XProSkeith

I have two top recommendations. One would be talk to someone you trust absolutely, like your best friend. Just talk and vent about what you're feeling and going through. Sometimes, you don't even need someone to respond too much. You just need someone to listen. Unconditional positive regard is a powerful thing sometimes. I know many of our patients with depression just never had anyone who would listen to them without judging them. It's what I do for a lot of them. We just talk and it really helps them.

My other big recommendation would be to write. You can type if you prefer. You can even destroy or delete it later. But write what you're thinking and feeling. Let it all out. It doesn't matter what it is. Just keep going until you feel like you're done. At the end, you'll feel a little emotionally exhausted probably, but better. We use writing and journaling for many of our patients, not just those who are depressed. It's a powerful tool!

One more thing. I know it can be hard because sometimes when you're depressed you just don't want to do anything, but try to stay active if you can. Go see a movie, go hang out with some friends, go workout, go for a run. Something. Something you enjoy! Self-care is important too.

I hope you find those helpful.

Treating people with severe schizophrenia is really interesting and poses quite a number of challenges. Each case is actually pretty unique, even if they're the same type (i.e. paranoid). With some of these patients, they are very prone to aggression and anger, especially when their delusions/hallucinations are challenged. This can result in them lashing out at staff or even other patients on the unit. The goal here is to try and redirect and deescalate them before they lash out. For some patients, this is something we must do many times a day.

Beyond that, the treatment hinges on the psychiatrist finding the right medication(s) to treat them. It takes time, though. Psychiatric medicines, especially those for schizophrenia, need time to start making a noticeable difference. But they do work. I've seen patients come in with pretty sever schizophrenia and leave relatively normal.

Honestly, many schizophrenics can live their lives relatively normally and outside of a hospital. They just have to keep up with their medicines.

I hope that answered your question!

I have a Bachelor of Science in Psychology with a Pre-Med distinction. I'm currently working towards getting into medical school where I plan to become a psychiatrist so that I can more fully treat these patients.

My base pay is $10.25/hr; however, pay varies among the techs and hospital to hospital. We are also paid differentials for working certain shifts and on weekends. The job is also fully benefited and includes paid vacation.

As to what motivated me, well, I've always loved psychology. Going to college for it only made me fall more in love with it. I decided that I wanted to pursue the practical side of it though. I also determined that not everything can be counselled through (i.e. schizophrenia). So I decided that if I want to be equipped to treat all possible disorders, I needed to become a doctor so that I would have medicine at my disposal as well. Working in this clinical setting has only strengthened my resolve to become a psychiatrist. I love my work and I want to help these people. Sadly, psychiatry is a highly underserviced field. That needs to change.

I see this very often. There is almost always at least one person in our units that is currently experiencing substance induced psychosis. Sometimes, there's a lot of them. It just depends.

The most common drugs that seem to induce this are alcohol and heroine detox after extensive heavy use and synthetic/fake marijuana. I have seen what synthetic marijuana does to people. It locks them into their own little world and, sometimes, they never come back. I'm not saying that to scare people, but I've seen it before. This one man was with us for almost two months and showed no change at all after using it. If you've ever thought about using that, I implore you to reconsider. It is far too dangerous and risky and I have seen to many people, many of whom are young, come in with problems because of it.

As for relapse, that depends. I've had patients come in like that and then they never come back and are doing well. Likewise, I've also had patients come back in the exact same state within a month. Chemical dependency is a major problem and recovery is an extremely difficult thing especially if you've let it get that bad. Recovery and staying clean is always possible, but it is a daily challenge and struggle.

I would say that schizophrenia and the explosive disorders (meaning they have sudden outbursts of anger) scare me the most because they are often the most unpredictable patients. They can seem perfectly calm and normal one minute and the next they can be yelling, swinging, cursing, throwing things, etc. I've had to deal with such things before and I've been trained in how to handle those situations, but they're always scary especially when you didn't see them coming.

On a personal level, Alzheimer's scares me the most. I've seen the degeneration of these patients on our geriatric units and seen the effects it has on their friends and family members. It's devastating and, to me, losing all of my memories and who am I as a person is one of the most terrrifying things in the world to me.