Prompt #42 Staying out of the way

Prompt 42 Staying out of the way

There is a back door entrance to the Banner Health building in Scottsdale. Once inside, if you can prove your worthiness for entrance, the employees will confiscate all of your clothing and valuables, cellphones and shoes included. You will be issued scrubs to wear and those socks with the little treads on them that makes them almost like slippers. You will then be ushered into a room full of recliners to begin your long wait for admittance into the psych ward.

The inhabitants of the loony bin are probably not what you would expect. The majority, but certainly not all, do not drool or scream incessantly. They do not talk to unseen things or constantly duck swooping birds that do not exist. No, most are just normal looking, normal seeming people who are having a difficult time dealing with this life and the many stressors and expectations that are placed upon them. Most, but not all, just need a little help, and they have found a great place to get some.

The blonde haired lady, that sweet mother of three, she doesn’t want to die. She swallowed all of those pills in a cry for help, she took enough Ambien to kill three elephants but she dialed 911 shortly thereafter. She didn’t want to die but she didn’t know how to keep on living with the pain that she kept inside. The kind and gentle souls who work here, the technicians, the nurses, the social workers and the doctors, they will help her. They will counsel her and help her to expel some of the grief and hopelessness that she carries inside every single day. They will provide medication that will not numb her or make her a zombie but will help the chemicals in her brain to help her live a healthier and happier life.

The guy with the beard, the one that flirts with all of the nurses whether they be age 20 or 65. He suffers from post-traumatic stress disorder. He has found help here too. He was referred, or forced, into this ward by a law enforcement agency. Without the help of these people and this place and an intensive after care plan to support him after he is released he would simply not be able to function in the normal world. In the olden days he would have been locked in a padded room or tied down and given electroshock therapy. But thanks to the miracles of modern medicine he has found the right combination of medication and therapy that will allow him not only to function in life but possibly flourish.

The lady in the wheelchair, the one that has such a sweet and peaceful aura making the bandages on her wrists seem so grotesque and out of place, she has her share of problems too. A friend just happened to stop by that day at the right time to call the cavalry and save her sweet life.  It is not anything that she has directly done that makes her life so completely horrible, so unbearably difficult. It is her 15 year old daughter that causes her so much pain that she thought she could no longer bear it. It is her daughter who spends her nights selling her body so that she can spend her days shooting crystal meth into her veins, she is the reason that this lady is here. How can the doctors help her? What medication or after care plan can carry this sweet soul through the following days, weeks, years of pain that her daughter, her precious little baby, causes her. What about her? Who can help her? Unfortunately this hospital, this life altering and lifesaving place, deals with numbers. They have insurance companies and accountants screaming to get them stabilized and get them out, there is money to be made. The lady, she likes this policy. It is obvious in the way her eyes constantly look towards the door, obvious in the tremor in her voice when she says she is fine and ready to be released. That lady just wants to get out of here. She wants to get out of here right fucking now so she can finish what she started.