I learned today that Sally's eye condition is called EPS. It's a movement disorder that's a side effect of the psychotropic medication she's on. It also causes stiffness in the back and arms. Today she began crying in rehab group and repeatedly screamed "I want my momma. I want my momma." We had to redirect her to the tv and put on a Harry Potter movie to get her to stop crying.

During another rehab session (they get numerous throughout the day) we had music therapy, which just so happened to be karoke. One girl wanted to sing, but she was afraid to in front of everyone else. We finally coerced her to sing and after she was finished she walked away from the rest of the group and cried for 15 minutes.

There's one girl that's really attached to me. I'll call her Tonya. She's a repeat patient and this is her third time coming to the facility. She 14 and claims to be here for suicide attempts and prostitution. Many of the staff complain to her that she has a distinct body odor. Tonya takes showers just to earn points toward recovering, but doesn't use soap. The likelihood is that she was never taught how.

At dinner time we escort everyone to the dining room and everyone sits. Names are called and patients are to come to the counter and pick up their individualized trays. Tonya's name was called and she approached the counter to see milk on her tray. She screamed "I CAN'T DRINK MILK!! ARE YOU TRYING TO KILL ME?!?!?" The entire room was silent as the MHW behind the counter explained to her (with great attitude) that she had made a mistake. Tonya sat down with her tray.

The Karoke girl was sitting alone, so I sat with her to ask about how she was feeling and what not. I was there for about 5 minutes when Tonya yelled for me across the room asking if I'd come sit with her. I sat with Tonya and asked her what was up. She said that she wanted to talk to a Nurse immediately. I asked the other staff if she would be able to and they said not until after dinner. When I returned to the table and told her what they'd said, she began to shake violently and turn red in the face. She breathed very heavily and said she wanted to talk to a nurse. I repeated myself and snot began to run out of her nose.

She asked to be escorted back to her room. Myself and a coworker took her back to her unit. She sat with me and said that the staff were against her and trying to kill her with milk. I informed her that it wouldn't kill her, but only make her sick. We finally calmed her down and explained that we were all here to help her. She later told us that she was having distorted thoughts. The nurse finally came and gave her some meds. She didn't put up a fuss for the rest of the day until I told her that I was leaving for lunch. She nearly flipped out and I had to assure her that I was coming back.

Tonya also has a red mark on her chin. It looks like a burn, but it covers almost the whole chin. I asked her how she'd gotten it and she said that it was from the cake from yesterday and that some icing had gotten on her chin. The burned look was the effects of the milk in the icing. There is NO MILK in icing. She also told her mother when she came to visit today that she'd thrown up her dinner after eating it. She didn't eat ANY of her dinner, because she had flipped out and we had to escort her back to the unit. Her mother also brought her brownies and a milkshake. She ate both of them.

Another girl, who's also quite attached to me, approached me and asked to talk because "I feel like cutting myself." She talked with me about her foster mother and how she would hit her and the other children she had taken into her home. I took her into the "fashion" room and helped her pick out some shoes and clothes that would fit her. The girl had come to the facility with no clothes and no shoes and her foster mother refused to send her anything. Before she came to the facility, she was in a gang, pushing pot and coke, owned a gun, and had a 24 year old boyfriend. She's 17.

Ohhh Friday. Thus far, I've been with the teenage females. Today I was with the younger children. There are no females presently, just 5 boys. You'd think that a small amount like that would be easily contained.

Upon entering the ward, I saw that a staff member was following Tommy around. This means that he's on a 1:1. The person assigned to him has to follow him everywhere, watch him in the bathroom and the shower, and even watch him sleep. Tommy's autistic. He doesn't talk much, but makes noises; pops and buzzes (literally)mostly. The problem with many mentally ill children is that their parents spoiled them. Their need to get up and walk around, speak, or even dress themselves is gone because their parents do it for them. I suppose their parents feel that they don't have the mental capacity to do it or they don't have the effort and time to teach them the basics of life. Big mistake, people.

When you look him in the face, it appears as though his eyes are never really focused on anything, least of all you. His face is normally vacant and without expression unless he's expressing pain; the universal look of streaming tears and an open whining mouth. He's nine years old.

Tommy's also very compulsive. I walked in and immediately saw him pick up a VHS on the table by the nurse's station. "Is that YOURS?" asked his 1:1. She blocked his way, but he ran around her AND a couch and into his room with the tape. The supervisor chuckled - she does so often - and said in her jamaican/mexican/black lady accent "Don't worry. He'll just line it up with the rest of them." Tommy doesn't attend rehab classes with the others. He normally doesn't go outside to play either. The only activity he does with everyone is meals.

I'm there for dinner. Once again everyone is to sit and come when their name is called. Tommy was called last, and though he appears to not understand you when you ask him to do something, he can certainly get up and come get his tray of food and take it back to the same place he was sitting. The other children always ask for seconds of this or that and argue over different shit. Tommy sat quietly with his 1:1 and ate.

The dining room is split in two by a wall painted in an elaborately colored forest. On the other side of the wall is a large entertainment center. The other children had thrown away their trash and trays. Tommy was still eating when he put down his utensils, jumped up and ran around the wall. You could hear the *skiiiiiirt* of a chair being moved out of the way so that he could open the entertainment center. I could see around the corner that he was loading up his arms up with VHS tapes. The supervisor laughed hard this time. "It's like he just remembered where those tapes were." she said. They then told me that the reason he was there was because he'd broken into two people's houses to steal their tapes. "He must have saw them in the window and he broke in ands took them." Time of day and whether some one was home or not didn't matter to him. I can't imagine what he's like in a store.

When we took them all back to the ward, Tommy wouldn't sit still. He would come up to his 1:1, sit by her, look off into space, and then reach over and pinch her without eason and without warning. Thoughout the day I saw him pinch, hit, kick, scratch, and stomp on different people's feet. I was also told by another child that he was punched by him earlier in the day. I watched as Tommy pinched the supervisor. She took him straight to the "quiet room." He screamed and screamed for about an hour. Every once in awhile you could hear the SLAM of him banging his arms against the window. No intelligible words ever came out of his screaming.

Believe it or not, there's a swimming pool at the facility. They've just built a new one, but it's not open yet because there's construction very close by. We promised the kids that we'd take them swimming (the 4 boys without Tommy that is). We took them outside and got the 2ft deep plastic pool and filled it with water. Some of them don't have swimwear, but their clothes are washed regularly, so we allowed them to swim in the clothes they were wearing as long as they took their shirts off to minimize dripping when we went back inside.

Marcos had taken his shirt off and you could see little red dots all over his stomach and scratch marks on his back. It looked quite mild. I noticed it immediately but didn't think anything of it. Another staff member called a nurse right away and he came to check it out. Marcos was VERY angry when we told him that he coudn't swim anymore with everyone else. "That's not fair! They're just ant bites! " he wailed. The nurse took him inside and never returned with him. The coworker that had called the nurse immediately began to descirbe different diseases that it could be.

We let them "swim" in the two feet of water for about an hour. We took them all back in for showers. On the unit, the nurse was waiting with Marcos. He told us that he has a mild case of Scabies. Scabies is caused by tiny mites - chiggers - that burrow into the skin and lay eggs and feces throught the body, normally in the warmest parts; the crotch and armpits.

I could hear down the hall that Tommy wasn't liking his showertime. It was taking two staff to bathe him. He was screaming and screaming. The other children had finished their showers and were watching cartoons like nothing was happening nearby, just zoning out the screams. Meanwhile, another staff was taking all Marcos' clothes away from him, getting him new sheets and disinfecting the plastic cover on his mattress.

After his bath, Tommy was on a rampage and had to be put in the quiet room again. The nurse arrived and we took him to his room. There on the counter were about 30 video tapes, all VHS. All his toys were neatly stacked on top in a very organized manner. I watched as two staff held him down, pulled his shorts down and injected two shots, one in each asscheek. He screamd "Momma! Momma!" over and over; the first word I'd heard him say all day. The nurse informed me that the two meds couldn't be mixed and took effect at different times. That's why they were each done in a different cheek. Tommy sat on his bed for awhile crying, face of pain, and rubbed his ass. I bent to look at his movies and he said "Don't touch! Don't touch!" The supervisor chuckled again and left the room.

After Lilo and Stitch, and after lights out, Marcos refused to sleep. He said he wanted his teddybear, but we had taken it away from him because of the Scabies. He had to be put in the quiet room again and the nurse came again to give him meds. Eventually, he slept like a rock.

Today was fairly uneventful compared to the other days. I was put with the teenage boys today. One was terribly happy all day because he'd gained a day pass to the outside world and is leaving tomorrow morning. I sat and talked with him for a long time. He'd OD'd on sleeping pills and tylenol. He said they'd put a tube down his nose and into his stomach to pump the charcoal in.

Another boy had multiple scars on his wrists. He also had fresh wounds on his knuckles that he picked at frequently. He told me that he was trying to divorce his parents and that he'd tried to kill his mom. He's actually from out of town, as many of the patients are, but was sent to here because he couldn't be put in the same hospital with his girlfriend. She tried to kill herself and since he loves her so much, he promised to go where ever she went, so he tried to kill himself too. They'd been going out for a week at the time.

Another lad seemed very...slow....slow to walk, slow to talk, slow at everything. He played pool very well. I don't know if it was the meds they had him on or whether he was simply born a crackbaby, but the kid just seemed fucking odd to me. He was also very polite, very nice to those around him, and showed little to no reason as to why he was put here other than the fact that he had no shoe laces and no belt (his pants kept falling down) indicating that he was on suicide precautions.

I had gone out for lunch break and returned with my fried chicken. I had to pass the 'conference' room to get back to where I was assigned. I could hear some one beating on the glass of the window from the room. I stopped to see if they were knocking at me and I could see that it was the girl who's very attached to me, 17, and thinks we're great friends. She waved at me furiously. I could see my bitch of a supervisor behind her waving her arms at me too "just GO. GO GO...GO" so I kept walking. A few minutes later on the unit I heard the walkie talkie go off. It was my supervisor. "this is Terrie to Samantha. Can you please come get her out of here? She's threatening me and beating on the glass." I could hear the girl in the background screaming "GET THE FUCK AWAY FROM ME"


One boy has three dots tattooed on his hand between his thumb and forefinger. I've had friends in the past with the same tattoo. Weeks ago, when I commented on it he said he had another tat as well. On his shoulder he had the words "420 click" horribly inked. When I asked what the 'click' part meant, he assured me that it meant a group of people. I informed him that it was spelled wrong, but I don't think he got it. Today at the meeting before work, when we discuss each patient's progress, we were told that his lawyer visited him today. The lawyer had brought a video tape with him. The boy was so angry after watching it that he ran screaming from the room and refused to go back in. No one knew what he'd seen on the tape, and he wouldn't talk about it. He told me tonight, right before bed, that the tape had two little boys testimonies on it, both of which claimed that he had raped them.

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.

Keep this shit coming, man.
Something about this just reels me in.

I sat in the break room as usual, waiting for the cross shift meeting to start. I could see as people entered that we were WAY understaffed. Some people were running late, some not at all. One had a spouse in a car accident, one was on vacation, one was sick. I was first sent to the children's ward until the car crash spouse arrived. I've gotten into the habit of bringing a book with me, which just so happened to be Blood Canticle by Anne Rice (DON'T READ IT. IT'S NOT WORTH IT) which takes the time away for awhile. I placed it on the table. I was there for about 5 minutes, talking with the boys and asking them to clean up their mess, etc...The car crash spouse arrived, and I turned to pick up my book from the table before I left. It wasn't there, but in the air floating to the ground was a white piece of paper. It flipped through the air and landed and I saw that it was my bookmark. I looked to the closest room where it had landed and saw that VHS boy had just walked through his door. I ran into the room and saw that he was lining up my book with his fucking VHS tapes. He saw me and started screaming (little monkey noises) and I grabbed the book from him and told him "this is MY book!" He started screaming louder, but I didn't give a fuck and just left to go to the other unit.
When I arrived, Sally was in restraint.......AGAIN. They let her out and she sat on the couch, playing with her hair. She turned to look at me and I saw that her eyes were rolled back in her head. All the patients love her, despite her being mentally retarded, making her a dead weight for the rest of the girls who are highpaced and highly active. They all sat in the dayroom with her and comforted her.
Today is little thug girl's (the pot seller's) birthday. I've yet to give her a name, so I'll call her Terra. She turned 18 today. She usually bounces off the fucking walls as it is, terribly immature and undeveloped in social skills. She acts like she's 13 and has the hyper nature of a 5 year old, but today she was even worse. Terra constantly bothered staff about giving her money, candy, cokes, "Where's my birthday cake? I can do what I want. It's my birthday." REALLY annoying. It was also a Texas holiday today (LBJ's birthday) so there were no rehab classes. For the majority of the day, the girls sat around bored, getting on each other's nerves and needed to be told over and over again to mind their own business, especially Terra.
There's one girl that's louder than the others, even Terra. I'll call her Jasmine. She's 15, black, LOUD, talks really ghetto. She's also really funny, when she's not bothersome. I have no idea why she's here or her past history, but I do know that she's been here awhile and I've never heard talk of sending her home. She's normally the instigator of the group. She'll tell anyone, even you, what to do. She likes to get into people's business, bring up people's hurtful past, and blame everything on anyone but herself. She gets angry very easily, slams doors, screams alot.
Today....she wasn't like that at all. We told her straight off at the beginning of the shift that she was doing very well today and that we hadn't had to tell her anything about keeping her voice down. Jasmine thanked us and continued to sit on the couch and draw. You could tell by looking in her eyes that something was different today. She was using a pencil and a blank sheet of paper, drawing the same thing over and over again; a really fucked up looking flower. After about 30 minutes, she announced to us, and really the whole room because she's so fucking loud, "I feel paranoid." We suggested that she move from the couch and onto the floor, so she could sit with her back to a wall and people couldn't walk behind her. After a few minutes of sitting there, I looked over to see that her eyes were dashing all over the room. She'd pulled her knees up to her chest and was still drawing, faster and furiously now. A few minutes after that, she'd dropped the paper and the pencil, and all expression from her face. It almost looked like her face was melting, I'd never seen anything like it. Her eyes were closed and her entire body was limp, tears streaming down her cheeks. My supervisor sat with her for a few minutes asking her what was wrong. She put both hands to her cheeks and opened her eyes, they were darting all over the room. I couldn't hear what she was saying, but I could hear my supervisor, who assured her "What you're seeing isn't real, Jasmine. It's a hallucination. I know you think it's real, and for you it is, but that's your world. In my world, I don't see anything. We're gonna get you some medication to make your world normal again." She was sobbing now, hands covering her face. I called a nurse and she said that her daily meds included a dose of something near unpronounceable that stopped hallucinations. She'd already given it her today, a little late in fact, and it would take awhile to kick in.
Sally's therapist arrived. She stayed in the dayroom with the rest of the girls because Sally didn't want to leave, she said she was worried about Jasmine. The therapist brought out a bunch os toys, squishy things, and blinky lighted plastic doodads. All the girls passed them around and Jasmine perked up when she saw them. I asked if she wanted to play with one, but she declined the offer and just watched. We took the girls to lunch, leaving Jasmine to eat lunch alone on the unit. When we got back, she was her normal loud self.
One of the staff members left to go to blockbuster to get a movie for Terra for her birthday; something the girls could watch while they ate birthday cake. While she was gone we decided to get showers started early. Since there was only two staff now, myself and another girl, I had to do showers alone while the other girl did paperwork. I spent a good hour running around checking on everyone, making sure the doors were locked, making sure everyone had the right soap. Some of the girls don't even USE their soap. They don't know how to shower properly and need help. Finally, after everyone was done showering, Sally announced that she wanted a shower. She simply can't do it on her own. I helped her undress, shower, and dress again. It all took about 15 minutes. I literally had to stand in the doorway and give her step by step instructions on how to take a shower. "Open this, put some in your hand, and then put it all over your hair. Make sure you don't get it in your eyes." That kinda shit. Sally likes to repeat herself. She'll say the same thing over and over again until she gets her way, which never happens at the unit. Her favorite catch phrases are as follows: "I'm hungry." "I want to go home." "My stomach hurts." "Don't touch me." And when she's in restraints she says "Fuck you. Let me out." She will say these OVER and OVER again for sometimes hours, usually waiting a few minutes in between each time she says it. Today she was saying a new one. "I want hamburger." lol...it was so awesome. It was driving the whole unit crazy. Some of the girls were asking us to make her shut up. What are we supposed to do? I want a fucking hamburger too, bitch. What makes you think you're getting one? While she was in the shower, she pulled back the curtain. I could see that her hair was covered in soap. She said to me "I want hamburger." I started laughing, and couldn't help it. I just imagined the little tard in there naked, taking a shower, eating a hamburger.
After showers, the girls started watching the credits of the movie. We had to turn it off for a moment to send all the girls to get their night meds. All the girls returned and sat down again. Sally sat on the couch in Terra's spot. Jasmine sat beside her a little down the couch and rested her feet on the coffee table. Terra was furious at Sally. "THAT'S MY SPOT! YOU TOOK MY SPOT!" Sally looked up at her, she didn't even know what she was talking about. I told Terra that she'd lost her seat and that I didn't care if it was her birthday, she has no right to talk to people like that. Terra pointed her finger at me, coke and M&M's in the other hand, and said "That's not fair! You guys baby her." Jasmine....HATES Terra, and vise versa. Jasmine went back to her old ways, getting into other people's business. "You lost your seat, Terra. Just because it's your birthday doesn't mean you own the damn place. Look at you with your M&M's. You get babied too." They started exchanging "SHUT UP!" "NO. YOU SHUT UP!" until Jasmine lost her temper and pushed the coffee table away with her feet, knocking over Sally's juice from med time. Jasmine went straight to her room and slammed the door. A few minutes later she came out and went to the furthest door down the hall. Just on the other side of the door, you can see sunlight peeking out from the bottom of it, is the outside world. This door ALWAYS reamins locked. She started kicking it over and over. My suprvisor told her to go to her room and calm down. She came to the dayroom and sat down, but wouldn't go to her room. She finally said "FINE! I'll go to my room. I'm gonna hurt myself." and ran to her room. My supervisor called after her "Ok...after you've said that, I can't let you go to your room alone." She stood in the doorway until a nurse arrived to give her even MORE meds. She finally slept after that.
After the movie, the rest of the girls went to sleep. I finally had a chance to eat, I hadn't eaten all day. I went to the closest mexican restaurant, a privately owned busienss that's been open for 50 years. I returned with the food, SO HUNGRY and couldn't wait to eat. I got back and was told that a new girl had just come in and that I had to do a body search, wound search and create a chart for her. I couldn't eat. I found the girl in the nurse's startion speaking with the head nurse. She wouldn't stop moving around and fidgeting. Her pupils were HUGE and she had a piece of playdo that they'd given her. She was squishing it, passing it from hand to hand. She had a huge bandage on her arm and blood smeared all over her shirt and jeans. They asked her where the blood was from and she said her arm. She said she'd been on the street, found a pice of glass, and just started cutting herself. She came in with no shoes or socks. Her name is Katie.
We took Katie into the restroom and assessed her body wounds. She said she had an "infection" on her knee, which was but a large scar now. We removed her bandage from her arm to see that the hospital had taken good care of it. She'd had no time for method, and had just scratched no particular pattern in her skin with the glass shard. It was some mishapen crisscross design of deep cuts. We had to put a bed in the dayroom for her. Anyone on suicide precautions has to be watched 24 hours a day, even when they sleep and use the restroom, and shower. She was filling out paper work with me and I asked if they'd given her anything at the hospital. She said no. I then pointed at that her eyes were really large and that she couldn't stop moving. I said it looked like she was tweeking. Katie shook her head no, but a few minutes later looked up at me from her paperwork and shook her head yes. She refused to make her bed, and just sat on the edge of it with her arms over her head rocking back and forth. Another staff arrived, and I left the room to make her chart. When I returned she was laying in bed with her eyes closed. I doubt she was asleep, because she was tweeking so hard, but I got to leave right after that, so it's none of my concern anymore.

I was on my first 1 to 1 today. We'll call the little bastard Steve. Steve's 11. Steve's a son of a bitch. He's kinda...I dunno wtf is wrong with him. He's loud, he's a little slow, and he gets angry when he doesn't get his way. He's on 1:1 precautions when he's awake. Lucky me.

So when I got on the little boys' unit, they were all being crazy and loud and running around, so the other staff members (I cannot stress enough that I had NOTHING to do with this decision) decided that everyone needed to go to their rooms for a quiet 15 minute break. This was also time for us to get some paperwork out of the way - us meaning not me because I'm on a fucking 1:1 with this little fucker. So I pulled up a chair and I'm sitting in his doorway not taking my eyes off him, lest he hurt himself or some one else. He's supposed to be in his room all quiet. Instead he's up running around finding every scrap of paper or cardboard in his room, shaping it into some form of airplane and flying it around.

The two kids in the room next to him are absolute angels and I've heard they're both getting out within the next week. They get to come out of their rooms first. Steve was totally furious. "How come they get to come out? When do I get to come out?" blah fuckity blah. So this continues on..and every kid gets to come out of their room but him. It's dinner time now and he's SO mad...that he refuses to go to dinner. "I'm not going. I don't give a damn." So on..and so forth. So everyone else leaves and it's me and him on the unit. Now that everyone's left, he thinks it's playtime. I fucking TOLD his ass that just because he doesn't wanna eat doesn't mean I'm turning on the tv and breaking out the colors. He still has to sit in his room. Well....he flips out..lol of course. He's climing on furniture, he's screaming at me..shit like that.. A nurse comes in with a shot and we take him to his room. He's crying and crying for his momma as we restrained him on the bed and gave him a shot in the ass. Then he's in his room just fine for 15 minutes.

During that time I was sitting in a chair outside his room...just..waiting. A coworker comes in and says "Where's the little boy in the blue shirt?" Another staff says "That's Justin. He's in his room. He just came out of the bathroom. Why?" The girl replies "Well..we're in the room right outside your unit...and he must have just come out of the bathroom when he did it, but he came up to the window and pulled his thing out and showed all the teenage girls in rehab out there."

When Steve finally came out after 15 minutes, it was time for art therapy. As the hall door was opened and we lined the kids up in the main area, I could hear Sally's screams down the hall in her little tard voice. I looked to where they were coming from and saw the main entrance that I come through and leave through everyday. It's always locked. Sally's wedged right into the open doorway with 3 people on her. Between sobs she's screaming "nooooooo nooooooooo noooooooooo nooooooooooo." We took the boys down the hall to where art therapy was being held and I looked back to see that there were now 4 staff on her and that they'd restrained her to the ground. A nurse was approaching with a shot. Somebody had obviously just entered or exited through the door and Sally'd tried to run for it. lol too bad tards don't run that fast. :X

Art therapy consisted of playing with clay, smearing it on our clothes, body, and hands, letting it dry halfway because lack of time, and then taking it back to the unit to throw it at the walls where it sticks and drives the staff crazy. So now it's obviously shower time. Steve absofuckinglutely refuses to take a shower. I take him to his room and tell him to pick out some clothes. He starts screaming at me, so now I have to tell him to stay in his room for 15 minutes to calm down...He starts throwing shit around his room....paperplanes, cards, my PEN, my water bottle, and his fucking clayball that sticks to the walls. I finally managed to pry the damn thing out of his hands and throw it away.

A nurse comes back in and we take him to the "quiet room" which is where people go to be LOUD. Who'da thunk it, eh? I hold the door closed with my foot as he throws himself against the door, walls, and window. The windows are made out of plexiglass...so they're more pliable and soft so people wont hurt themselves as easily. It also makes a huge "BOOM" when you slam both your arms against it. Screaming "You mother fuckers" while doing so REALLY adds flare, imo.

Puting some one in the quiet room is considered seclusion or restraint and anytime some one comes out of either they have to take a 15 minute break so we know they're completely calm before the rejoin the group. So he decides that he can go to his room now and be quiet for 15 minutes. He started talking about his mom and how much she missed her. He said that she never comes to visit and lives far away. I asked hwere and he said Georgetown and that when he said his "mom" he really meant his grandmother. His real mom lived in Oklahoma and he never gets to see her because she gave him beer when he was a baby. I told him that Georgetown was only 20 minutes away. He got really mad...lol He comes out for about...ohhhhh 2 minutes..then decides he's not gonna wait the full 15....I tell him to go back in his room. He tells me "you're not the boss of me." I then informed him that his mother knew exactly where he was, and that she'd probably put him here. Whatever the case, we had custody of him and had full legal right to tell him to do anything. He threw a fucking fit..lol so there we go...BACK to the quiet room. The nurse comes back and she tries to talk to him...he tells her "Shut up! BITCH!" in addition to a "You mother fucker!" Then he tells her "Go ride one of the other kids." suggesting that she's a lesbian.....or something..I dunno....He gets his night meds....then he says he can go to his room now.

We take him to his room...for another 15 minutes..he's in for about 2 minutes..again..and throws another fit. This time he's mad because it's snack time and he can't have any now. Ok soooooooooo I think he should have been given snack, because he didn't have dinner. The rest of the staff agreed against me though saying that he shouldn't get it. *shrug* We had to hold him down again and give him yet another shot. It all ended with me sitting outside his room with him. He refused to go into his room. He finally got so groggy from all the meds that he lay down and was asleep in 5 minutes.


While I was in the nurse's station writing up the daily report (basically everything I've just said) another staff member says how good he was today. She said that on Friday he told a nurse (who's flaming GAY) that he was gonna fuck him in the ass. All the staff know he's gay and said they were trying so hard not to laugh about it because Steve was so MAD when he said it. Then she said that Steve had pulled his pants down to show her his ass. He'd said "I bet you'd like to fuck me in the ass with your dick." She told him that she didn't have one of those. So he pulled his pants up, turned around and said "ok. Then you're gonna get your pussy and hop up and down on my dick, bitch."



like woah

I haven't done one of these in awhile...I'm so tired by the time I get home...

OH yesterday. I arrived on the little kids unit and did the shift checks. This means you go around and make sure all the fucking doors are locked. Surprisingly enough, at least 3 or 4 are usually open. (fuck you day shift) I started the paperwork and realized that I was going to be put on a 1:1 with the lovable Tyler.

Tyler's 11. He's short, he's fat, he's half mexican half black. He shits his pants on a regular basis (he's suspected of purposefully doing it to get out of situations i.e. school, rehab, etc). He has an Axis II of mental retardation, but the rest of the staff and myself can see nothing of this. He's very manipulative, very smart, plays stupid, and has the mouth of a sailor when he's angry. He can also dance a mean robot when he's in a good mood. He's a fucking character.

So there I is, sitting at the staff table, and David's standing next to me...staring at the tv. I tell him to go sit down and he doesn't respond. I tell him a second time and he doesn't respond and he's standing WAY too close to my chair for comfort. Just then, some one comes out of the nurse's station and he goes dashing in through the open door. It seems the little prick has been waiting for just the oppurtunity. Crafty bugger. I go running after him and get there just in time to see him jumping up to try to grab the bag of toys on the top shelf. I grab him, trying to get his hands and put him in a personal hold and he fucking SLAPS me! Without a word, he exits the room and grabs my fucking water bottle off the staff table. The other staff grab it from him and he runs into his room.

I follow him and get to his doorway just in time to see him lay on his back on the bed. In his hands is a long rolled up piece of paper. He attaches one end to his crotch and begins to swing it around. The entire reason why he's on 1:1 precautions is for being sexually inappropriate, so I tell him to stop or he's going to the quiet room. He doesn't stop, so I go over and grab it from his hands. He jumps up and hits me again and tries to grab it. I tell him "well...now you lost the paper." I rip it in half and he screams "YOU.....MOTHER....FUCKER!" :X I was trying so hard not to laugh. Then he crawls under his bed onto his stomach and starts humping the floor saying "yeah baby..yeah baby..ride it ...yeah baby." All the while he's looking over at me grinning. I figure he's just doing it for attention and ignore him. Meanwhile, I'm jotting all this down on me clipboard o' doom.

I look up from my paper and see that he's now turned over onto his back and he's unzipped his pants, gingerly playing with his inch long wiener. "OK, Tyler. You're going to the quiet room now." He doesn't stop. I call for another staff to come help me because the fucker's so fat. We drag him out from under the bed. Myself and the other staff member each have one shoulder and one side of his pants to hold them up. When we exit the room with him, we have to take him by the other kids who have been lined up to be taken off the unit in case Tyler gets violent, which he does often.

Once he's put in the quiet room, he slams his body against the door over and over again. Even though he's 11, and short, the kid weighs more than I do. With each slam of his body, I'm thrown back from the door, but I have to push my weight back on it causing it to slam repeatedly. Another staff comes up to help hold the door shut (we're not allowed to lock it without a nurse present). When she looks through the glass window in the door and sees him standing there, pantless and grinning, she says to him "You think it's cool doing this? You think it's cool that you're naked and everyone saw you?" He screams back "I'm not naked!" and pulls his shirt off too. "Now! I'm naked." He starts dancing around the room and humming. The other staff leaves the door to go call a nurse. I look through the window and tell him "Y'know...you're getting a shot now. This behavior calls for a shot, Tyler." He's standing there, buck naked, slapping his crotch over and over again, just grinning at me.

The nurse comes and he puts his clothes back on. We hold him down to give him the shot. He apologizes (what a brat) for his behavior and I take him to dinner. He eats dinner and stacks his tray, and then he falls asleep in his chair. The rest of the staff say he's faking, but when I go to get him up it's apparent that he was really asleep. We go back to the unit and he goes straight to his room and falls asleep. I call the nurse and ask him what the shot was. He says that it was the strongest dose of Zypreza he could legally give to an 11 year old. The kid's fucking knocked out. So while everyone got to go outside in the hot sun and play, I had to sit by the door and watch Tyler sleep.

There was some extra snacks left over, so I had 1 vanilla pudding, 2 peanutbutter and jelly sammiches, 2 orange juices, 1 apple, and one kid didn't want his dinner tray (which was taken to the unit) so I ate his baked potato. :X lol All while watching tv next to Tyler's door.

I woke him up a few hours later to make him take a shower. He did so and went straight back to bed.

Just before shift ended, we got a new admission. I was told that he had been there 8 times before. He was well known with the hospital and the staff. He's 9 and had come to the hospital for all manner of reason over the years. This time he was being admitted because he'd poured lighter fluid all over his little sister and had planned to set her aflame when they'd caught him in the act. When he was 5, he was swimming with his cousin of the same age who had drown in the pool with him. His grandmother had her suspicions, but could never prove what she thought. After this recent incident with his sister, the rest of the family also believes that he drown his cousin.

Tuesday, October 5, 2005

Everyday when I come into work, we're to report to the minikitchen, which is but a conference room full of tables and chairs with a mess of cabinets, sink, fridge, stove and oven to one side of it. We're to go there everyday upon clocking in to have a shift change meeting. This gives the day shift an opportunity to tell the incoming night shift of the days events.

The nurses give us a report on each individual patient on the unit and tell us what they did that day and where we will be stationed. I was placed in the Music Room today.

There is a child at the hospital who is such a danger to himself and those around him that he's not only been placed on 1 to 1 precautions, but he's been placed in the Music Room. He's to have no interaction with anyone but staff. The last incident that actually landed him there is when he removed his clothing and began humping furniture in the dayroom of his unit. He approached staff and peer alike, cock in hand, asking if they wanted it. His name is Charles. Charles is ten years old.

His background is a shaky one. He was taken away from his parents at an early age and placed in foster care. His last foster mother has made it very specific that she wants no contact with him and does NOT want him back. Charles also has an axis II (mental assesment) of mild mental restardation.

To say that this kid is overweight would be a drastic understatement. The kid fucking waddles when he walks. The only way you'd see him run would be if he were after a donut truck.

I entered the Music Room and his eyes immediately lit up. "Heeeeeatherrrrrrrrrrrr!" He said and got up to hug me. He wrapped his fat little arms around me while I returned the hug by giving him a light pat on the back with one hand while looking off at the ceiling. He immediately told me that he didn't get 3pm snack. A quick look in the trashcan showed an empty box of cereal and an empty container of milk. Little lying bastard. The kid eats like he's starving.

I took him to the rec area to play video games for awhile. Then we went outside and played on the swing set. The day was looking to be pretty chill.

We returned to the Music Room where I called to have his dinner delivered to him. The lady that brought it to him is new and forgot his milk and silverware. She returned to the diningroom to get it and I told Charles that he couldn't eat until she came back with his silverware. He ignore me, opened his tray and first grabbed the dessert (which was cake) and began shoving it in his fat mouth with even fatter fingers. I just sighed and began reading my book again, Ayn Rand's The Fountainhead. The lady returned and gave him his milk and such. After she'd left he started complaining that he wanted ketchup for his corndog. I told him that there was in way on Earth he was going to get his ketchup and that I wasn't his slave. He quieted down and ate his corndog with mustard.

After he'd eaten, he threw his trash away and immediately tried to come behind the desk. I'm sitting in this corner with the desk at an angle. Behind my chair is a bunch of toys. I told him that he wasn't allowed behind the desk and anything he needed back there I'd get for him. He tells me that he's trying to get to the hand sanitizer, which is on the WALL on the other side of the desk. I ask him to walk around and he replies that he wont be able to reach it, when it's absolutely obvious that he can. He walks around and begins to squirt the FUCK out of it, over and over and over again. It's squirting off in all directions and he's absolutely pleased by this. I ask him to stop and he refuses. At this point I grabbed his squirting arm and ask him to stop again. He screams "NO!" He then runs over to a box of legos on the floor and throws the box. Legos go flying everywhere. He picks up the now empty box and throws it across the room. It hits the large window with a BOOM. At this point, I'm required to ask "What's wrong, Charles? What are you angry about?" to try to talk him down.

Since he's in the Music Room all alone, there's a special stretcher in ther just for him. He goes over to it and pushes it over. It's quite large and quite medal, safe for the padded arm and leg holders on it, so I ask him to stop messing with it, lest he hurt himself. He pushes it flat on the floor and starts jumping up and down on it saying "no no no no no no" in a little sing song fashion. I go over and grab his arms and pull him away from the stretcher. At this point he spits on me.

The fat little fucker SPIT on me. I walked straight over to the switchboard and pressed the alarm button. The alarm goes off throughout the hospital sending a signal to all available staff to go to the area where they're needed. I immediately hear a high pitched squeel go off. I go back over to Charles and try to put him into a horizontal restraint. He's trying to bite my hands just as other staff (about 7 of them) enter the room. As they take him down, he's screaming that I'm a bitch and a cunt.

The very stretcher that he was jumping on not even 30 seconds before is pulled over to where he is. They place him on it facedown and strap in his arms and legs. The nurse arrived a few minutes later with the tell tale blue box. Inside contains a shot of Zyprexa. Charles receives the shot in his right buttocks cheek, screaming the entire time. I sat in my chair behind my desk and read my book for over and hour while he begged and pleaded to be let out of restraint. I didn't have the authority to release him, so I didn't even bother replying to him during this time.

Due to his excessive diet, overweight problems, and who knows what else, the kid has some extremely terrible gas. I guess he'd been holding it in for the sake of being polte, but while he was in restraint he just let it fly. I had never heard anything so loud, so frequent, and so disgusting. The child literally had Pazuzu in his bowels. He's also known for purposefully shitting his pants to get out of situations (like rehabd and school). SO....sick.

After he got out, he was so groggy that he went to bed. I read for the remaining 3 hours of work. Today wasn't so bad.

We have a new girl at the hospital. I'd heard some interesting things about her past before I even met her. Apprently her mother had been whoring her out to her friends and her father now has custody. For the past year she's been taking some kind of medication that doesn't even have anything to do with her handicap.

She's MR, through and through. They say she's autistic, but I'd always associated autistics with being overly obsessed with one thing. From what I could tell, she's a walking vegetable. One only has to look her in the face to see that the hampster's dead but the wheel's still spinning. Her eyes are absolutely vacant, never focused on anything, maybe nothing. Despite this, she somehow manages to walk and eat her food. Lucky for her, the kids walk in a line when being escorted anywhere. She wont walk at all without some one next to her showing her where to go. I first noticed her chewing on her finger nervously. I was concerned that she was a biter, as most self destructive MR's are, but when I took a closer look, she had calluses on both her pointer fingers from the chewing. really odd.

We took all the kids out to the playscape and the swings. She walked over to the merry-go-round and sat down. I thought nothing of her until I saw her lean down a few minutes later and pick up a finch of sand and put it in her mouth. lol.....I didn't do anything at first, because...well..maybe she'd never seen sand before? What's wrong with a little taste test. I saw her get a bigger pinch and put it in her mouth. I jumped up and went over to her and tried to explain not to eat sand. She didn't even look up at me as I was talking to her. She reached down again to grab a pinch more. I grabbed her hand and walked her over to the swing set and swung with her for awhile to kinda distract her. After a minute or so, I got off to go inside to set up for showers.

Thirty minutes later when I came back, there was sand and drool ALL around her mouth. :X lol At that point, I was actually thankful that she was retarded, because the other kids were talking about her and she never knew the difference.

It was looking to be a pretty chill day, other than the sand eating and constantly telling the kids what to do and what not to do. It was time for night meds. Most of the kids are just starting antidepressants. If you know anything about these drugs, it's that they fuck with your serotonin, which in turn makes you kinda..hyper at times. They usually receive meds, right before they go to bed, that kinda help them sleep. So this is a VERY important part of the day. Sleepy pills and then shut the fuck up.

All the kids are lined up, taking their meds, and then getting in another line. This other line just happens to be right along the break room wall that's nothing but windows. This kid Marty gets his meds and then comes and get in line. He puts both his hands on the windows and starts banging his head on the window, softly at first. There's absolutely no talking while they're getting meds, so banging your head on the window = like shitting on your mom's face when she's asleep. Another staff tells him to "Stop it." and "Act your age." I tell Marty to stop too and he doesn't. I approached him and grabbed both his wrists. He immediately turns around, looking very angry, and says "Stop touching me." The kid's 11 and he's pissed me off....so no. lol I let go of him ask him if he's going to stop. He replies by putting his hands back on the window and banging his head again. I grabbed both his arms and put him in a personal resrtaint (holding his right arm to his left side and vise versa...like a straight jacket) and take him back to the unit. He's kicking like hell..lol I put him in the quiet room and he slammed his arms against the plexiglass over and over, screaming the whole time. The nurse came and gave him a shot. I could hear him sobbing minutes later after the nurse left. When he emerged 45 minutes later, he groggily apologized to me and went straight to bed.

so I *wasn't* going to go to work today. I'm half fucking sick, but I decided that I needed the extra cash. A girl's gotta drink, right?

So I went to work and shit was just dandy. I learned in the first 15 minutes of being there that the kid I was last put on a 1:1 with has diarrhea. HELLO. CONTAGIOUS FUCKER ON THE LOOSE. It turns out that 4 other kids have it too. These kids are running around spreading some kinda intestinally decaying DISEASE and I fucking contracted it from them. Damn, you bastards. Damn you and your sexually abusive foster parents.

So they were having some kinda...thing at work too. Apparently all those new flowers and fountains and grass squares they've been putting in weren't just for our benefit, oh no sir. They invited a whole slew of people from the city to come have a look at our freshly planted weeds. We picked some of the better kids to go play nice with them and show them what a lovely hospital we have. It turns out that they had all kindsa refreshments, little hoity toity crackers with cheese and shit...little half cans of soda. So I go into the minikitchen (where the stash is) and jack some little cheese cake squares and some carrots and grapes and shit. NOW...I don't know who this shit belongs to..but it's in MY breakroom...and there's no name on it..;x lol so I'm eating this shit. A few nurses were in there doing the same fuckign thing, so don't point any fingers at me, fucko.

So I've got my arms LOADED with these little clear plastic party cups full of cake and crackers and fruit. I unlock the backdoor to go back outside to watch the kids play kickball when I hear somebody get slammed against the door and people start screaming. It seems the kids are having some kinda fight. Meaning....some kinda fight that I should be out there helping to break up. :X lol but I'm not. I'm inside...arms full of food..looking out the window wondering "can I open the door yet?" So they break up the fight and I come out and start giving cups to the other staff members and some of the kids just FLIP OUT. Now..keep in mind that we have all the "bad" kids outside...all the "good" kids are inside at the little party thing for the city folks. They see the snacks and start asking "how come we didn't get to go to the party? how come you get snacks? how come