Yep. There were a few homeless patients in with me too. One of them has since died. He was sent to a halfway house after that he left. He wrote me a few days before he died to see how I was doing. I said I was great. He said he was too. He lied.
100% agree about addicts needing to be separated. It was the single-most distracting thing, and the thing I think diminished the care I received the most. Dual diagnosis is a different monster. I feel awful for addicts, and met a bunch a liked a lot, but their behavior was more alarming even than the guy who thought he was the CEO of a corporation on an island far away and had business meetings with the wall in the break room. With two huge exceptions, they were mostly needy and whiny and difficult to deal with. They interrupted group constantly. They played out their own little emo dramas on the ward, starting cliques and arguing with staff fucking relentlessly. They were also the fucking worst food nannies in the world. They would count what people were eating and complain if the food they wanted was gone. There was even a girl who would lick food so people wouldn't eat it. She wasn't mentally ill. She was a bitchy alcoholic detoxing.
100% agree about addicts needing to be separated. It was the single-most distracting thing, and the thing I think diminished the care I received the most. Dual diagnosis is a different monster. I feel awful for addicts, and met a bunch a liked a lot, but their behavior was more alarming even than the guy who thought he was the CEO of a corporation on an island far away and had business meetings with the wall in the break room. With two huge exceptions, they were mostly needy and whiny and difficult to deal with. They interrupted group constantly. They played out their own little emo dramas on the ward, starting cliques and arguing with staff fucking relentlessly. They were also the fucking worst food nannies in the world. They would count what people were eating and complain if the food they wanted was gone. There was even a girl who would lick food so people wouldn't eat it. She wasn't mentally ill. She was a bitchy alcoholic detoxing.
