Book#2 First Draft Peek

While my first book is off being edited, I have been working on book two. Considerably shorter, at only about 300 pages, it is still in the process of being finalized as the first draft. This is the story I have constantly threatened to write whenever work turns into chaos. We can't tell anyone about our day, due to HIPAA, so we just say, "Someday, I am going to write a book".

This book is a compilation of the stories of my nearly forty-year career. Names, identifying factors, locations, and even genders have been altered, and stories combined to protect confidentiality. This is the story of what it is like from the inside.

Tentatively called: Second Chances:

Hallucinations will scare the hell out of the newbies. A veteran will be mildly amused, more interested in what the hallucinations looked like.  “Is it a parrot man? Haven’t had a bird/human cross in quite a while.”

Auditory hallucinations: hearing voices, sounds, inside of their mind, or from outside of their vision can be several different types.  The voices and sounds may be gentle and soothing, angry, rude, insulting, or commanding hallucinations.  Command hallucinations demand relentlessly that the client do something, usually harmful to themselves or others.

The command hallucinations may tell the client to literally take a number 2 pencil and gouge out their eyeballs, permanently blinding themselves.  Or cut off their penis and testicles.  Command hallucinations are often related to a biblical statement, such as the man standing before the judge who yelled, “If thine eye offends thee, pluck it out!” and then gouging his eyeball out with his fingers, he threw it at the judge.

Never, and I mean never, in my forty years of working with people with mental illness has a client had a command hallucination that said, “Get a job.  Take a shower.  Brush your teeth.”  The voices are not bothered by a lack of hygiene.