Well yesterday was rather scary for lack of a more descriptive word. I work as a mental health counselor for a non-profit organization. From the day I got my job I realized I was so blessed and lucky to get into the field the way that I have. There are so many people in my Masters program with me who have not had the opportunity to work in the field yet. I really feel like I've been able to and am attaining on a daily basis experience and knowledge that is really priceless.
Well every now and then one of our residents will go into a crisis. It may be because of certain stressors like the time of year or anniversary of dates or it can be because they are not taking their medication as prescribed. You never really know sometimes. Well one of my residents has been having a hard time for awhile now. But overall this resident has been doing fairly well. In the months of April and May the resident was doing great actually, I really saw an improvement in their affect and it seemed that if nothing else that they were being compliant with taking their medication. Well yesterday morning I had to pick the resident up from the hospital because they had transported them self their and was given some psychotropic medication and released due to the fact that they had no clear medical needs that needed to be addressed. Well I took the resident home got them settled in discussed with them ways that they could combat anxiety and stress and went to one of my other residences to get work done there. I called to check on the resident around four and everything seemed to be fine. Two hours later at 6pm I get a phone call that this resident has injured them self and was now resting in their room as if nothing had happened. I THANK GOD SO MUCH THAT I CAN'T EVEN EXPRESS IT FULLY, that my supervisor and I just happened to be having supervision at the time of this phone call. We both headed over and spoke with the resident. The resident had a very blunted affect and was just not very communicative with us at all. We realized that the injury needed attention and had to call 911 we also called mobile crisis to get some information about what our next move should be. Because the resident injured them self the police had to come along with the fire department and the ambulance. The resident was transported to the hospital and then we began the waiting game. Mobile crisis came and spoke with the resident who was still being very non-communicative. Finally we were able to get the resident to agree to sign them self in voluntarily to the psychiatric unit. If not then I would have had to have been the petitioner in a TDO and shown up for in a word a court like hearing that would be held on Wed. at 7AM!!!!! So it's needless to say that I was very happy that the resident decided that they needed the extra support and wanted to stay in the hospital. Well all of that gave me a 13 and 1/2 hour day at work. I got home some time after 2am and was so ready to crash.
I love my job, but nights like that scare the crap out of me. I haven't had to deal with a situation that intense before. I'm thankful that it worked out the way that it did because it could have gone a lot worse and it could have been a lot scarier. I'm happy that I was able to remain calm and cool and give the impression that I was not scared. You never really know how you're going to react to a situation until you are in it. I'm thankful that my demeanor and poise remained despite the fact that I was going crazy on the inside. Through it all I'm still thankful for my job and the experience. Let's just all hope that I don't have another night like that anytime in the near future. : )
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