#psych tech

I fear we are forgetting that these are children who are sick. And you see this a lot..people enter the profession because of how easy some psych wards make it to work there due to shoddy screening processes, and immediately regret it because they realize that not all mental illness looks the same, and it's not all easy to manage.

I see people shame literal CHILDREN about how they are living their lives, their addictions, self injury, etc. and it blows my mind, because how are you going to work at a place specifically to help people in crisis and think tough love will help? This isn't where you come to be paternally hard on kids and make them turn their life around, it's where you come to help children who are in crisis and a danger to themselves or others.

And I see people be.like 'clearly you don't know how scary it is to work there.' I'd like to remind them that as bad as you might think you have it, these kids re not only going through the hardest times in their lives, they can't leave after a 12 hour shift. They have to stay. And they are panicking and struggling, and sometimes all they know how to do is fight or yell or stay in their room and sleep through groups.

You don't get to shame children and say they 'arent trying to get better' just because their coping doesn't look right to you. If they are awake and living, they are still trying. Because doing what they need to do to regulate isn't shameful.

And the thing about restraints being funny? Yeah that's awful. These kids are already going though it, they don't need a self-proclaimed crashout tech telling them to toe the line or they're going to get sedated. It fucking sucks.

People need to remember that not all kids suffering look like perfect 'victims', they don't all just cry and take their meds willingly. They aren't a project or something to be fixed, they are people who deserve respect and attention and empathy despite what they've been through and how they choose to cope. They are trying to get by, and if you go into this field willing to hold grudges and shame kids and judge people with addictions, it's not the field for you.

Working in health care is hard. It's demanding, it's stressful, it's draining. It brings out the best and the worst in us. We need to work as a team with people we may not get along with or particularly like, but for the benefit of the patient we do it. Leaving your personal opinion of someone at the door and remaining professional, especially on front of patients and families, is absolutely crucial. No exceptions.

In my 10+ years in this field I have faced a lot of bullying, harassment, discrimination due to my chronic illness and accommodations, disrespect, belittling, and so on. This behavior is not acceptable in any workplace. In health care we tend to shrug it off, try to ignore it, and move along with our day because our patients need us. We don't have time to deal with it because there's always something else to do, somewhere else to go, someone else who needs us.

As CNAs, PCAs, techs, whatever your title may be we do what is delegated to us by nurses and the charge nurse unless it is beyond our scope of practice or unsafe. We are allowed to say no, but saying no causes conflict, so we just do it.

If any of your coworkers are harassing you, bullying you, being disrespectful, or discriminating against you, speak up.

If a nurse is treating you differently than the other techs, if the charge nurse is treating you differently than other techs, if you are being given unfair treatment in any way, speak up.

You are allowed to question these things. You are allowed to ask the charge nurse why you're always getting the heaviest assignment, why you're being denied breaks, why you're being paired with a co-worker who is continuously rude or disrespectful to you, and so on.

When the charge nurse is the one bullying you, we tend to feel helpless. They're the boss, so we feel like we have to just deal with it. We feel like we have no voice or don't want to cause conflict or look like someone who is whiny. As someone who has been going through this for months, I am telling you- speak up. Stand up for yourself. Be assertive. Tell your manager, tell HR, tell the DON. any retaliatory action against you is not allowed and should be reported. It doesn't matter if you have to speak up once, twice, six times- be assertive. Use your voice. Advocate for yourself because no one else will.

Don't tolerate things that make you uncomfortable, people that make your work day miserable or anxiety provoking. I used to have panic attacks in my car before I walked into work, that's when I decided something needed to change.

Grey walls, heavy chairs

One by one, all our cares

Slip away like fading dew

Overworked and overused

Poor patients, they just come to heal

Some just need a bed and meal

Some expect a ritzy stay

No more extras, not today.

What was once shiny and new

Has faded just like me and you

A brand new unit, one month in

It’s the same story over again

Short on blankets, short on time

Management’s not worth a dime

“Why hire more workers,

You could just work harder!”

Not a matter of work,

It’s a matter of care.

Some patients have to be 1:1

Because of SI or HI or wanting a gun

We just don’t have enough staff to go round

I’m afraid someone will end up

she gets here and is soaking wet; her urine stinks of E. coli. She keeps screaming profanities and is unresponsive to our attempts to calm her.

I’m pretty sure she has a UTI.

Treating psych patients as invalid, and as less than ourselves. I’m guilty of it because when I came into the job, I fell into that just as easily as anyone else. It starts small- not believing what patients say, not allowing them to have their clothes just because they’re being really rude, stuff like that. And while that isn’t considered abuse, it’s a gateway mentality that leads to worse things.

Like not speaking up when a coworker holds a patient down to dress her just because she doesn’t have the patience to talk the patient through it.

I’ve seen things that were questionable- a nurse making gay jokes about a patient in report, a coworker talking in front of the patient about the patient. It’s these kinds of things that lead to worse forms of abuse- physical and verbal abuse.

One of my least favorite nurses said something very true: “the only difference between a psych patient and the staff is that we have the keys”.