dashboard confessional

the taste of chillicothe

this is my second year attending the taste of chillicothe. i was pleased to see this year there were a few more vendors and a lot more traffic. the price can't be beat - $5 got me half a sub sandwich, half a chocolate pie from mcdonald's, a slice of little caesar's and a bread stick, pulled pork flat bread from old canal smokehouse, some bourbon chicken and a brownie from golden corral, and a half tenderloin sandwich from the paint grill. plus live music. much better deal than the rip-off that is taste of cincinnati.

the taste takes place on what i like to refer to as the grassy knoll next to the majestic theater. i think the official name is the courtyard. apparently there used to be a building there but it burned down, as everything in chillicothe seems to do.

everyone kept amanda's pug-chihuahua, wilson, well fed. i think he may have had a touch of indigestion by the end, because he quit begging and started being antisocial.

fear

psychotic people do not frighten me. they can talk about angels and voices and other patients spiking the coffee pot with drugs and it doesn't bother me. hypersexuality doesn't intimidate me. never once has a patient made me feel unsafe.

until today.

we were meeting today with patients who are followed by the outpatient clinic. one of the patients was demanding a dose reduction of her haldol because it was too high and making her see things. she was hostile. she was unrelenting. and she picked me out of the room of people to fix with her murderous stare. she just kept boring into me, and i didn't know where to look. i tried to glance serenely around the room, pretending i wasn't aware of her gaze, but my stomach was flipping all around. i whispered to one of the nurses that she was freaking me out, and he said he would tell me about her after she left. finally the interview was finished and the dirty blond head with the brutal eyes disappeared from the room. apparently my new friend has a history of attacking females she perceives to be more attractive than her. she has leapt over nursing stations in the past to attack her prey. he finished by saying, "i have no doubt if you would have been sitting closer, she would have attacked you". not exactly comforting.

i think what was so disquieting was the fact she was focused solely on me. i hadn't even said anything during the whole interview, yet something about me had fixated her. it's just unnerving to be the object of such disdain without any provocation - just simply by being.

my preceptor, chris, commented, "well, this is the career you wanted".

psychiatry starts

as usual, liz and the westender are very wise. i made a concerted effort today to make a good dinner - salmon, rice, and carrots. and maybe a bit of chardonnay. much improves the outlook. makes me feel much less pathetic.

it's funny how easy it is to begin forgetting one can leave the house when one has no place to go. vicious cycle.

i also decided to stop titling the posts as if i was counting down a jail sentence.

i really do love what i'm doing. started in psychiatry today and it's fantastic. lots of young vets on the ward right now, freshly returned from iraq and afghanistan. i will refrain from political commentary. i am only here to help their recovery.