janet jackson

"What's your name?"

"Sandra, better known as Janet Jackson"

My "pregnant" patient is long gone but we have a new woman whose delusions are....top notch.  She's been in the hospital now for almost 2 weeks, which is only the latest of many many psychiatric hospitalizations.  Meeting her you might not suspect anything at first, she's (mostly) friendly, talks a lot and seems fairly happy.  It's when you start actually listening to all the BS that she's saying that you realize something's off.

She is, for all intents and purposes, Janet Jackson.  She has an album coming out "later in the summer".  She's currently dating Tupac himself (for a few days she temporarily thought I had stolen her bf Tupac from her, but seems to have gotten over that).  Additionally, she performed with Ludacris in Greensboro, her sister is Vivica A Fox, she met Alicia Keys at Holly Hill Hospital (another psych hospital in Raleigh)...oh yeah, and she also used to be Chilli from TLC, but that was back when she had "golden hair".  And to top it all off, she does not sleep - literally only 2-3 hours a night if we're lucky.

And what do we do about it?  A whole lot of nothing it seems.  Medication medication medication....but that's not going to get rid of these delusions.  It just makes her "pleasantly delusional" (my favorite term used to describe some of the patients here) so that she can be discharged.  But, like Miss Pregnant-with-Twins, Janet Jackson will return to us.  Again and again and again....

Obviously we're not succeeding in "helping" her, are we?
Or maybe we simply...can't.

life in the fast lane, surely make you lose your mind

I've found a practical use for my psychology degree and am now employed in a field that I've wanted to get into since I first declared psych as my major.  It took some time, a lot of bullshit, and moving across the country but things have worked out.  Things always have a way of working out.

Most interesting patient encountered so far: 32 year old woman fully convinced she's 6 months pregnant with twins.  Despite any physical signs of pregnancy and multiple negative pregnancy tests, she is still 100% convinced of this "fact".  And not only does she believe she's pregnant, but she obsesses about it.  It's all she'll talk about.  She was discharged last week, but I have a feeling this woman will be back.

They all come back.