I'm an engineer, artist, mom, wife, and registered nurse. I work on an inpatient psych unit and live in the Pacific NW USA with my husband and our menagerie of dog, parrots, cats, and a couple of corn snakes.
Good Question…
All too often I am reminded (again) that the line of distinction between myself and my patients is really much thinner and less well-defined than the plexiglas divider between the nursing station and the rest of the unit. Here is one of those moments of insight, encountered recently during a mental health assessment:
Me: “Do you see things other people don’t see, or hear things other people don’t hear?”
Patient: (looking perplexed) “How would I know?”
Indeed. If you know you’re having a delusion, it’s not a delusion any more, because for it to be a delusion, then by definition you have to think it’s real. Which leaves me to ponder why we bother asking, not to mention on which side of the plexiglas I really belong!
Posted: March 21st, 2008 under Nursing, Parallel Universes.
Comments: 1
Comments
Comment from Weasel
Time: April 1, 2008, 3:42 am
Those who are many, are not necessarily those who are ‘normal’… and those who are ‘normal’ do not need to be one of those who are many…
I dont know if this makes sense. English is not my native language, and i find writing about this kind of thoughts in my own language hard, so doing it in English puts another layer of chance for being misunderstood… but i guess it might help if you and i share the same (or almost same) kind of ‘normal’
As for the perplexed look on your patient, i came to think of this blog entry http://wonko.com/post/96 it still makes me laugh, since i also (today) react as described there, when someone ask me about stuff i find as simple (or normal?) as breathing
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