15 funny/serious thoughts on the hell that has been my past two weeks.

What I’ve learned in the past two weeks in dealing with several acute eating disorder clients who are bipolar/schizophrenic.

15 funny/serious thoughts.

• I will never look at a fast food Japanese restaurant the same way ever again, especially Yoshinoya.  Let’s just say, I canceled the order.
• Friends who care about you, pray for you, and make you laugh during the most stressful situations of your life are just priceless.  Priceless.
• If I think you are in the bathroom too long, I will stand at the door and listen.  And maybe even make you sing a song or say the alphabet.  Friends, feel free to tell me to snap out of it if I accidentally follow through on this new habit with you.
• I love boundaries.  Boundaries and I were strangers, then acquaintances, and now we are becoming bffs.
• While naps are few and far between, they are a slice of heaven in my life.
• I have now heard the f-word at least a thousand times….in an hour.  No joke.  It was yelled at me, screamed in my face, and inserted after every word.  I still loathe that word, but I now find it comical how it has become the new overused word similar to “like.”
• I can handle crisis situations, but at a certain point, my adrenaline will run out, resulting in sheer exhaustion and headache.
• Even in crisis situations, I am still very much a 26-year-old woman.  During the night from hell at 3:30 a.m. and after I witnessed a mild seizure, I watched the paramedics come in the house and thought, “Ooo, he’s cute.  Now is NOT the time, Ashley.  Not the time.”  : )
• My “go to” phrase:  I know you don’t think we care, but we do.  We are here to help you.
• I used to think it was mean to laugh in tough situations.  It still may be inappropriate, but it is quite a useful technique when with other staff and away from the girls.  I’ve realized it doesn’t mean I don’t care.  It’s quite the opposite.  Laughter comes after the tears
• I’m now pretty darn good in utilizing my “manipulator detector.”  I wish I could just believe everything at face value, but it is for their benefit (most of the time they protest that fact) that I filter things through this “detector.”
• While I am not in the best spiritual space at the moment, I have seen in the past two weeks how much I NEED the Lord.
• I need to carry mace with me.  No, I’m serious.  After a girl threatened to strangle me and another threatened to kill another girl and me after punching a door, I realized I am quite defenseless if a threat became, well, an action.
• Spooning with another house mom, who has now become a good friend, after the night from hell…absolutely priceless.  Disclaimer:  A girl was sleeping on the other couch, so we had no choice.
• A person has to first be aware of the problem.  Then, he/she has to make a conscious choice to begin the steps towards healing.  If the first is not in place, then the second cannot happen.

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