Blending in with crazy people

Psychiatry rotation. It's been interesting, if not hilarious, most of the time. It is so different to all the other aspects of "organic" medicine.

Let's start with the ward. I knew that it existed, but it was only until recently that we found out that it was tucked away at an obscure corner of the adjoining building after traversing several dark corridors. It almost feels as if the rest of the hospital doesn't want to know or be reminded of its existence.

The living space is great. There's a dining area, tv and living area, music room, art and craft room, a small garden. It's like a neat little dormitory. Almost like an exclusive private facility where someone goes to recuperate and sort out some issues before heading home. If all rehab facilities are like this i can see why it's becoming so fashionable for celebrities to check themselves in and out of rehab. I wouldn't mind a short stint myself.

Security measures are the highest here. We're meant to carry this little alarm thing that goes off if it becomes horizontal or if you press the red button. I managed to set it off accidentally today. The moment it went off, everyone in the nurses station went "where is it?" and promptly marched into the High Dependency Unit where the aggressive, agitated patients with a risk of absconding are kept. Best part was, they all rushed in and couldn't find the source of the alarm, while i was just standing there all this time at the nurses station.

Well at least we now know that the system is working, even though it might not be great at pin pointing the location. At least i wasn't as unfortunate as the dude who triggered the alarm in the toilet stall.

The patients are a lovely bunch. Makes my day interesting when talking to people with schizophrenia who talk in circles, or get preoccupied with paranoid thoughts like being put into "The Slammer" (said patient was being aggressive and had to be restrained). Hypomanic patients are hilarious because their conversation is peppered with vulgarities delivered in a rather jovial mood.

The one thing that strikes me the most is that they all look so normal. They lounge around in the ward in their home clothes, almost indistinguishable from the staff except for the name badges. Sometimes when they are hanging out with their visitors, you can't tell which one of them is the patient. They don't have labels on their foreheads that says "bipolar" or "schizophrenic". Yet there's such a huge social stigma with being diagnosed with a mental illness.

We might not be able to see the illness, yet the impact it has on their life is enormous. So much so that being in contact with them makes me realise, more so than being with the other "organic" patients, how lucky i really am to be at the normal end of the spectrum.

I have my obsessive compulsive and avoidant personality traits, get seriously moody and irritable once a month, have my neuroses and issues with my family members, have circumstantial and sometimes tangential thought forms but thankfully, i'm functional. I hope it stays that way.