Psychotic Tales

"Are you the devil?" asked Michelle, peering at me intently. I shook my head "No" I replied. "Are you sure?" she asked again, her voice sounding suspicious. "I'm sure" I replied calmly. Obviously satisfied with my answer, Michelle shrugged her shoulders and wandered off down the corridor towards her room. I headed for the treatment room to get Michelle's dinner time medications, nonplussed by Michelle's question.

None of us nurses are pertubed by Michelle's bizarre questions or behavior because this is just who Michelle is. She is thirty five and has spent half of her adult life in and out of Psychiatric institutions. She rarely has a lucid moment, instead she drifts from one delusion to the next, and when she does have a lucid moment, any truth is so tangled up in a web of mass confusion and delusion it's impossible to tell what is real and what is only real to her. But even more rarely Michelle would surprise us, even shock us, with a very sharp, bitter comment that would bring the reality of being a psychiatric patient home to us. Today was going to be one of those very rare days.



I read the drug chart carefully even though I knew Michelle's meds by heart. A touch of clonazepam to keep things calm, a big shot of chlorpramazine to slow her down, a couple of fluoxetine to cheer her up, and a decent whack of cogentin to counter the side effects of all the medication she takes. I also checked her log book, but she wasn't due her monthly injection of antipsychotic.

I caught up with Michelle in her room sitting on her bead staring at the floor. "I don't want those" she said as I offered her the pills. "Why not?" I asked. "I just don't want them" she insisted "They're bad for you" she added. I sat down on the bed beside her. She still hadn't looked up fromthe floor. "C'mon Michelle, you take them every other day, why not today?" I asked. Michelle kept her head down "I just don't alright. Just go away. Leave me alone. Stop harassing me" Michelle got up off the bed and stormed out.

Michelle was generally a bright, cheerful person, but she did have moments like these when for no obvious reason she became agitated, angry, and sometimes verbally abusive. At times like these it was even more important for Michelle to take her meds to help calm her down. I found her sitting alone in the lounge.

"What do you want now? You following me? I suppose you want me to have your baby" she said. "No Michelle, I just want you to have your medication, that's all. You know it will calm you down, relax you" I said. "Yeah, you just want me to have my rape medication, like everyone else" she said. Michelle grabbed the pottle of tablets from me and swallowed them. "Satisfied. See you round" she left me standing in the lounge, speechless, but horrified, because she was probably right.

Those times when Michelle is not in the ward, but in the community, any bastard could ply Michelle with a touch of alcohol, and with the meds she's already taking, she'd be anybody's. Hell, with the meds she's taking they wouldn't even need to use alcohol as the doses she's on are very strong.

I mentioned Michelle's comments to the other nurses. "She's probably right" was the general consensus.