When I pull into the parking lot each day I usually have the music blasting. I slip in between SUV’s and wait for just the right moment to shut the car off. The end of a guitar solo or a hard-hitting riff is always a good moment. Pumped up and ready to rock n’ roll, I stride past the nasty smelling dumpster, key into the back door and swipe my name badge through the time clock. Today it read 10:56am, Thursday. My day off. What can you do. One of my patients graduated the program today, having made it through twenty-eight grueling days of rehab. “One day at a time,” is what it said on the ceremonial coin we gave her. A coin, a card, and a diploma. It’s tradition on the unit for the kids to say, “It’s not you’re A-ploma, it’s not your B-ploma, it’s not your C-ploma — it’s your D-ploma.” Everybody gives their little speeches and we finally tunnel up and send her off with: “Na na na na, na na na na, hey hey, don’t get high.”
A psych hospital can be a strange place to pass the time. There are nights I come home with blood on my pants and spit in my hair. Rugburns, fork induced stab wounds — all in days work sometimes. The other day I had to body-slam this guy over on the adult unit. We wrapped him up like a burrito, wheeled him into the “quiet area,” and the nurse injected him with a haldol-ativan cocktail. He looked up at me and said, “This doesn’t end until one of us dies.” I told Mary Alice about it when I got home and she could hardly sleep. Truthfully, it didn’t phase me in the least. It’s crazy the things we can get used to.