A Gift for Fiction

[Davey Do]

In 1979, at the tender age of 22, I was hired at Anomaly Home as a Houseparent for "troubled teenage boys" ages 14-18. I was naive and trusting and soon learned that those traits weren't going to fly if I was to be successful at this job.

The first revelating situation that I recall was with a 16 year old nicknamed Paco.  Paco had stayed out way past curfew and gave me a rather involved story as his excuse which involved two men in an Insect Exterminator truck . He said, "If you don't believe me, I bet that truck is still parked at the business!"

So, like Sherlock Holmes when the game is afoot, I went for my Watson, the other Houseparent, woke him, and told him, "We need to check this out!"

Watson replied, "Paco is blowing smoke up your ***! He made up that story so he wouldn't get in trouble for staying out past curfew!"

Sure enough, Watson confronted him and we found out Paco's story was fabricated.

I worked as a psych nurse off and on for 36 years, heard many stories, and dealt with many patients (and staff) who had a gift for fiction.

Got any?

 

[Davey Do]

Some of the most interesting and entertaining patients that I worked with were diagnosed with schizophrenia.

One night, I was pulled from geriatric psych to work the men's unit. I was doing an admission on a patient from a very small rural town not too far from where I live. He had become publicly paranoid and delusional, so the state police brought him in.

This patient was so cutely countrified and at the end of the admission assessment, I told him that he needed to disrobe and be searched  for his and the other patients' safety- something I called "a naked turn around".

"Get down to your underwear, drop your drawers, turn around, and it's over."

I searched his clothes as he handed them out to me from the bathroom until he was down to his underwear.

I went inside the bathroom to find the patient standing, as directed, in his grossly yellow-stained underwear. As I looked down at the area the patient said,

"I was making some popcorn and must have gotten some butter on myself!"

Biting my lip to keep from laughing, I replied,

"Yeah. That happens to me a lot".