Veil of Uncertainty
I arrive at work with knots in my stomach. The patients make me nervous; sometimes I think they want to kill me, or hurt me. I work in the psych ward in a big hospital, one of the most famous in the world.
I know my job is to help these people, the psychotic ones, the ones who can’t handle their lives on the outside. But I have anxiety going to work, and it hasn’t gotten better since I started. I’ve worked there for a year and a half, and now I am supposed to precept the new nurses to show them around.
I came from a normal family, and my parents tried to guide us to do what is right. My twin sisters left for college when I was in high school, and after that I got all the attention, even though I didn’t want it.
I became a nurse because I wanted to help people, and have a stable job. But I feel the eyes of the patients on me when I’m at work, like they’re plotting to undermine me, and to prove that I’m a fraud.
The patients usually don’t stay very long. They are chronic, mostly psychotic, depressed, suicidal and unstable.
One older man, Charles, has been coming in and out of our unit for a year. He is beyond help, I think, because he refuses to take his medication at home. He lives alone in a room, and he has nobody to make sure he takes care of himself. He ends up screaming, and ranting and raving, and he keeps coming back here.
“Will you be the one to touch the moon?” he says to me.
“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” I say.
“I sense that the end is coming soon, and someone will touch the moon to save us.” He smiles. He is missing some teeth.
“Just keep taking your medication, and you’ll be fine,” I say.
The important rule in working with patients who are psychotic, is that the staff is not to tell them they are psychotic. We have to let them believe what they think until the truth comes to them. I think it’s a terrible way to treat people, but that’s what we have to do.
Miriam is dancing in the middle of the floor.
“You have to stop that, Miriam,” I say.
“You can’t tell me what to do, you’re not the boss,” she says, shaking her hips.
“Here, I am the boss, and you have to sit down.”
“I’m doing my exercises, my Zumba. I like to do the horizontal Zumba, too, do you do that?” she laughs.
They can be inappropriate. I walk away, and leave her doing the salsa in the middle of the day room.
“Come salsa with me, Charlie,” she says.
“Charlie don’t salsa,” he says.
I go to sit in the nurse’s room, and cover my face in my hands. How did I end up with this weird life? Why are these patients so off-putting?
My coworker, Sue, comes and sits down next to me.
“You can’t let them get to you,” she says.
“But it seems like some of them keep coming back, and never get better. They keep on getting worse.”
“You can’t take it personally. It’s your job.”
“But I spend so much time here. I think I might end up like the patients someday.”
“It happens to the best of us.” She gets up. “Enjoy your day off tomorrow.”
At the end of my shift, I lock the door behind me, and walk through the rest of the hospital. I think I might have the hardest job in the whole place, because even though people aren’t dying on my watch, at times, there’s no way to help them. Also, psychiatry doesn’t get respect. People are afraid of psychiatric patients.
On my day off, I walk by the river, and look at the trees next to the water. The leaves are falling into the water, but they will grow back in the spring. The endless cycle of nature does not apply to humans. If a person loses their leaves, they’re not guaranteed to grow back.
Human life is a veil of uncertainty; nothing is sacred. I don’t want to end up like the patients I take care of on the unit, but I have a feeling it is inevitable. I think that I am not equipped to do my job. I have to either go into therapy, or find another place to work.
Therapy might be easier. There’s nothing wrong with seeking help, I know that. I watch the leaves float down the river. The sky is an ominous shade of gray. It might rain any minute, and I don’t have an umbrella.
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About the Author
Shannon O’Connor is a graduate of Bennington College, and holds a Masters in Writing and Literature. She has been published previously in Wordgathering, as well as Oddball, 365 Tomorrows, Sci-Fi Shorts, and others. Shannon lives in the Boston area and works in a hospital. She can be found on her blog mshenreviewsthings.blogspot.com.