I went to my mental health make up day today. Even though I am very interested in mental health disorders I was less than enthused to be going there today. I don’t know if it was because its almost the end of semester and I’ve had some time off where I did nothing nursing. Or maybe because I just didn’t know if I could face another day of what I had the last time which was hearing the same delusional story from the same patient 4 times in one day. It was truly exhausting.

We had an interesting group today and were for the most part, less scary than my previous group. I got to have a conversation with a bipolar patient. His story was fairly interesting and he explained to me what he feels like when he’s in a manic and depressed episodes. The mania was characterized by racing thoughts, shopping sprees, irritability and personal neglect. The depression, paranoia (feared people judge
Him, fear of crowds) and sadness, feeling worthless. He told me how he found out he was bipolar and what brought him to the hospital this time.
He should make for a great IPR.

What I found interesting is that all of these patients knew exactly what meds they were in and why they were taking them. Patients in my job half the time they don’t know what they take much less why they take them. Remarkable.

There was one semi scary incident today. We were in the day room and the tv was in and all of a sudden this girl was banging a chair against the plexiglass of the TV repeatedly. Seemingly unprovoked.

During activity time There was Jenga, dominos and UNO. I played UNO
With two of the patients and two of my classmates. It was actually quite fun.

The day ended by looking at charts I got the one of the guy I talked to. His deal was pretty straight forward and everything he told me was corroborated by his chart.

So I guess the day turned out okay and I didn’t leave exhausted.