Very Tiresome

Many things in life are very tiresome. My weekend was full of them. As I said, I work in a facility that is home to many seniors and the mentally ill. I will state that it is not a nursing home however and we are not a skilled care facility. The job can be tiring mentally and physically, sometimes emotionally. There are also times that you just want to wash your hands of the whole thing and be done with it.

Right now is one of those times. Not because of my co-workers or boss. Not because of the majority of the people who live there, who are great and very nice people. No, none of those are the cause of my weariness. What is, however, is mental illness. And it's not because I'm not empathetic to people who are mentally ill. Far from it. There are several people that live there that aren't merely just residents. They are also friends and consider me to be the same to them. Many of them are mentally ill. A great many of the people who live there are quite ill. They are usually not a problem, but they all have issues once in awhile. This is normal for people when they have these kind of problems.

There's also the kind of people that believe that they don't need medication to be fine. These are the kind of people that need the medication the most. They refuse to get their medicine. They refuse to take it. It's especially bad when the person is schizophrenic. It's even worse when this person does it all the time. It's tiring. Very, very tiring. At this point in time, I can honestly say that I would feel nothing if something were to happen to this person. They have brought me to that point. I don't care anymore. I really don't. I don't care if they aren't taking their medication. I don't care if they're refusing to eat. I just don't care.

I know that's probably not the best way to look at things. I know that schizophrenia is a terrible disease. This person isn't the only one I work with that has it. She's the worst though. She does this because she wants attention. Not because she's convinced that her meds are not working. She knows that they are working. She's the kind of person that wants attention twenty four hours a day, seven days a week. I know this because after 8 years, you know the person's routine and behavior, even with an illness. The mental health facilities have given up on her because of this. She has had doctors throw her out of the hospital because of this. They know that she is doing it for attention. They're just as sick of it as I am.

What is the most galling is the fact that this behavior, which was not out of control 2 months ago, doesn't have to occur. Her family is no help. I have actually had her power of attorney laugh into the phone because the woman has almost physically attacked me. She constantly verbally attacks anyone that she gets in her sights. You don't even have to have done anything to her. You could be some random guest visiting another resident and she could pounce. She verbally attacks other residents, especially the other ones that are mentally ill and tries to get them riled up.

Friday night was a perfect example of this. One of the men, who has severe anger issues and is bipolar had finished his dinner and was going to talk to another resident about sports. She called him over. He greeted her and she told him that she was angry at him because of what he had done, but she had forgiven him and he'd have to live with what he had done. This was the recurring theme for the weekend. He was obviously baffled, and I can't say that I blamed him. The man had been out all day and hadn't bothered a soul. He wanted to talk about an upcoming basketball game with someone that wasn't completely batfuck crazy.

He asked what he had done. It was her typical, you know what you did. At this point he said that it was nice for her to forgive him, even if he didn't know what it was that he did. He was bothered because she wouldn't tell him and would probably have a hard time sleeping that night because of it. He wasn't being sarcastic. He was upset. I intervened at this point and took him to the side and explained that what she was doing was trying to upset him and he had done nothing wrong. It took me awhile to get him to understand that he didn't do anything wrong and if she approached him again, it would be best to just walk away or ignore her for the time being. He thanked me and went to his apartment.

At this point it took every ounce of my strength to not go over there and slap that smug, self satisfied grin off her face. It really did. I would have had not greater pleasure at that point in time. But of course, this was just Friday and I had 24 more hours to work over the next two days, so things would not get better.

Saturday she decided since I was having a conversation with my spouse before he left after dropping me off for my 12 hour shift, alone with this madwoman, she would be the stupid cunt that she was and attack both of us. And it began that she knew deep down she knew we were good people and knew the difference from right and wrong. And I would feel really bad if something happened to her. I bit my tongue. I really wanted to say, actually, no. I wouldn't feel bad at all if something happened to you because the other residents here and staff would feel much better. They wouldn't be afraid of you attacking them the moment they happened to walk by on their way to do something else, or visit with a friend, or eat their meals. It would actually be a relief if that were to happen because then everyone would have a break from your bullshit and drama. I didn't say that though. I didn't actually get the chance. My spouse told her that she could believe what she liked, but if she needed help we could call her an ambulance, or she could have a seat. She had a seat without another word.

It's best to end the conversation quickly and with as little irritation as possible with her. At this point, after this many years though, it's hard. It's very, very hard. My boss came through later in the day and she came right over and began repeating exactly the same thing again. We were going to have to live with ourselves if something bad were to happen to her. At that point I took a deep breath. Don't blow up. Don't blow up. The boss then says, yeah, we have to live with ourselves, but so do you. Especially the way you treat people and accuse them of things that they didn't do and she knows aren't true. She didn't smile her little smug grin then. She said, well, I guess that's all I wanted to say. And parked her ass in a chair again.

Now that wasn't everything that she brought up. There was a new stinger to it though. The law of the land was that good always triumphs over evil.

Fuck. Me. Running. It's time to start the religious bullshit again. And oh is she fucking crazy for god. She obsesses over it. She's waiting for jebus to make everything in the world well. She's going to pray on it. She's going to pray for you. You need to pray on it. Fuck.

Except that she didn't get all fundigelical on me. No, she got fucking worse. She got paranoid and hateful and angry. Not angry as in someone pisses you off. Angry as in three year old temper tantrum. Which is remarkably similar to her behavior. And that all came out Sunday. She was polite, but refuse to eat and take her medicine. For the most part she was quiet. Until my 10th fucking hour of being there. I asked her at dinner time if she was going to eat. She grinned and kind of laughed and said no. I asked her if she wanted her medicine. Same response. I said, okay that's your choice and went back to my other work. A full hour later she came up to the desk where I was talking to another resident. This resident has several problems and is very timid. He's a good guy though, even if he doesn't always grasp every nuance of interpersonal behavior. (He's autistic for the record and has bipolar disorder along with a host of other problems, but that is neither here nor there.) She decided she was mad that I asked if she wanted her medicine. Because I knew she hadn't eaten all day. I let her finish. Then I told her, calmly, (oh fuck was I calm!) that she was asked during all three meals to eat and she refused. She went into the dining room during meal time repeatedly and had ample opportunity to eat. I could not nor would I force her to do anything. I couldn't. It was her choice entirely and our conversation was over. That pissed her off more, and I directed my attention to the resident that had been there first and continued the discussion we were having about jellyfish that had been found in the arctic and looked at some pictures from National Geographic. He was kind of upset momentarily. It didn't take him long to forget about her because I was refusing to give her the satisfaction of upsetting me and him.

There would have been nothing better than letting her have it back, verbally with my very colorful vocabulary. But I smiled and told her in a pleasant tone that nope, there would be none of this, so go sit back down and pout now. She did. Fifteen minutes later she went to her room. I think that was when the other residents relaxed a little. Several actually sat down and played cards and had a good time after they ate their dinner. Another sat down and read the paper. And my weekend at the Clusterfuck Arms came to a close.

I'd like to think I'm done with her and all of that is over. It's not of course. I have to be back there in two days for another 24 hour run over 2 days. Oh joy of joys!

I understand that mental illness is not pleasant and some of what I've said wasn't the most empathetic. If you had to go through this as often as I do, you might feel the same. I'm not a psychiatrist or a psychiatric nurse. This job wasn't always full of psych patients. I am very aware of the toll these illnesses take on people, affected and those who are around the people with the illness. Sometimes however, you do reach a point that you get fed the fuck up. I am. All of my co-workers are. My boss is. I just needed to vent so I don't explode at her and lose my job, though at this point I don't think I would. She's burned all her bridges, especially when she refuses to pay her rent and her family has to send it nine times out of ten.