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"The protagonist of today's story is a nurse who works in a mental hospital. In her ward, there are more than 60 female psychopaths who are trapped in unhealthy family relationships, mentally torn apart, and confined to mental hospitals.
Like the lonely old age of vegetable leaves
The wards were located on either side of the long corridor of the hospital, without doors, and the rooms were not spacious, with four beds inside, neatly arranged, and the sheets were covered with uniform striped colors. All the wards are lined with women's daily necessities, hairpins and head strings, red slippers, floral shirts, and the white walls look a little cold. The two gates of the corridor were locked, the diamond net windows were densely packed, and standing in the corridor, from time to time you could hear some hysterical shouts of women.
Figure | sickbed
This is not an ordinary hospital, but a psychiatric hospital located on Wenhua East Road in Jinan. There are multiple wards in the hospital, and there are more than 60 female psychiatric patients in my ward, who have been working for 7 years, watching them come in and out, reaching hundreds of them at the most. In the local indigenous black language, our hospital is called "Majiazhuang". "You just ran out of Majiazhuang," is the local curse.
In life, people have too many misconceptions about mental hospitals and psychopaths. Watching too many movies and TV dramas, some people will think that the crazy people here are locked up in iron cages, they are demented, and there will be crazy actions and conspiracies, such as digging tunnels and climbing fences to escape. In fact, there is not much difference between here and other hospitals, locking two doors is to prevent patients from running out, the window installation of diamond nets is afraid of patients jumping off the building, and the ward has no door, in order to facilitate the observation of patients' situation.
The first thing I do on the job, I walk into each ward one by one, ask about patients, look at nursing records, and count the number of people. Among the more than 60 female patients, ranging in age from teens to their seventies, the diseases are also very mixed, hysteria, mania, depression, schizophrenia, personality disorders and so on. Everyone's clinical manifestations are different: some are unreasonable every day, they want to fight with nurses, and they have to be tied to bed; some are not noisy, immersed in their own world, and think about themselves.
There is a class of retired elderly women living in the ward, who have nothing to do after retirement, coupled with divorce or the death of their wives, their children are not around, and they live alone, and over time they suffer from severe depression. Their faces are lifeless, they fall into a kind of nothingness of life, thinking that everything is meaningless.
Aunt Song, who is nearly 60 years old, is living in the air after retirement. She is divorced, her daughter is abroad, and she lives alone for a long time. For a while she was lying in bed with no friends around to talk to, feeling lonely and not wanting to do anything. From the time the sun was shining high until the stars and moons came, the days passed, until the vegetables she bought were rotten, and she realized that she was sick.
Life shouldn't rot like a dish. Aunt Song used all her strength to get up from the bed, and when her feet stepped on the ground, the long-lost feeling of being down-to-earth spread from the soles of her feet to her brain. So she went out and threw the rotten dishes in the trash, just like throwing away the nihilistic life, and then stepped on the electric car, put on her helmet, and went to the mental hospital.
Aunt Song took the initiative to come to our mental hospital, which is very rare. She was a former civil servant with glasses, looked like a cultural person, and was in a good mental state. I happened to be on duty on the day she came to the hospital, responsible for recording patient information at the door. Usually, other patients will be accompanied by family members, and she is alone, riding an electric car, getting out of the car, carrying a large bag that looks like it can crush her, and holding a helmet in her hand.
Before being hospitalized, I had to have a physical examination, so I helped her register, take her body temperature, measure blood pressure, and finally take the electrocardiogram, I asked her in a puzzled way: "How did you come by yourself, wife?" She lay on the bed doing the electrocardiogram, smiled bitterly at me, and said, "He's in trouble, he has to take care of his mother." The ECG room fell silent, and no one asked anything more.
Aunt Song only stayed here for more than ten days, and our ward liked her a lot. She had no complaints or excessive demands, and every time I pushed the cart to the bedside, she would take the medicine and say thank you to me after sending it down with water. When encountering patients who are particularly noisy, she is not too irritable and never asks to change wards.
Until she was discharged from the hospital, she was alone, she had never seen any relatives come, she had not hired a nurse, and the big bag was full of daily necessities that she had purchased herself. Compared with most patients, she was able to take care of herself and gain insight into her condition, which allowed her to recover quickly. On the day of discharge, she returned her helmet, said thank you, and rode away in an electric car.
In an active manner, she tries to save her loneliness in her later years.
Mrs. Xu, 63, is another extreme case. She suffered from paroxysmal mania, moved in before New Year's Day, had two electroconvulsions, and was able to walk the next day. She has two sons, the second son has been here to take care of her, the wife is also paralyzed at home, taken care of by the daughter-in-law of the second son, and the eldest son does not care about anything. The cause of Mrs. Xu's illness stemmed from him.
There is an old saying in the countryside, called "who hurts who does not use it.". Mrs. Xu has always loved the eldest son, spoiled lawlessly, this year the eldest son secretly used her identity information to mortgage the loan, but could not repay, soon the debt collector arrived at the door, and then received a summons from the court, the account was frozen. Only then did Mrs. Xu know the truth, and she was insane in a fit of rage. She did not eat or drink, her body was stiff, lying on the bed like a vegetative person, and suddenly sat up like a corpse in the middle of the night, and the second son quickly sent her to the hospital.
After a few weeks of hospitalization, her condition worsened, her body continued to be stiff, her limbs were at the mercy of others, she slept poorly, and she could not take care of herself. In medicine, this kind of zombie belongs to the psychogenic zombie, which is a type of psychomotor inhibition, usually caused by severe mental stimulation. So these days, Mrs. Xu's state can be described as an "air pillow", that is, the pillow is removed, and her head can still remain dangling.
Heart disease also needs heart medicine, and the eldest son has not yet appeared. Her condition worsened. The doctor said that her current condition is not optimistic, and she needs to continue to be hospitalized for observation, possibly in the hospital for the New Year.
Trapped in marriage
As a nurse in a psychiatric hospital, my most important job of the day is to check the drugs according to the doctor's orders and distribute medicines to patients, mainly psychiatric drugs. You have to take the water, take the medicine, and watch them eat it. At this time, we must be careful of the patient's medicine, some of them will press it in the mouth, deliberately do not swallow, and some people deliberately spit in the tea leak. After eating, it is necessary to check again, let the patient open his mouth, and take a cotton swab and press their tongue.
Occasionally, I will take patients who are in good condition to walk around the yard of the rehabilitation department, contact with fresh air and bright sunshine, can get rid of some moldy emotions, and have a great effect on the recovery of patients. The remaining patients stayed in the ward dining room, watching TV and listening to songs.
Figure | The patients were watching TV and practicing
Miko is an old acquaintance of our hospital for decades and has been living in since 1986. She is chubby, although her name is Miko, but she is actually a middle-aged aunt. But she always felt like a little girl, and I called my nurse sister when she was less than thirty.
Her illness was schizophrenic, her mind was full of wild imaginations, and as soon as she saw me, she would greet me warmly and ask me to sit down next to her bedside. In her simple and happy world, she is the richest man in the world, buying things every day, arrogantly, deducting money from the account. She also sits at many airports, watching planes take off every day, muttering "123, 123, flying" when eating. ”
Every time she was given medicine, she said she would send us villas to reward us for our hard work. Ask her where the villa is, and she will happily say: the money has arrived.
Many mental illnesses are caused by heredity, and if there is emotional mental disorder or schizophrenia in the family, the possibility of offspring suffering from mental illness is greatly increased. Medical experts have found that if one parent has schizophrenia, the incidence of children is about 15%, and if both parents have schizophrenia, the incidence of children is about 40%.
Miko's illness is family inherited and occurred in 1985. The medical history says that after she had a conflict with her classmates in 1985, she gradually became ill, showing sensitivity and suspiciousness, always feeling that someone said something bad about her, and others spitting thought it was directed at her. Later, she began to laugh at herself for no reason, exaggerating her words, saying that she could be admitted to Tsinghua University and become a high official. In April 1986, she was diagnosed with "schizophrenia" and admitted to our hospital for the first time.
Fortunately, she has medical insurance, and hospitalization does not cost much money. Her husband was very kind to her, often came to visit her, and brought a box of milk and a lot of fruit every time he came. In my opinion, she is happy, although she can't get out of the gate here, her mind has long since flown out of the nine clouds and soared in the clean sky.
Family genetics is an internal factor, and the external factors that promote the onset of mental illness are various, and for middle-aged women, the problem of marriage and love is one of the triggers. Xiao Gao, 32 years old, visited our hospital three times in 2009, 2010 and 2012. The first onset was after she fell out of love, showing irritability, not sleeping in the middle of the night, biting her sister, and was diagnosed with "hysteria".
After marriage, her life was not pleasant, and in 2017, she quarreled with her husband, she took 200 tablets of "risperidone" in an attempt to commit suicide, and was sent to the hospital in time to wash the stomach and infuse the infusion to escape from danger. Since then, her life has not changed much, her family lacks the necessary care for her, and her conflict with her husband reaches an irreconcilable point.
Once, she pushed her husband off the motorcycle and said that the ghost had made her do it, and that she owed the ghost a lot in his previous life. Her husband couldn't stand this life and chose to divorce her, and almost at the same time she was fired from the company. Under the double blow, she had a disordered speech and danced with her hands, so she was sent to our hospital again.
After moving in, her condition has been repeated, it is difficult to completely cure, and she can only rely on drugs to maintain. Her ex-husband had never seen her, and compared to Miko, she was still very young, but her future was dark.
Women during pregnancy are emotionally fragile, and if they do not get enough love, it is easy to induce the onset of the disease. The experience of Xiao Zhao, 23, is somewhat similar to that of Xiao Gao, who suffers from severe schizophrenia and looks like she is in her forties, not at all like a young woman.
In 2017, she became ill after a relationship with her mother-in-law during pregnancy, was sensitive and suspicious, suspected that her husband had an outside heart, said that he had an improper relationship with women outside, so she often quarreled with him. Nervous, she did not want to work, did not want to go out, rarely communicated with her family, and after taking some drugs for a long time, her condition gradually stabilized.
Xiao Zhao came to our ward because his condition was getting worse again. Every day for no reason, she was in a daze, talking to herself out of thin air and whispering. When asked what she was talking about, she replied: "Say dirty things about your husband." ”
Wounds of the original family
Data from the Shanghai Mental Health Center shows that 17.5% of people on the mainland suffer from mental disorders ranging from long-term insomnia, personality disorders, material dependence, alcohol dependence, sleeping pill dependence, and schizophrenia.
For different conditions, psychiatric hospitals offer different treatments, most of which are treated with oral drugs and intramuscular injections. Of course, there will still be applications of electric shock therapy, such as MECT (no convulsive electroconvulsive therapy), that is, the patient in the case of general anesthesia, the brain is electrically stimulated, resulting in a loss of consciousness. This method is mainly used to treat some patients with severe depression or mania. Yang Yongxin's kind of punitive electric shock therapy once existed, but it did not become history long ago after the promulgation of the Mental Health Law.
Many mental illnesses are caused by social and psychological factors, and some of them are attributed to the family of origin.
There is no shortage of young women in our hospital. The 22-year-old Xiao Shu, who graduated from a medical school with a bachelor's degree, was diagnosed with bipolar disorder during his internship, so he resigned and came to our hospital for treatment. She seems to be very social, instructing others on what medicine to take every day in the ward.
In fact, this is a kind of performative personality.
Figure | Ward corridors
In fact, Koji has a twisted personality, does not express any emotions or thoughts, and sometimes behaves very abnormally, and that day she suddenly hugged me from behind, which frightened me a lot. Another time, she was ready to go to treatment in the morning, fasting, not breakfast. We left her bread for breakfast, but she stole preservatives from other people's bread and carried them in her pockets. Afraid that she would swallow a foreign body, we immediately found her, and she turned around and said that she did not want to eat bread.
The history of her illness details her illness. In 2015, the patient became ill after a conflict with the school teacher, and was manifested as depressed mood, less talk and less movement, unwilling to communicate with others, like to be quiet and alone, and often cry. In 2016, she began browsing negative messages online, slashing her arm with a knife. During college, she became pessimistic and world-weary, studying suicide and looking up relevant information online. In November last year, she took 50 tablets of lithium carbonate, was taken to the hospital by her family, and escaped from danger after being rescued by "infusion and excretion", and at the same time, she was diagnosed with "bipolar disorder".
Xiao Hu has strong self-analysis ability and believes that his illness is caused by his original family. She was a left-behind child as a child, her parents divorced, brought up by her grandparents, and she lacked the care of her parents from an early age. When she came, her entire forearm was covered with knife marks, and this self-harming act was intended to attract the attention of others.
On the day of discharge, her mother came to pick her up, and we instructed Xiaohuan to take her medicine on time, and her mother, with an indifferent look, said to us: "She knows what to eat herself, leave it alone." This silenced us speechless, and we could only wish the little scroll good luck.
Mental illness caused by the family of origin is more directly manifested in children. Some time ago, a little girl named Xingxing came to the ward, saying that she was a little girl, but she was actually in junior high school. But she looked only seven or eight years old, very small, thin and dry, with dull eyes.
Her parents divorced, her father drank heavily every day and did not leave home, her mother remarried and had a new life, and her grandparents occasionally pulled her. In such a family environment, she had serious mental problems, did not eat or drink, and did not go to school for several days. After the teacher found out, he sent it for treatment and was diagnosed with acute transient mental disorder.
As soon as she stayed, she yelled all the time, her mood was very unstable, she was clamoring to go home to find her mother, she couldn't eat well, and she didn't drink water. The family committee came to see her once with a fruit basket, that is, they thought she was pitiful, and no one else had come.
One day I came to her bedside to feed her medicine, she said she didn't eat anything, started hysterically cursing, sat on the ground and pulled her hair, and I couldn't control her. I scolded her angrily: "Stars, you calm down, the world is so big, there are so many interesting things, you are here to give up on yourself?" You're a teenager, do you have to live on the pathetics of others all the time? ”
She was stunned and never spoke, probably never said that to her. After a while, she silently took the medicine.
I was impulsive, but I didn't expect such a scolding to really work. She became obedient and began to take her medicine and eat on time in the next few days. I can occasionally chat with her, tell stories, or accompany her to watch her favorite horror movies. Every time her eyes flickered at me, like her name, the stars, straight to the heart.
After being hospitalized for a month, Xingxing's mood tended to stabilize, and it was time to be discharged from the hospital and go back to school. On the day of leaving, she jumped up to me and said, "Thank you, sister nurse, I was really warm and happy during this time." "Clamoring for me to hug her, I was completely touched by her and gave her a big hug.
On the day of leaving, it was my mother who came to pick me up, which is very important to the stars. That means she can one day get along with her mom. I meditated in my heart, may she not come here again.
*This article is based on the dictation of the parties, and the characters are ambiguous
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Written by | Self-shepherding
Edit | Wu Xun