Just Another Psych Patient

So the other day I was paged to one of the units to complete a 5250 advisement, since no one on the unit was certified to do so.

I asked the charge nurse about the situation, she flipped through the kardex, and showed me her picture. I said, “I know her,” meaning I recognized her picture, and name, separately, and that together, these things caused a sense of familiarity.

So, I wrote the advisement, and went onto the floor to find my victim, um, I mean patient. I found her, and she looked just like her picture. Short rusty hair, coke bottle glasses, and any asymmetrical face, just as I expected.

I read her the advisement, and handed her the piece of paper. She began to protest. I took a breath and began to recite my over-practiced speech, “Whether or not you agree to the statements written here, it is in the best judgment of the doctor that you stay with us for a time, until we can verify your placement and safe living conditions.”

“Well, I am not crazy, and everything on that paper is a lie. I do not have hallucinations, this is bullshit!”

“Mam, I understand, and I am not here to tell you that these things did or did not happen, I am here to advise you that the doctor feels you need further evaluation. If you disagree, you will have your opportunity on Monday to state your case, when representatives from the Patients’ Rights Advocacy Office come to interview you.”

I walked away. Not more than 10 minutes passed before I remembered where I had first met this woman. Yes, I knew her from report, her name, and her picture. But in truth, I had met her before.

The first time I met her she had stepped up onto a podium in my Human Sexuality class. She was the spokesperson for our section on Childhood Sexual Abuse.

Suddenly, my brain did one of those quick whirlpools, bringing me right back to the moment when I first met her. She stood in front of my class, and told her story. She was a client of my instructor, who was a MFT.

She told her story, of her childhood, and her adulthood. She shared her experience with abuse, and her need to fight back. Details don’t matter, but then they do. I remember her sharing that her mother caught her father raping her, and condemned her to share her father’s bed for the rest of their marriage. “If he wants you, he can have you,” she said. I also remember stories about doing dishes, which held strong for me because of my own stories, and her mother pouring scalding hot water over her arms, for the sake of sanitation. My mother did the same. A point of difference in this woman’s story was her mother’s habit of cutting her, sliding a blade across her cheek, or forearm, whatever was most accessible.
So, I heard this woman’s story as part of a class. After that class I wanted to see her, I wanted to touch her. I wanted to thank her for sharing. I was scared. Something in me cried out and told me to see her anyway. I did. I thanked her for sharing, sure that everyone in the class now knew my well-kept secret, that I too was a victim of sexual abuse. A victim, …Fuck that….

Whatever, I had to see her. I had to thank her for her courage. I had to tell her that because of her I was going into treatment. I asked my professor to be my therapist that day. I asked after everyone left. She agreed, but only after the end of the semester. I saw her weekly for a year after. She got me through some scary shit with my ex.

It wasn’t more than a year later that I met H------ at the psych hospital. I decided to have a smoke on the patio (a forbidden practice, smoking with patients.) I recognized her, and decided to thank her. I knew I was taking a risk, and that if anyone knew I would be pulled from the unit immediately. I told her, “I just want you to know that I remember you, and that because of you, I decided to enter therapy to deal with my own history of sexual abuse. Thank you for standing up, and for speaking in public.”

She looked at me sideways, kind of cocked her head, and with a smirk, said, “You’re welcome. It’s all about you, not me.”

Those words of wisdom will never leave me, not even 4 or more years later when I meet the same woman, apparently defeated, apparently apathetic. Her voice met my ears. I will never forget it.

I am reminded to remember that everyone I meet has a story, a History, or a Herstory, or Astory.