one mental disease or other. As you point out, frequently it's depression. There were two instances in my own life where I really preferred to die, the sooner the better. Had no concious intent to make it happen, but if a Mack truck had been barreling down on me at the time, I don't think I would've stepped aside either. While I didn't care much for most of the staff, I felt I learned a lot from the clients at the crash ward where I worked. Got along fine with them, partly because if a naggy rule could be ignored, I would. One big guy declared himself my protector because when I made rounds at night, I'd slip peanut butter crackers in his bedside table drawer because he hated to get up for breakfast, and they wouldn't allow anything else for him to eat until lunch. He'd hide the wrapper and dispose of it discreetly so I never got in trouble. We had each other's back.
One thing I detested about the staff was their culture of warfare against their charges. If I said anything good or praised a client's improvement, they'd pitch fits about it. And of course they chewed on each other something awful.
The weirdest thing I saw was when a female tech chewed out the male charge nurse for a medical decision he made, and the big strapping guy backed down like a little mouse. She later threw a chair at me. I always considered her by far the most dangerous person in the place. In fact, she had the administrators cowed. When I reported the chair throwing incident, they held a big meeting and told me point blank it was my fault for upsetting her!
One time a female charge nurse told me to take a new guy's duffel bag to the locker room because the techs weren't handy just then; I said fine, let me check it first. Nothing was supposed to be stored w/o careful inspection, of course, and I'd have to sign for it. She argued no, it's already been checked - just lock it away. I stood there anyway, unzipped it, and pulled out a huge butcher knife! Wondered aloud how in the world the tech had missed that.
As you might guess, it probably came from our own kitchen and she'd put it there so that later someone could check it in the locker room and get me fired for dereliction. That was the same charge nurse who'd let her license lapse when her father died, and she even told me about it; I knew she'd get around to renewing it as soon as she recovered, so I never turned her in. But she had no problem trying to roll over on me!
No mystery why I preferred the clients! If any ever had hurt me at all, it would've been more a result of their illness rather than ill intent. Although none of them ever did bother me at all, even in the worst depths of a psychotic episode. I guess they could've but no one ever did.
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