Midge's Irish (eBook)

Chapter 7:
Turning Things Around?

Warren sulked through much of August. He refused to come out of his room to eat any meals except breakfast, sporadically walking out of various activity groups, and sometimes sneaking off the ward to go down to the Patio Shop. On one occasion in mid-August, at the Patio Shop, Warren made a deal with a patient from another unit who had off grounds privileges to buy a hand-held hole puncher for him. When the guy came back to the Patio Shop the next day, Warren got the puncher, went back to the building, and sold it for $15 to Bob, a friend of his downstairs on the Behavior Modification ward. Over the next few days, Bob (who knew where the punch cards were kept in the drawer at the nurses’ station) and a couple of other patients on that ward started reaping the benefits of gaining a lot more points than usual on their punch cards. But Bob soon got caught with the cards and the puncher and confessed the whole scheme to staff. No more punch cards after that – they started a point system totally determined by nursing staff at the last team meeting of the week and kept in another drawer in the nurses’ station. Warren was placed on 1 to 1 for four days until the team meeting the next Monday – he admitted the scheme, but he was angry that he couldn’t get a patient payroll job or a part-time job downtown because he needed money. Even one of the nursing students from a regional program who was assigned to Warren for her 4-week psych. rotation confronted him on her last day and told him that his diagnosis really was a “passive-aggressive pain in the ass.”

Right after that, Warren started cooperating more with staff for a few days and seemed to be in a better mood, according to the nurses in the team meeting on August 26th. Greg had just come back from vacation and remarked, “Maybe the untherapeutic ‘street diagnosis’ by that nursing student worked.”

Cindy, the charge nurse, told Greg that Warren wanted to see him in his office at 3 o’clock, and Greg responded that he was free then.

As Greg opened his office door after coming back from lunch, a note from Warren was on the floor.

“Sir Edwin B. Irish III. Treatment Plan as of 3:00 p.m. August 26th, 1976:

Short-Term:

Forget the past.

Sign Voluntary re-commitment papers if necessary

Accept treatment here

Long Term:

Get a GED

Get a job

Start a new bank account at Indian Head Bank. Put all but $15 each week into the account, and ask for discharge when there is at least $1700 or more in the bank account.

Legally change name.

Signed,

Sir E. Bryant Irish III alias Warren Ernest Le Blanc.”

Warren came in the door and sat down in Greg’s office right on time. Greg said, “I got your note. This is what you want for a treatment plan. We can discuss it in the team meeting on Friday. Your formal treatment plan review is due on the 1st, anyway. You mentioned $1700 in a bank account – that means you won’t get out of here until at least 1979. Staff tells me you seem happy the past couple of days.”

“I meant to say $700.”

Then he smiled and excitedly said, “I got a letter from Janet (a patient who had a 2 week pass pending discharge). She said in the letter that she missed me, thought I was a great person, admired me for fighting the ward staff, and even expressed some love for me, but she said she doesn’t know what she wants out of any kind of relationship with me. I’m shocked. I didn’t know she cared. I didn’t know anybody cared.”

“Well, did you write back to her?”

“Maybe I could marry her. She’s even better looking than most of the nurses at this hospital.”

“Aren’t you getting way ahead of yourself here?”

“Yeah. I know. She’s about six years older than me. It was her first time in this place. She’s living with her father about 40 miles away. She feels better since she stopped taking her medication.”

“It’s possible she’ll be back in the hospital, then. You’ve seen what happens to people who get out of here and then stop taking their meds. Most of them come back far worse than when they left. Almost every patient who’s been in the group therapy sessions that you’ve been in with me admits that. I hope she turns it around and stays out. And I hope you do what you say you will on this plan you wrote.”

“If she can get out of here, I can do it. It would be even better if we were both out of the bughouse and we could help each other out.”

“So, what’s the first thing you have to do toward getting out of here?”

“Like I said, accept treatment. But I also want to see Nancy to get back on a patient payroll job again. I want to talk to her the first thing in the morning.”

“Good – do it. I know it’s your life, but here’s some direct advice: any improvement you make has to be sustained – stick with it. Don’t let any minor setbacks destroy your progress. Think before you act. Don’t blow things out of proportion. Write down some good and bad things that happen every day. It seems to release some of your anxiety or tension when you write things down.”

On September 1st, as Greg opened the door to his office, there was a note from Warren:

“Decree of Irish:

Last night at approximately 11:40 p.m. I saw the privilege list in the nurses’ station. On the side of my name it said, “No Privileges.” I have two choices: Stand in a corner for 24 hours in protest or get locked up for 48 hours. What perturbs me the most is that this time when I had my privileges taken away, it was by a “kangaroo court” of nursing staff because of an outright lie to make an example out of me in front of the new nursing students.

But I’m making a third choice. Yesterday I met with Vocational Rehabilitation and they agreed to send me for further education and to start a patient payroll job to prove I can co-operate with other workers. So here are MY rules:

Sleep, for I must be rested for work.

Use the elevator because doctors say I would fall if I try to climb too many flights of stairs.

Eat, possibly only at work and on Sundays.

Smoke – it relaxes my nerves.

Coffee – it relaxes my nerves.

Watch TV – it relaxes my nerves.

Play pool – it relaxes my nerves.

Nature calls, interviews, and appointments when necessary.

Have my social security card.

These are my laws for September, unless I am given full privileges. Otherwise, I will do almost nothing else.

No Brag, Just Fact!!!

Sir Edwin B. Irish III”

Warren came to the team meeting for his treatment plan review in his bathrobe. He spoke first and he was angry.

“They won’t serve me in the cafeteria because I’m wearing a bathrobe. How many of you eat your breakfast with your bathrobe on? I want a meal by 3 o’clock today or I won’t cooperate with any treatment plan or any program!”

Greg asked, “Warren, can I share what you wrote to me this morning?”

“Do it! Those are MY laws for the month.” He got up and left the meeting.

After some brief discussion, it was determined that a few things precipitated his behavior and the outburst. First, earlier that morning he got into an argument playing pool with another patient and apparently another patient had tried to goad Warren into a fight with the player. It was alleged that Warren threatened to swing his pool cue at the patient he was arguing with. Ward staff sent Warren to his room, and the charge nurse immediately determined “No Privileges” for Warren. Just before this incident, Janet was re-admitted, and she was totally indifferent to Warren – she reportedly had been “high” in the manic phase after she stopped taking her meds and then suddenly came crashing down into depression by the time she was back on the ward. Then he was told just before he came into the team meeting that he could not get a job at the sheltered workshop unless he had his social security card. He didn’t have one in his wallet.

After he left the team meeting, one nurse said she didn’t believe that he ever had one. There was an argument between Nancy (the Occupational Therapist) and Pete (the Vocational Rehab Coordinator) about this. Dolph, Warren’s new social worker (Gina had gone back to school in Virginia two weeks earlier), said that it should be at the Cashier’s office, if he had one. Later in the day, the whole matter was resolved when Dr. Demetrius, the Unit Director, decided to give Warren his grounds privileges back, and wrote the order for Warren to start at the sheltered workshop ASAP.

Ten days later, Warren was doing so well working and cooperating with everyone that he was hoping to be discharged by the end of October. He told Greg, very logically and appropriately, “I go to work. I stay in my room or go out of the building when I can get...