Friday, March 9, 2007

our own little worlds

Tonight at my psych clinical my patient, a 10-year-old boy, told me about the private world he slips into as he twirls his baton. In this world everything is wonderful, he meets celebrities, he gets along with his brother, etc. Without the baton, he can't slip into that world and he experiences great anxiety. He twirls the thing all day long. I chose to work with him because I think I totally get it... the magic baton, the portal into a world far better than this one will ever be.

Interesting point that a nurse made today: Her patient claims to be hearing the voice of God. She says she is religious and believes that God speaks to people, and yet at what point does this become an "auditory hallucination"? Good question. I mean, if you claim to really believe that God speaks to people, that he commands them to do sometimes very irrational things, that he impregnates virgins... how do you become a psych nurse? Here you are, drugging up all of God's potential messiahs, calling their visions hallucinations, calling their claim of connectedness to God grandiousity. If Christianity requires blind faith in the illogical, belief in prophets and messengers, and acceptance of scientifically impossible stories of virgin births and visions of the appocolypse... I would say get thee out of psych nursing because it sure seems like a conflict of belief and practice to me.

I must choose between my medsurg test and my research paper, considering the remaining time I have this week. Medsurg test wins out, so I will just take the late points on my paper. Priorities, priorities, and aren't they always telling us to have realistic goals?

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