I love genuine questions and people putting in the effort to love and understand each other better. If you come at me just wanting to argue I’m going to troll you back. FAFO.

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Joined 2 years ago
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Cake day: June 12th, 2023

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  • Legit have had paranoid patients making shivs or trying to start floods or fires and barricading their doors soap or lotion themselves up. The barricading isn’t usually an issue because most places I’ve worked have had swingstop doors but extracting them without getting them or us hurt always fucking sucks. Usually someone who’s spent time in the correctional system doing stuff like that with the soap or lotion but one dude was a combat veteran. That suuucked.




  • Apytele@sh.itjust.workstoLemmy Shitpost@lemmy.worldWhat a weird apple
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    7 days ago

    tbh most psych units I’ve worked don’t even do that kind of ED. We’ll do BED in a pinch but anorexia nervosa or bulimia with significant weight loss is either stable enough to be managed outpatient or unstable enough that it needs either medical hospitalization or a specialized unit. I’ve worked one psych unit that could handle telemetry and they wouldn’t have liked having to.




  • I’ve noticed in codes I just have to step into the middle of the room put some bass out from my chest and point at people and give simple instructions (and these are psych codes so it’s usually “ALICE -> THAT ARM. BOB -> THE OTHER ARM. CAROL -> LEGS. DAVE -> GO GET THE RESTRAINTS.”

    But then sometimes something very unexpected comes up like a very large patient dropping their weight into a weird position. So the important thing there is to hopefully come up with an idea quickly and give the simplest way possible to explain to everyone to move as a team. But sometimes someone else comes up with a good idea before me and then you go “CAROL’S RIGHT. ON THREE WE’RE GONNA ___.”

    So. 0. Know what the fuck you’re doing enough that you’re respected as an authority figure.

    1. Confidence in posture and voice.
    2. Point and use simple instructions.
    3. Confidence doesn’t mean ego. Recognize a good idea when you hear it and use it.

    Probably not what you were asking but I hope it helps.



  • Well. Emotional swings like that can occur as part of a manic episode specifically. Mania just means the emotions come faster than usual, not that they’re good. Ppl w mania are actually frequently extremely angry, usually because they’re going a million miles an hour and don’t understand why everyone else won’t just keep. tf. up.

    But yeah if op has always just been like that consistently without any ebb and flow over month’s / years then yes it points more towards a thought disorder. I used to have a really cool infographic from a textbook on the differential dx between borderline, bipolar, and adhd since they can all have very similar presentations or even just be comorbid in certain patients.

    I’ve actually seen a good few patients who we all swore up and down were borderline then the meds would click into place and oh. Look at that you really were just bipolar. huh. (I say all of this having a childhood dx of ADHD, an adult dx of borderline, and a current psychiatrist who thinks I’m bipolar so…)




  • Apytele@sh.itjust.workstoLemmy Shitpost@lemmy.worldVibe
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    9 days ago

    Psych patients actually do this a lot. Some places I’ve worked actually have protocols for it that include stuff like having the bathroom locked and only unlocked for supervised use, or having the water only be cut on when the contents of the toilet have been verified (also helpful to have water shutoffs for psychogenic polydipsia because they WILL drink their way into a hyponatremic seizure and they dgaf if it’s from a toilet) but also for the flushing usually they’re limited to one set of clothes and bed linens, one towel / washcloth, and have to ask for small quantities of toilet paper as needed. Then they yell at you about having to ask you use the bathroom like they didn’t flood the unit three nights in a row. One time we didn’t catch it fast enough and some poor bastard on medical got leaked on. Motivations vary but the most common is wanting to feel in control of something and it can be difficult to try to find safe things for that kind of person to be allowed control over.





  • Apytele@sh.itjust.workstoMemes@lemmy.mlHealthcare pls?
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    10 days ago

    On a semi related topic it’s not unusual for my patients to insist they were sexually assaulted overnight (despite all evidence to the contrary including 24h video feeds verifying no one did anything more than open the door and look in during checks), and when the cops take down their report they often describe knowing it happened because they woke up with a boner or wet vagina. Sometimes they also describe sleep paralysis (although usually they interpret that as aliens, demons, magic etc), but a looot of them primarily describe the experience as just normal genitals doing normal nighttime genital stuff. Sex Ed is really that bad, folks. Also the cops get really weirded out when I insist they take down reports for delusional shit because like. Yeah it’s fucking bonkers but it’s a human rights thing. a) what if they’re describing something that did happen but at some other time and they’re just too psychotic to get the details right right now and b) I do NOT want to be the person responsible for picking where the “too delusional” line gets drawn and if they’ve got any sense in their heads neither do they.


  • Oh I legit notice a spike in mania cases this time every single year. Idk if it’s making people manic as much though as it is that they would also be manic in February but they’re too busy having seasonal affective depression instead. So the sun wouldn’t be making them manic so much as it’s just keeping them from getting depressed (which they’re already sensitive to with an affective disorder of any kind) and that allows for more mania.