paranoid and jumping

I call this picture "paranoid at work."

Quotation of the day: "I ate a four-leaf clover for good luck." --Rebekah H.

Here is Rebekah high jumping:

I am a Spartan woman

Quotation of the day: "Spartan women don't set goals to lose 20 pounds. They set goals to destroy their enemies and protect their families." --Jerry H.

Here is a preview for an upcoming Bones episode, that I keep watching over and over. Can't wait!

my purple hair

I just dyed my hair partially purple. Here is a fuzzy picture of it.
As an added bonus, here are my purple fingernails.

mentally ill images

Here are some images that I like, that depict mental illness.

In this first one, the left side is mental illness and the right side is recovery.

photoshoot of the day

song of the day

Song of the day, "The Gambler" by Fun. Stupid band name, but I love them.

psychiatric ward stay

A woman in my (church) ward had a fascinating experience during her three-day stay in a psychiatric ward of the hospital. Well I found it fascinating anyway. I wanted all the details for my blog, and she agreed to provide them.

• Everyone wore the same paper-like cerulean blue scrubs and non-slip socks. The men had blue socks and the women had brown. The non-slip tread was on both the bottom and the top of the socks
  


• She wasn't allowed to have her coat with her, and she can't figure out why. Can a person smother themselves to death? The only personal possession she was allowed to keep with her was lip balm.


• She missed her cell phone most of all. The patients were only allowed to use the hospital phone for 10 minutes at a time, and no long distance calls were allowed. The phone was taken off of the wall at a certain time each evening and replaced the next morning when someone requested it. Only the patients used that phone.
  


• No one was allowed to eat with utensils; she had to use her fingers. One time she ate ice cream using a celery stick as a utensil. No one in the hospital got the same meal as the next person. The food was barely tolerable.
  


• She got to ride in an ambulance for the first time. She imagined all the carnage the inside of that ambulance might have seen. She found the supplies in the ambulance to be surprisingly disorganized


• When she first got to the hospital she had to take off all her clothes while a nurse watched. Then the nurse documented all of the marks and scars on her body.


• Her "cellmates" were very interesting. Most were substance abusers along with their various other mental illnesses. One guy had sat in the car in the parking lot with a gun to his head and decided at the last minute to go into the hospital instead. He highly recommended the use of marijuana to my friend, who has never used illicit drugs. He became friends with my friend, and she hopes he is still alive.


• Another lady had multiple sclerosis and yelled choice phrases and nonsense at all hours of the day and night.


• Another lady was not there of her own volition, but was taken there by the police and ordered to stay there.
  


• A man there said that he apparently had been stealing things like cell phones and women's underwear, but he had no recollection of doing so. He paced up down the hallways, very concerned that the people whose stuff he had taken would be needing their stuff, and he had no way to get it back to them. He also had an intricate branded design on his forehead and evenly spaced large horizontal scars all the way up one arm.


• Two of the patients had been there for a few weeks and were receiving electro-convulsive therapy.
  


• All of the patients except my friend were smokers and were using nicotine patches.


• There was nothing in the rooms that a person could hang themselves from. The shower head was about one inch long, and a person had to constantly push a small button on the wall to make the water come out. The temperature of the water was preset and could not be adjusted.
  


• My friend slept most of the time she was in the hospital. She can't remember the first day too well because she was so spaced, but later on in her stay she got up for the therapy groups. She especially enjoyed the art one. Here is a picture she drew. The left hand side is how she felt at the time, and the right hand side is how she would like to be when she recovers some.