Crazy

Today I think I turned just as crazy as my patients. 

One of them, the very worst patient on the unit, mind you, decided to get upset (again) at his program and medications. He is a TBI (traumatic brain injury) patient, which means he has very little impulse control- happy and joking one minute, then blow up the next. 

His mood is just constantly up and down,  

down and up, 

over s i d e w a y s,

and All oveR the place. 

While he was complaining about anything and everything, 

I suddenly wanted to you know what? 

HUG HIM.

H U G 

this patient who constantly causes trouble.

Who can be mean and rude and degrading and just downright nasty.

Who has spit and kicked and punched staff.

Who yells and screams the crudest things.

Who is defiant and thinks he's above the rules. 

Whom I've seen do some disturbing things. 

That is the patient I wanted to hug. 

Despite all that he's done and his poor behavior, I felt bad for him. 

I wanted to hug him, tell him it's ok, that things aren't as bad as they seem, that there's hope. 

Perhaps working in this environment has taught me some things. 

Some valuable and important things. 

How to love someone and see their potential even when they're at their worst. 

How to be patient (VERY patient) and suppress that overwhelming desire to SLAP them and bring them to the senses that they don't possess. 

That's what I realized today.