SCIENTOLOGY - TOO INSANE TO BE WELCOMED

August 9, 2008

Scientology. Things are going well in the ward. People were pissed but able to deal with their situation, most of the time. We had a manic guy from Jersey in rounds who lost it. Mack wasn’t the most compassionate doctor in the world, so had the tendency to make people not so at ease., unfortunately
“You can’t fuckin talk to me like that.” His was boiling days were over and the eruption was no longer secondary.
“Ok, you are going to have to leave now.” Mack got up and so did he. He walked straight toward the other end of the room, and behind me.
“I’m not leaving unless everyone holds hands together and walks out together.” I leaned forward not sure if I should ostracize him more by standing up and saw C, the other social worker on the team, stand up and stand away from the shaky beats of his face on manic overload. I stayed seated cause it all happened so fast that he was out sooner than I could contemplate getting up out of the way.

She was white and had something to say about the fact that she didn’t feel comfortable being one of the only white people in the ward. I stopped to think, “Was there a heavy certain race walking down the catwalk?” She didn’t like black people. She didn’t like much. She was a scientologist. At least that’s what she tired to be before they threw her out. It is not clear to me if she was poisoned by the craft of bullshit driven acid forming nitrates on the soul, or was lost and off to begin with. Well, it’s certain that she was like that to begin with cause we are born ready for dubious times, but still. Mack came into my office to inform me that,
“We don’t treat scientologist.”
“Oh, ok.”
“They don’t believe in medication so there’s no point.” But so many people on the ward didn’t want their meds, which I equate with not believing in them, versus being in denial and not wanting to admit they’re harmful without them.

So if Scientologists reject people, and they end up on the ward, and the ward shuts their doors to them, were do they go.

August 13, 2008

LILY

Her leg was suspended in the air
Like a mime
Sleeping.

Sinking into the bed on her stomach
Sleeping she had a leg
One leg up
In the air
Casually resting there
While she slept.

Lily was a young girl with a bad meth history and a history of sleepwalking when she was a youngster. Enough to end up out on the street running away from her family. She had a father that was accused by everyone, but Lily, of molesting her.
“He was my best friend, my idol.” Tears welled up in her dark brown eyes. Who’s to say what is the truth, or the non truth. Or just bites and pieces of what matters to glean enough information to make a clear assessment on why she is here in the psychiatric crisis ward sleeping face down, with one leg like it’s sitting in a chair upside down.

I let Lily sleep and decided to come back later to check on her. I wandered back down the hall and ran into…

Valerie.
“You can call me Gelesco. That’s what you can call me.”
“Is that your name? Why did you change it?
“They call me that, you can call me that.”
“What about Valerie? You don’t like that name?” She thrusted her hospital bracelet out onto the scene. In front of my face, dropped enough to see it.
“I go by Gelesco.”
“Ok. How are you doing?”
“Are you a doctor?”
“No. I’m a social worker.” It was the first time my title was said across the smelly tiles, or anywhere else of that matter. But I was a social worker. At least finally I knew that and could justify wearing my chain of keys to enter the dungeon of walls outside severely deranged species that walked in circles, not for fun, but cause their feet had to.