Experiences in psychiatry
Written by Student Nurse Jason Wilson 7/8/2010 3:58:24 PM
“Satan’s voice and the Exorcism theme. People in cyberspace are telling me what to do.”
This was my patient this weekend.
“I hear Satan’s voice,” she muttered quietly. I didn’t understand why until she told me she was afraid she would be heard by demons.
“Is he telling you to do anything? To hurt yourself or anyone else?” I asked.
“He's telling me to tell the truth.”
“Do you have any thoughts of hurting yourself or anyone else?”
“I am going to commit suicide,” she said. “When I get out, I am going to get washed up, put on nice clothes and the rest is none of your business. I just want to be normal, Jason.”
I have heard that more than once since I have been at the psych hospital. It kills when these patients have insight into their illness. Some of them know they are ill and it bothers them terribly.
The best I could do with her, because she doesn’t have an “official” diagnosis yet is therapeutic communication. I told her nurse what she told me about wanting to kill herself.
The thought of her hearing Satan didn’t bother me too much, I just reassured her I didn’t hear it, nor did I hear the music she was hearing.
“I want to be normal, I want to have a job and just be normal,” she told me. “You want to know something about me? I am simple and complex at the same time.”
She was right. She was a simple woman who wanted nothing more than to be middle class and drive a car; have a job, a husband, and friends over for coffee. She couldn’t however because she was also complex as she told me. She was too disorganized, too paranoid, and too unpredictable for any of that to happen. Simple and complex at the same time.
Thinking of psychiatry as a possible specialty is throwing me off. It’s not that I don’t want to help these patients, because I do. In fact, I care for them much more than I thought I would. I just always thought I would be doing other things for ill people, maybe in the ICU or something. Who knows? I guess it’s true what they say, that people make plans and God laughs. I feel like I am being laughed at right now and being directed elsewhere. Oh well, we’ll see where it takes me.
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