When I was a student, I worked in a number of odd places, summer jobs mostly, but the oddest one was probably a lunatic asylum that I worked in one holidays. I worked in it simply because I was offered money to do it to pay for my summer holiday – in Greece I imagine.
It was in a closed ward, so called because in order to get in I had to open two doors, one of which would only open when I had the other closed, so it was a case of a sort of airlock in order to get into the ward. Once I got into it, I was confronted with three rooms, one a bedroom, another a day room, and then a bathroom – oh, and there were two padded cells opening of the day room. These we were not able to use without doctors attending the patient telling us it was OK to bung him in the padded cells, but I have to say they were amazing for a short nap. They had padded floors, walls, and ceiling, oh, and a door too… Great places to have a kip!!
We had to deal with all sorts of problems in this space, from syphilis to Huntington’s disease and all sorts of other diseases. People suffering from the advanced form of syphilis were really objectionable, argumentative and generally unpleasant, whereas people suffering from Huntington’s Disease were really rather sad, as the disease followed a well known track and was inevitable. Once it has started it went on for a predictable path, and ended up with the patient going totally insane….. Horrible to see how it how it was with people who hadn’t progressed very far!
We were (obviously) confronted with death on a daily basis in that ward… (to see how I have dealt with corpses in my life, as I have often been confronted with death often https://wordpress.com/post/ozthoughtsblog.com/2529).
One patient I well remember was a Roman soldier, an officer I remember. He died one day, having gone to the lavatory at night, and slipped and fell, and broken his hip. If other people had this happen to them, they got all sorts of treatment, but lunatics didn’t. A doctor was called and he “prescribed” rest and a bag of sand (to keep his thigh in place), and that was that. Obviously he died in agony, as he wouldn’t stay still, and tried to get out of bed all day…. He died after several days, peacefully in his sleep, while I sat beside him. I used to ask him about his bunch of men everyday, and he was totally in that world, so he told me how it was with his soldiers, which he really saw in his mind…. He was another of those men who had been found wandering around a railway station, and no one had ever come forward to say who he was. This was the story of a lot of men there………. Lots of men.
I used to go along the corridors to get to my ward, and there I was confronted with mad women…. And I can tell you I was really grateful not to have to deal with them, as they seemed madder than the men….
I was much impressed by this job, as I have said, it was a really powerful experience. I was surrounded by death and madness on a daily basis, most of the men in my “Care” were insane in one or another way, and demonstrated it too. Most were amenable in general, and didn’t make waves in one or another way. I used to ask men who were suffering from “visions” to describe my hands to me…. And it was amazing! The way they described it to me was every time different. They used to say, about their palm “Blue paper with orange gaps…” I used to ask them to describe the same thing at once, and they said ” Now it is red with bloody bits”. Endlessly fascinating.
It was a fascinating job, and remarkable too…… I learnt so many life lessons doing that job. Probably the main one was that Death came for every one and that generally it was peaceful and calm – though not always!
OZTHOUGHTS 