Conniving Bastard

S.J. earned the unspoken and entirely respectful inscription of Conniving Bastard. When I first met this individual, he frightened me.

Laura, myself, and seven or eight patients were in the stairwell, making enough noise as we stampeded over the concrete, on our way outside for a session of group therapy. S.J. was with us and he was manic. "I'm suicidal! I'm suicidal! I'm gonna slit my throat!" he screamed as he shoved past me in a state of panic. His voice bounced off the wall and trembled with emotion. I blinked to make sure he was the only one shouting and that I wasn't hearing a bazillion agitated voices in my head.

S.J. had bipolar disorder and was prone to aggression. I had the feeling he found pleasure in testing the patience of certain staff. S.J. had presumably been transferred to the LRC from prison. Trapped between the wall and a suicidal mental patient, I figured S.J. wouldn't attack me, but the previous day a different patient, E, had stabbed himself in the neck with a pen, so the thought of violence and restraints and seclusion and manic hysteria was enough to raise my pulse and my heartbeat. The hypersensitive mother in me told me I'd better watch my back. Staff escorted S.J. safely back to the ward. Laura told me S.J. didn't want to go outside, that's why he had a fit. And there I was thinking fresh air was a good thing.

Laura confessed her own fear of S.J. at a team meeting. I'm not sure if he threatened her family, but I do know that he knew some of her family.

S.J. challenged the "system." From his social worker he demanded legal papers, confidential info, physician's order documents, and probably a blowjob for all I know. Staff rolled their eyes when he swaggered out of his room, talking very fast and demanding to take a shower, to have his medication, to meet with his social worker, etc.

In a previous post I mentioned D. Rudorf. Well, a wall separated the two of them. They were both kept behind the big nurse's station in the center of the ward, away from the rest of the action. In that love letter from D. Rudorf was a comment about S.J. So S.J. was gay and he annoyed D. Rudorf during the night, demanding sexual favors and whatnot.

Nintendo Wii calmed S.J. I forget what sport he liked to play.