They told me he was out of control.
I didn't listen.
They told me that he needed an intramuscular cocktail.
I didn't listen.
They told me that they had tried redirecting him, asking him to take a time-out in the seclusion room, all to no avail.
I didn't listen.
Instead, I was convinced I could talk him down. So I went over to him in the day room, where he was raging against some hallucination, and he pointed at me. "YOU!"
"Yes?" I asked him.
"You my friend!" he replied, and held out his hand, gesturing that he wanted to show me something.
He doesn't speak English, so I figured miming our way through conversation would be better than taking him into a small interview room where we could get a translator on speakerphone. So I gave him my hand. And he immediately grabbed my wrist, pulled me towards him, and out of nowhere, slapped me.
"YOU BAD GIRLFRIEND!"
As soon as he grabbed me, all of the male nurses sprung into action, and took him down quite forcefully. So forcefully he was down on the ground within seconds, arms and legs splayed out straight, his voice muffled as he continued to curse profusely in Mandarin. "Now do you want to restrain him, doctor?" the charge nurse asked. "Yeah, we should probably do that," I admitted, chagrined that I thought I had magical mediator powers that could someone convince this crazy person that everything was going to be okay. Moral of the story: listen to the nurses.
Also, it turns out that my generic Asian face apparently resembles his ex-girlfriend's, who just recently dumped him. And so, seeing me there apparently caused him to go into an even deeper psychotic rage and consequently, started all the slapping. His family tells me that she was quite pretty, even if she did make him crazy.
Definitely gives a whole new meaning to receiving a "backhanded" compliment, that's for sure.
3 years ago
