, her family. She's loud and has to be the center of attention at all times. She doesn't like me because I'm constantly asking her to keep her damn voice down. Smile She was coughing a lot, so the nurse got her some cough medicine. She then went to the restroom afterward, and I could hear her wailing down the hallway, echoes off the concrete walls. Turns out she'd coughed so much that she made herself throw up. She was wailing and crying because she could stop coughing. Then her fucking nose started to bleed. At this point, she wouldn't let staff near her. Rather than pinch the bridge of her nose and tilt her head back, she was holding a pillow case to it and coughing continuously, wailing. Sure, she was fucking miserable, but she didn't need to whine like a bitch in labor. I lined up the rest of the girls to take them to the rec area so Maria wouldn't have an audience anymore. As we were leaving, a nurse was escorting her to her room. The pillowcase she was holding was drenched in blood, as was her shirt.

Once at the rec area, I had to tell a girl Amy top put her shoes on FIVE TIMES. I just gave up after awhile. A girl needed to use the restroom and there isn't one in the rec area, so we have to open the diningroom and stand in the doorway while they use the one there. I was leaning against the door, looking back and forth between the restroom door and the tv - the girls were watching That's So Raven - when Amy began making her slow but steady advance on me - NO SHOES. *pulls out hair* She was frowing, as she usually is. She appeared very confused, as she normally does. Without a word, she walked past me and into the diningroom. "Amy. Where're ya going?" She turned around very slowly (everything she does is slow) and said "I didn't mean to hurt her. I just want her to know that."

"Who did you not want to hurt, Amy?"

"Erika. I didn't want to hurt her. Am I being accused of something?" Erika is a staff at the hospital. I later asked her about this and Erika told me that she hadn't even spoken to Amy all day.

"No, Amy. Nobody's accusing you of anything."

She then lifted her hands, she does this OFTEN, and looked at the front then flipped them over and looked at the back. She repeated this a few times. "Why are you looking at your hands, Amy?"

"They're swollen."

"They don't look swollen to me."

She then began to rub on her lower stomach and her thighs. "It hurts. It hurts down there."

"Are you on your period, Amy? Do you think it could be cramps?"

She frowned harder, "It hurts. It hurts. Is it out yet?"

Thinking that she was just having some crampage, I asked her to use the restroom. After 5 minutes, I knocked on the door and asked if she was alright. When she didn't respond, I told her I was going to open the door. She was sitting on the toilet with her pants around her ankles, looking very fucking confused. I asked her if she was done and she didn't respond. It took a lot of effort to coax her to pull her pants up and leave the restroom. Mostly, she just stared at me not comprehending what I was saying. We emerged from the diningroom to find the rec area empty. I'd been trying to persuade Amy off the toilet for so long that we'd run into shower time. She seemed very disoriented, so while walking back to the unit, I asked her if she knew what today was. To my great surprise, she replied "I think it's Saturday, right?" I then asked her how long she'd been at the hospital. Though she's been with us about a week, she didn't know. I asked her who she lived with at home - she didn't know. I asked her if she lived with her parents. She responded with "They were my parents. They're not anymore." When I asked her why she said "I don't know, but I think my step father molested me. My mother started smoking crack." I tried to press her about the subject, but the moment had passed and she was no longer able to respond to my questions.

In the short time span that I've worked at the facility, I've never seen anyone quite like Amy. Some of my coworkers who have been there 5+ years also agree. She's black, large (obese even) and very tall; over six feet. She's 17 and a senior in highschool, but doesn't talk much and when she does it doesn't make much sense. She has moments of clarity that come and go. Sometimes she'll just cry. You can ask her what she's upset about and she'll just stare at you. She has a habit of wondering off. We'll be in a rehab activity and she'll just get up and slowly walk toward the door. "Amy! Amy come sit down with us over here." Without a word, she'll come back and have a seat. She does this quite often. If you ask her where she's going, she'll just stare at you. She washes her hands constantly and complains that she's "not clean down there."

After lights out, she'll venture out of her room sometimes 5-6 times a night and just stand in the dayroom staring at staff. We'll tell her it's bedtime and without a word, she'll return to her room. I was very curious about her case, so I read her chart. There's nothing in it. Her Axis I analysis (that a psychological professional wrote up) simply says "psychotic problems."

I could have told you that, jackass.

She has a band shirt and a track team shirt. Word is that she's an honor student at her school, in a lot of extra activities, well liked by the student body. She was completely normal. Then something happened to her and she just wasn't in our world anymore. :T We believe she was raped by her step father and that she's been having audio and visual hallucinations, flashbacks of the attack. "Is it out yet?"

When we returned to the unit, Maria was in her room on her bed, sobbing loudly and coughing. The nurse approached me and said "Please ignore any requests from Maria. Her nose was bleeding earlier, but it's since stopped and she's been picking at it to make it start up again for attention."

I started the showers and everyone took one but Amy. She'd been sitting in the dayroom watching tv, sometimes looking at her hands. I asked her if she wanted to take a shower and she appeared very confused. I had to help her up from the couch and take her to her room and pick out clothes with her. I let her into a shower and closed the door and forgot about it. ;X lol 10 minutes later, I walked down the hall and saw that her shower door was ajar and propped open with the leg....doorstop....thingy..at the bottom of it. Amy was sitting on the floor with all her hygiene products around her. She was completely naked. I asked her what she was doing and she just stared at me. I was busy running all over the place doing different things, so I called a coworker to help Amy with her shower. For the previous week, Amy had been able to take a shower on her own without assistance, but for some reason today she just couldn't do it. She had to be told step by step how to bathe herself.

I was running some errands around the hospital, and was walking past the med room when Billy and his 1:1 staff were getting his night time meds. He was pacing back and forth like he does, repeating himself. "Raccoons on the loose. Raccoons on the loose. Raccoons on the loose."

When I got back to the unit, the girls were eating snack. One patient walked past Amy's room. "Um...Amy's naked." Her light was off and she's quite dark skinned, but I could still see the light shining off her fat rolls. She was sitting on her bed, staring at me. I called the coworker that helped her do her shower and asked her to take care of it. lol Too much..for me.....nope..not dealing with that.
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