January in Rocky Mount January 5, 2003

So, I am here in Rocky Mount alone after a month “off”. December was referred to as our month of freedom, but it was anything but. I had been working at Eckerd full time since the month started and I have also been thinking a lot about my future which is never good. I panic or get depressed when I contemplate the future or remember the past. This panic includes my social and professional life. In the half a week preceding my first real attempt at a job I experienced panic attacks again. I felt pressure on my stomach and chest and my heart would start to race. It woke me up from a dead sleep, the panic that is.  I even had a panic attack at Eckerd out of the clear blue sky and Irina just looked at me said “you are fine” over and over and over until I was.  

The panic even came during my sister Megan’s chorus concert when I started remembering certain random comments that Thomas made with disgust in his voice about how I gossip too much. I admit this is true and something that has always been an issue for me. In middle school guys stopped talking to me and around me on the bus because they joked that I was writing it all down to share later on with our class. I need to change and will make a conscience effort because I don’t know why but in the past week I have been craving a boyfriend. This, I have never experienced.   

Back to Rocky Mount and being alone, turns out I hate living alone. I am chalking this living alone stuff up to one more thing this rotation has taught me. At least I am at the substance abuse/psych hospital with Ed. He is in my pharmacy school class but due to where he sat in class, I never really spoke to him before now. I like Ed. He talks a lot and is way smarter than me, but I make him laugh, so there was a moment during our first day after we were talking and planning our day and right before we parted, he looked at me and smiled and said, “this is going to be fun”. I felt the exact same way.

Three roommates have shown up in Rocky Mount without warning in the last two days and I was so happy to see them. This arrangement would make an awesome reality tv show which I seem to watch a lot of right now. I used to only watch The Real World. I was watching an episode once in the lounge of my dorm by myself and this guy came in and asked me what I was watching and when I told him he got upset and started yelling at me. “We are living in the real world right now! What are you doing wasting your time watching other people live their life?” I just shrugged and went back to watching the show and never watched it in lounge again. Now I live in the real world and in a pretend reality show with other wannabe HCPs and none of it is glamorous.

This guy on the substance abuse side of the facility thinks we are all on a cruise. He was an alcoholic and he still isn’t very steady due to a vitamin B deficiency. The nurses love that he thinks this and are playing along. It makes their day better. I am not sure if it is right to play along or not so I laugh with the nurses and then I am honest with the patient, but he really does think we are on a cruise ship. This other guy told me that if his hat is over one eye it will prevent it from snowing and not to worry because he will keep it there. This lady on the psych side got really mad at me and called me a “white bitch” and accused me of stealing all of her clothes. I had just met her. This other guy on the psych side told me the blue Heineken was in his blood. I have no idea what this means to him. I have another guy on the psych side who keeps asking me day after day if I know a good podiatrist. I have another guy on the psych side who just yells out a number every time he sees me to save time, I guess. He will make eye contact and confidently say “I am an 8 or I am a 1”! This other guy on the psych side told that “when the voices in my head tell me to kill myself, I tell them to go kill themselves”.  I never know what to say in response to all of these patients, so I mostly just smile and document. I do know that having all these reality adjacent conversations must be taking a toll because I had a vivid dream that I was diagnosed with White Snake Syndrome. I felt funny so I went to one of the doctor’s I had been working with and I suddenly have snakes coming out of me and slithering around my head. The doctor tells me very unsympathetically that I have white snakes in me and the only treatment is to let them come out of every one of my orifices. The only thing I fear in life is snakes. In my dream I felt like suicide was my only option. I probably won’t share this dream with anyone but you.