Quasilaur’s Blog

I’ve always been a person who thrives on creativity. I find my creative energies, that whimsicality I’ve always known, to be waining in the tide of khaki and pink, with sensible shoes and no-nonsense attitude. My daily worklife charges me with crushing the realities of others, in supporting the involuntary medication and paradigm shifting charge of a state psychiatric system. We’ve all heard tale of seers and gifted ones that if transported from the pre-industrialized world to our world would be automatically labeled schizophrenic, judged and left to struggle. Even in the much-beloved Christianity of America, the visions of John or Daniel are venerated when deep in my little, Thomas heart I can only believe that they were madmen, very imaginative, or at least professionals in hyperbolic metaphor.

There must be a rational explaination for everything.

I can’t help but see the irony in my love of images of fairies (in fact, I’m wearing a fairy t-shirt right now) and living a daily reality that would so soon put Tinkerbelle to death. (Clap your hands if you believe in fairies!!)

My job requires me to submerge the fantastic, odd and ecstatic parts of myself in the interest of curbing those chaotic energies in others. While that was never truly my interest or aim in getting my job, it’s a necessary hazard being that what tools I have now are the best I got in a system that is so unredeemably broken. All that’s left to make an iota of difference is to get them while they’re young in the hopes of pulling them towards pro-social and healthy outcomes. It seems that once a person with severe and persistent mental illness is left to themselves, alone to find their way — and given a good amount of time to fight it on their own — it’s too late for any of the piddily public services to take hold and have a lasting, redeeming effect. It just seems that by the time these guys come to my ward, even just after their first arrest, years after their first psychotic break, I just wonder what could have happened that would have given them a better chance for the years to come. After eight months, I know most of the men that come through my ward will be back, and likely just as bad as when they first came in, if not worse.

Perhaps I should just put it simply: I hate my job.

It’s not because of the patients, or even the staff. Mostly, it’s because of the system that is so broken that where I work is the last dumping ground for society’s problem children. Many of the people coming through lack the community support (public mental health centers, community programs, healthy friends and family, jobs) to keep them healthy and out of the correctional and mental institiutions. We’re putting tiny bandaids on gaping, festering bullet wounds and shoving them back out into the night. These people are coming into the hospital at a rate so fast that by the time I sift through their demands and incoherant babble to find their basic needs, they’re catapulted right back to the jails for another court appearance. The basic paperwork I have to fill out for their admissions are barely completed by the time they move to another ward or their time at the hospital is up.

And the saddest thing to me is that one of the most common trends among these men is the complete lack of meaningful, healthy, stable human interaction in their lives.

By the nature of my work, I’m a destabilizing influence that only by luck transforms their lives to the better.

Or at least, that’s how I’m feeling lately.

I think I know more clearly why I would prefer to work with youth. It seems that if only I could convince some of these young people that stable, healthy, supportive human interaction is possible, than maybe they would continue to seek that out in preference of less healthy coping strategies.

Part of this is burn-out, and I’m long overdue for a vacation.

Truthfully, though, I really desire to make my current rate of pay, at an organization closer to home, where I work with LGBT youth, do counseling and social work, and make a positive impact.

The grass is always greener on the other side — but I truly believe that a different job would enable me to be a bit less banal.

First and foremost, I’d like to extend my well wishes to all the people heading out to BurningMan this year. I wish I could go, even though I’m rather skeptical about how much fun one can have in a now huge, manufactured community. When you pretty much HAVE to bring a wheeled device to get you around because it’s so big, it just starts to seem too much.

After a few BurningMan experiences, and living on a school schedule a majority of my life, it very much seems to be like approaching a New Year. I hope this year is a good one, filled with awesome specticals, joys and ecstatic moments. Be safe out there.

I will be spending this next week the same as I have the past year — admitting patient after patient (I’ve now admitted about 100 patients in 8 mo), getting to know them and hoping to help them move on with their criminal charges. Yay mental health!

I suppose it could be almost like BurningMan — crap food, drugs (medications), crazy people running around, making noise, saying weird shit and more than 2 people who would probably try to torch something if they only had incindiary devices. And then there’s the patients! (yuk yuk)

Have a good one, peoples. And light something on fire for me.

What takes up a greater part of my mental real-estate these days is my job. I happen to think I have a very interesting job that has LOADS of implications in people’s lives, so I thought I’d share. My job title is officially, psychiatric social worker. It means that I have an MSW, and that I work with psychiatric patients at one of the largest state mental health hospitals in the nation. Even better, I work on the Forensics unit. This means that most of my patients have legal charges pending and are there for a competency evaluation (and sometimes mental state at time of offense) and competency restoration. The rest of the few that come in are people who come in for evaluation for civil commitment after their criminal charges have been dismissed.

Following so far?

What is competency restoration? It seems that in my job, if there is ANY job to do, there seems to be a law suit or government agency (because of a law suit) requiring that particular job to be done. It seems that through the years, someone decided it was unfair for a person of questionable mental state, who could not name the members of the courtroom, let alone, assist their attorney in their own defense to be taken to trial for their alleged offenses. (At this point, I’m just going to clarify that I’m not going to talk about NGRI - Not Guilty By Reason of Insanity. I work in Competency Restoration and on an admission ward, which means that my patients have charges pending OR dismissed.) So in order for the case to proceed, a person of questionable mental status (or in some cases, an attorney who wants his client’s mental status to appear questionable) gets sent for a period of 15-30 days (depending on misdemeanor or felony) for evaluation for competency (and usually mental status at time of offense). After that, if they need more treatment, they are sent for a 90 Day Competency Restoration, in which the patient gets medicines, 1-1 therapy, recreation and classes that help in the patient’s ability to work with their attorney in their defense. And just to get your civil libertarian panties in a bundle, many of these guys… MOST of them, come with a forced med order. This means that the hospital has the right to administer medications to the patient against their will. In addition, most court orders I read specifically state that the right to a speedy trial is WAIVED. These guys are in limbo while on my ward. They are still detained and in a high security facility, they still have charges, but as much as a year can pass in the hospital before the court ultimately has to dismiss the charges. Meanwhile, when beds at the hospital are full, the patients have to wait in jail until a bed is free.

The range of cases I get are between people trespassing in a public park in the early morning to a single repeat offender with charges of First Degree Rape and First Degree Murder (with an additional 4 other felony charges relating to the crime). My patients range from people talking in word salad (gobbledy gook nonsense that’s hard to fake) and clang associations (sort of rhyming loosely strung together phrases/ideas) to people who will quite honestly, calmly tell you in the most earnest and pleasant way, “Oh, I know who the judge is, he’s the antichrist.” Then there are the occasional malingerers - who for whatever reason, react and interact in a way that is to make them appear much more sick than they actually are (if they even have psychiatric issues at all.) There are young and old, healthy and strong, people who come in just after their “first break” and people who have been in and out of the system since they were born.

[I deleted a couple paragraphs that go into some of the nitty-gritty stressors, that will be another post elsewhere.]

This is my first social work job after achieving my MSW degree in 2004, and it’s teaching me a lot. I love to share what I do. But man, writing this post has made my head pound. I think I need a vacation.

Today was my third day at my Brand New Job. At this job, I get to be in a high security area, which means badges, a whole mess of keys and restrictions on objects you can bring in/out. The job is filled with colorful characters, and I’m already developing a stash of stories to tell.

This is one of them.

Though this story doesn’t deal with the colorful individuals that are the consumers at this social service agency (ie. forensic ward at a hospital.) This story deals with the people in Human Resources that fail to understand what proof I need for being eligable for employment.

Let’s back up. As with most jobs at most places (and every job at every place I’ve worked) I was required to fill out a stack of papers for things such as my mandatory sign up for the Union (AFL-CIO), retirement benefits, confidentiality agreement, W-4 and the ubiquitous I-9. The I-9 is the form that proves your eligability to work in the U.S. and requires you to submit documents to prove this. Usually these documents are in the form of a lone U.S. passport (my document of choice) or two other documents combined, usually being the state ID or Driver’s License and a Social Security Card. I’ve gotten out of the habit of carrying my SS card with me on a regular basis, so given that one document, my Passport, should suffice, that is what I choose to bring.

My coworker warned me that it may not be enough. There is, however, no document in the packet that requires any documentation aside from the aforementioned. So, I told her, I should be fine.

Apparently the HR people don’t understand what the I-9 requires. The first woman I spoke to was determined that I should have my Social Security card included in the file, despite none of the information I was handed stating that to be the case. I told her that according the the form, my passport was all that was required. She didn’t take that as an answer and referrerd to her coworkers. Another woman came to me and read over the I-9, with me pointing out to her that my passport was sufficient. She looked over it in a very bureucratic, matter of fact way, reading the headers and eventually stating that (well, I can only interpret what she said for myself) I was correct. She then requested my Driver’s License. I asked her what form stated that she needed my Driver’s License. She looked at me and said she didn’t understand what I was talking about. I then said to her, “What form can you show me states the requirement that I give you my Driver’s License to photocopy?” She said she would have to look into it, and was getting this aire of “I’m so leaving this conversation now!” She then mumbled something about how they needed it in case they have to prove my residency, update where I live, because they get reports… blah blah blah.

Given the fact that I’m shitty at updating my own address for my Driver’s License, I don’t know how that would do them one bit of good.

Besides, they already have my SSN on numerous documents already. They could try to get my credit report if they *really wanted.* Also consider I already authorized a criminal background check in order to take the job.

They do NOT need any more forms of ID and they were unable to give me any information stating as to why they needed additional ID.

This all happened in front of my coworker, who is training me. I later explained to her, after I got the “Well, we’ll contact you if we need more information.” crap from the HR people, that in the end, this was a fight for civil liberties.

Maybe not really, but that’s what it felt like. I mean, there was no documentation there that they could give me that required any more information than they already had.

I believe it’s my right to withhold that information if i so choose.

As it is, they know a lot more about me than I likely do about myself.

I’m just waiting to see if I don’t get my paycheck on payday because of this. This could get fun!

Much has happened since I last updated. I will attempt to summarize to the best of my ability.

Around mid-November I passively gave up on NaNoWriMo. Turns out that the process wasn’t all for naught, in that I spurred me to figure out what I really wanted to work on, which was art. Since then, I’ve been slowly getting things together to work on a project that is coming together at a snail’s pace. It’s a good project, though (entailing water based media and collage), and I intend to follow through, even if it takes awhile.

Meanwhile, I had a few other epiphanies thanks to listening to the Pema Chodron Getting Unstuck cds that a dear friend got for me a few months ago. I think that I really should invest a solid block of time for meditation daily. It’s on my to-do list.

If I had one, at least, it would be on it.

I turned 28 at the end of the month of November. It’s quite weird for me to not be all ecstatic about a birthday, but maybe this just means I’m getting older. That’s hopefully not a bad thing. I received a ton of gifts for the occasion, including a fabulous digital camera (that I’ve since used and posted photos to my flickr page.) I was able to splurge at my favorite cosmetic store, Sephora, thanks to a gift card. I swear, I’m not that girly, nor that stuck-up. I do love the shiney, though.

(and wrt cosmetics/skin-care, an update on my previous post re: skin care, I ended up going to Aveda and have been quite pleased with their skin care line.)

And then there’s the big news - I got a job. A real, live, social work job. It’s my first social work job out of grad school, and I’m terrified and excited at the same time. It’s a tough commute, promises to be a tough job (working with psychiatrically committed criminals), and will at least be rewarding in the fact that, should I survive, I should be able to start paying the federal government back for those oh-so-generous loans during my schooling.

It figures that by the time I actually figure what to do with my time away from work that I actually get a job.

I still intend to do volunteering w/ the LGBT Community Center here in Seattle, as well as fill-in shifts as a sex-education retailer.

That’s my life now. Within a few weeks, I will have worked 2 weeks at my new job *and* be on my way to sunny Florida for a family vacation to Disney World.

Ugh. This is a great public impression for the web. I’m a girl who a) loves make-up, shopping and shineys, b) goes to Disney World for vacation. Please don’t judge me!!

I’m a hard working, smart girl. I swear.

And that’s the story for now. Good afternoon!