Supernurse

Written on the 12th of December, only published later for obvious reasons (see other posts)...

Forget about Superman. Forget about Spiderman, Batman, Catwoman or even Mega Mindy. Now there is SuperNurse!

I have to be honest, there are a lot of nurses I know who could certainly deserve this title. I even have a supernurse in my family – you know who you are, cousin ;-)

However, here on the closed ward where I’m residing at the moment – tomorrow it’s been six weeks, incredible how time passes by! - there’s one guy who absolutely deserves this title, so I decided to dedicate this post to him. I won’t use his name here, that would only be uncomfortable for him, but honestly, truly, he is my SuperNurse.

 

 

This one looks quite like my SuperNurse... when he's in his costume, that is ;)

Last week was a bad week, as is this week. Exactly a week ago, I ran away from the ward, but I got caught in the parking garage. The consequences were grave, as you may have read in my earlier post: isolation with some short moments of freedom per day. That freedom was extended from Wednesday till Monday, but on Monday evening, something went wrong, terribly wrong, although afterwards, I don’t agree with the doctors’ and the nurses’ actions, and this will certainly be a point of further discussion. What happened? Well, I just disappeared from the radar, also called dissociation, depersonalisation or derealisation. And the nurses thought I was a danger for them and the other patients – which, of course, I wasn’t. So they thought it was safer to lock me up in the isolation room again, and as I was quite unaware of what was happening, I just let them do it, without resistance, without any complaint.

However, the next morning, I was told by the psychiatrists that, because of what had happened, I would start the program back from zero. Consequently, that meant that while I was at 1.5 hours out of the isolation room three times a day, this was reduced to 6 times a quarter of an hour a day. I couldn’t believe it, I didn’t want to believe it. After my good behaviour I had shown during the weekend, back to zero?! So I argued, but without any result.

This will be bad news for my SuperNurse. He left me on Monday at midday, and he was completely confident that everything would be all right. He’s done so much to get me through the weekend. He was the one who took his chances, he allowed me more than was prescribed by the doctors. He even had some interesting chats with me, in which I could tell him about the past. In short, he was the angel I needed to survive such a long period in the isolation room.

In any case, he is without doubt my SuperNurse. He made it possible for me to change my behaviour radically. Instead of being stubborn, including not eating, almost not drinking, being bad-humoured and all, I became a different person. I saw light at the end of the tunnel again. I could think in terms of “future”. I had high hopes of winning this battle against the voices.

However, he wasn’t here anymore when happened what happened on Monday. He only came back today. I thought he would be upset and/or disappointed, but we just talked, and neither of those two counts for him. Still, there is this nagging feeling of guilt, although also for me it’s perfectly clear that this – what happened on Monday – wasn’t bad behaviour as described in the contract. It wasn’t a breach of the contract, so I shouldn’t have been punished like that. It would have been okay if they had taken a step back, I’d have had peace with that. But completely back to zero? No, I’m still upset about those measures.

Now, SuperNurse is so funny too. He can make you feel better when you feel down, but he takes you seriously whenever you feel sad. It are those small things: a handshake, a comforting pat on your shoulder… That’s it, but it’s enough. It’s known that people with Borderline often idealise or even idolise other people, and perhaps this is one of those cases, but SuperNurse is just the best I’ve ever met – or comes very close to that. Anyway, for now, he is SuperNurse. That’s why I was so desperately sad when everything went back to zero. I thought he’d be at least disappointed. But he sees it in a different way: Maybe we asked too much of Debz, maybe the time wasn’t right yet. Could be, but I keep clinging to my theory: I need a lot of structure, I need one and only one clear guide per shift, and the nurse who guided me was lost somehow, so I started wandering around in the corridors, I started talking to people, they let me rest in a room in which you here every single sound… There were just too many incentives, I guess.

You see, it seems like SuperNurse knows me very well. He knows when jokes are appropriate, he knows when they’re not and seriousness is needed. He brings good news as if I’ve won the latest Euro Millions or Lotto or something like that. He might be kind of ADHD sometimes, but he is and stays my SuperNurse. Maybe it’s bad to trust him like I trust him now, but I have to trust someone at least. Maybe my trust will be disappointed one day. However, for now, it’s good to know that even in this hopeless situation, there is a SuperNurse

Now they let me out more than before, and I hope I can keep on handling it. Normally today I can be out of the isolation cell for 1.5 hours, three times today. I hope to see and talk to SuperNurse again. I honestly think that he is one of those people you just need to get through difficult situations. Someone who takes you and your illness seriously. Someone who knows when a joke is appropriate and when it’s not. Someone you can trust, even in difficult times. Someone who listens. Thát is my SuperNurse!