Friday night

photo credit-me


Wooooo Friday night!!

I have always been a social gal, I like hanging out with people. Recently, I switched out my Friday 9-5 research shift for a 3-11 evening shift on the adolescent girls residential program at the hospital. Was I a bit worried that I would regret sacrificing my Friday evenings... hell yes... but I was absolutely positive that gaining some direct patient time and decreasing some quality time with my computer screen would be an upgrade.

The first couple shifts were great. The other staff were all incredibly cool and I was surprised by the girls. I had worked in a more severe unit before and these girls are all transitioning, getting ready to go home but just stopping in for a "tune up," as I heard it often called. My first day I say girls with shoe laces and elastic waist bands and headphones and panicked thinking of all the gruesome ways these things could be used to self harm... I think I visibly jumped when one of the staff handed a girl a pair of scissors for a crafts project. I was on high alert as my previous training had molded me to be, so it took some time for me to relax and get used to this new patient group. I have to say, working with this psych stuff does kind of make you crazy. I mean when you see someone wearing headphones and the first thing you think is "oh my god, she is going to hang herself with those from her closet beam..." that's kinda messed up.

Well, really this is just the tip of the iceberg folks. I called my Mom two weekends ago coming home from work and the conversation went something like this,

"Mom I just had the best night ever!!"
"That's great honey, what happened?"
"I WENT TO AA!"
...pause...
"Ok, I know this is you, and I know there is an explanation here, but this is not exactly the normal tone that accompanies that statement, you do realize this yes?"
"I KNOW BUT IT WAS SO COOL!"
"Ok.. I need to go to bed, but I am glad... you had fun."
"Thanks! "


Truly, I cannot even explain what it was like to you because the actions themselves are simple and everyone knows them. You read from the big blue book and you go around and say what you got out of it or how it related to you and your story. This group was all women and it was so cool to see this little secret community. Mental illness, in all forms, I think can be really isolating and I think group therapy approaches can be a really cool way to break out of that and that is essentially what AA is about.

So I didn't really give up my Friday nights, don't worry, I'm still out being social, just not having any cocktails.