THIS is how we give thanks???

Alright, you peer-pressuring rat bastards (Mel, Squat, Mooner...y'all know who you are!), I am BACK.  I've got a CLASS-A rant all fueled up and ready to go, too!

This is Memorial Day weekend.  Most of us have tomorrow off.  Most "Amurkans" (as Squat says!) will be having BBQs and frolicking about enjoying all of the good shit about living in this country - and NOT remembering why we have it so good in the first place.  I don't care WHAT any mother fucker says about what a shit pot this country is because of this or that crap going on in politics.  THIS is where everyone wants to come.  THIS is the land of the FREE because of the BRAVE.  Brave folks like my dad, like Sarge, like Coffey, and a host of other fine mother fuckers I know who joined the military to serve our great country (and YES, I DO still think it's great, despite some seriously raw shit that goes on in our government).  Many of their peers also joined - and made the ultimate sacrifice.  They rest in places like Arlington, or even in cemeteries on foreign lands - and some of them don't even have "proper" resting places.  THOSE are the fine Americans we need to remember this weekend.

Now that I've got my little "Memorial Day" lecture out of the way...onward FROTH!!!!

I read a little article over to MSNBC.com which had the fucking hair on the back of my neck standing up like a bull terrier mom protecting her pups from vermin.  It's embarrassing and sad and maddening all at once.  It drives me insane.  Go on over and take a peep and then come back, I'll wait for you..

THIS HAS THE RECKMONSTER READY TO KICK SOMEONE'S ASS! 

You back?  Mkay...let's talk.  You know WHY this kind of shit pisses me off?  (other than the fact that it's immoral, unethical, inexcusable, deplorable, shitty, and UNAMERICAN)  Because, my friends, Personality Disorders are NOT developed on the battlefield.  I KNOW exactly what the gub'ment is doing here.  They're reneging on diagnoses of PTSD and saying, "Oh, wait...nope...now, that there looks like a PERSONALITY DISORDER after all," because personality disorders are NON-COMPENSABLE.  Meaning:  no pay no money for how we fuck you up and this is how we get away with it.  You do NOT get to send people to fight a (stupid) war and expose them to all kinds of horrific shit - and then bring them back only to say, "Yeah, um, we know we made you kill people and do nasty shit in faraway lands, but, um, seems that you were already cuckoo for cocoa puffs, so um, we can't "pay" you for that.  Thanks for your service 'n all, but no hard feelings, mkayyyyyyy?"

I'm going to give you all the layman's quick and dirty on "personality disorders."  Personality disorders are coded on Axis II of the DSM-IV-TR - along with mental retardation and developmental disorders.  Personality disorders are not "diagnosed" until one is at least 18 years old ("adulthood") because it's a general consensus that "personality" is not fully formed until one becomes an adult.  Personality disorders are typically the result of some seriously fucked up genetics and even more fucked up childhoods.  Serial killers are diagnosed with "Antisocial Personality Disorder."  The chicks like the one in my last post (the screaming for attention by cutting side to side instead of vertically because they don't really want to die, but they want some attention) are diagnosed with "Borderline Personality Disorder."  There are three "clusters" of personality disorders.  They are "odd" or "dramatic" or "anxious."  Here is a decent explanation, if you feel like reading:  Personality Disorders, according to the wikipediaz.

In short, you do NOT develop a personality disorder after you're 25 years old and have been deployed to Iraq and Afghanistan three times - chances are, if you TRULY have a personality disorder, you fuckin' had it when you entered the military at the age of 18.  And furthermore, PTSD does not "progress" or "evolve" into a personality disorder.  I could go on and on citing all kinds of boring clinical bullshit - but I'm just asking you to trust me on this.  If someone has a personality disorder - then dammit, the fucking military ought to do a better job of "screening" folks BEFORE they let them volunteer to give their lives for this country.  I'm not getting down on anyone that has a personality disorder (oh, wait...except for serial killers - because they're just a rotten bunch!) - because the sad truth is that a lot of personality disorders come from extreme abuse and exposure to seriously gnarly shit - and that's not a child's fault to be exposed to that kind of shit.  A lot of folks are doomed to develop personality disorders through no fault of their own - and lot of folks CAN get help and still live relatively decent lives (trust me...I know this - I have seen it first-hand - some of my Borderline female patients have been helped tremendously through Dialectical Behavior Therapy - nay - they have been "SAVED" by DBT...and they are doing pretty damned well, even if I do say so myself!).

So - if the fucking government would spend a few extra dollars BEFOREHAND to do some screening...they'd probably catch a lot more of the mental health diagnoses (especially schizophrenia - because that's a BIGGIE that has its onset around late teens/early 20s - and is usually brought on by some majorly stressful life event - oh, like say, JOINING THE MILITARY).  But wait...small dilemma - the gub'ment NEEDS those folks predisposed to developing, say, antisocial personality disorder - because they do indeed make FINE soldiers.  You think I'm kidding?  Think about it...those soldiers who don't bat an eye in combat, who lead without fear, who volunteer again and again to lead squads straight into the thick of things?  Those are the ones who are killing machines - no remorse, no guilt, and they get off on the thrill of the kill.  And that's what we WANT them to be ON THE BATTLEFIELD.  They serve a great purpose, and we give them lots of medals for "valor" and shit.  Fuck, if I were in the military and was sent to combat - I'd follow every last fucking order of the First Sergeant with the antisocial personality disorder ANY day of the week, and twice on Sundays (*incidentally - that was a little something that a certain 1SG I used to, um, "know" said regularly - he's one of these "commandos" I'm talking about).  You know why?  Because they are fucking finely tuned, precision MACHINES when it comes to being soldiers...they fuck the enemy up and keep their subordinates alive.  However, they suck when it comes to demonstrating any type of "appropriate" emotional responses off of the battlefield...again, just trust me on this.

Sooooooooo...in summary, I think that the government is doing the douchiest thing possible by "changing" a PTSD diagnosis to a personality disorder (and they usually just say "Personality Disorder NOS" - not otherwise specified - because they have no concrete evidence for a formal diagnosis of one of the EXISTING personality disorders).  They are, in essence, saying, "Fuck the promise we made to care for YOU, whom hath BORNE the battle...because we don't feel like paying you for fucking you up."  And I'll go on record and say that most of the folks who work for this "agency" - on the front lines - aren't the evil ones.  We are the ones who care.  It's the "upper echelon" administrators who are the douchebags.  Actually, this "agency" is a fine microcosm of America herself.  It's NOT the individual Joe-American who is the douchebag fucking up the country - it's the "upper echelon" politicos sitting in Washington, D.C.  "Joe (or Sue) American" is a decent person - for the most part - sure, maybe he (or she) has a few faults, but all in all - an AMERICAN who usually has a good heart, works hard, waves at the neighbors, and swerves to avoid hitting a dog running across the street.  That's YOU and ME, boys and girls...And we need to stand up for our brothers and sisters who are being robbed by the self-serving douchebags in D.C.

Remember the ultimate sacrifices...and don't let the douchebags rob our nation's treasures (our veterans) who are still suffering the consequences of their sacrifices. 

I hate to be such a critic, buuuuuut...

Okay, okay...I've been gone for a while.  I've been engaging in all sorts of new avoidant behaviors like making my new flat spiral beaded bracelets.  Not that exciting for most of the world, but like CRACK for me.  I've taken a break from going to therapy because, well, I just FELT like it.  Now, I am ready to froth about something...that is completely froth-worthy.  I'm warning you...this will be kind of long.

So, on Friday at work - I had something happen that has never happened before.  As most of you know, I am the head butt-wiper in my little clinic at my hospital.  I make shit happen...and then I clean it up.  It's really quite glamorous (if you're into "shit," that is).  HAH!  Anyway - onto my story.

I'm sitting in my office, doing my bureaucratic paperworky bullshit work and I hear a code purple announced overhead.  Normally, I could give two shits less about any codes that get announced, because really What am I going to DO?  I'm no doctor, they won't let me on those damned defibrillator thingys, I'm no nurse, and I'm not even big enough to try and wrassle some hyped up psychotic dude down.  Ain't happening.  So, usually, I just sit there at my desk and go about my business.  But on Friday, I hear the code purple (which is for a psychiatric emergency - meaning "someone is going batshit crazy and we need everyone and their brother to come help") overhead - and I listen to the building and room number and realize, "HOLY SHIT!  THAT'S IN MY CLINIC!  THAT'S ONE OF MY PEOPLE!"  Immediately, I burst into BULL TERRIER mode.  I run out of my office and down the hall to one of my BFF's office (Senorita Tamisita is one of my beast-ass nurse practitioners who deserves a million dollar raise for the shit she deals with and how much she cares about her patients).  As an afterthought - I wondered seriously - what the fuck did I think I was going to do when I got there???  I didn't think though - I just ran when I knew it was one of MY providers.

I get to Senorita Tamisita's office and I am seriously awe-struck at the sight that enters my eyeballs.  The hospital's "security" officers had just beat me there - and there were two of them trying to wrestle this BIG OLE GAL back into a chair.  And she is fucking bleeding like a month long menstrual cycle.  I'm like, "WHAT. THE. FUCK!"  Turns out that in talking to Senorita Tamisita, she was trying to elicit some advice about whether she should:

a)  kill herself

b) kill her husband

c) kill her husband and then kill herself

Yeah...ding! ding! ding!  You've just won an all inclusive trip to the locked psych ward upstairs!!!!  As soon as she realizes that it was a BAD idea to ask her psychiatric provider about her homicidal vs. suicidal plans, and that she is indeed going to be involuntarily committed - she pulls a fucking KNIFE out of her purse and proceeds to start slicing on her own wrist.  Luckily, Senorita Tamisita ran the shit like a boss - and she and the nurse from our clinic wrestle the knife out of the lady's hand - only to have the lady lunge across the desk to grab the knife AGAIN and resume her slicing on her wrist.  That's when 5-0 got there and proceeded to do one of those "bend-your-wrist-back-till-you-feel-like-it's-gonna-pop-off" moves and she dropped the knife.  I arrived one second later to see them trying to put her in the chair - and the yucky, poo-poo-ka-ka bloody display (yeck!! blood skeeves me out!  'splains why I'm NOT a nurse.).

Everyone and their brother arrives en mass to respond to the code purple - and they get the gal safely transported to the E.R.and she gets admitted to the psych unit upstairs.

Yeah...I'm a critic.  So WHAT?      source

Now...comes the "critique" part of this whole scenario.  And I realize that it may seem cruel or heartless to try and "critique" someone's suicide attempt...but it's all really "gallows humor" and our way of dealing with such crazy shit so that we don't lose [all of] our minds.  And truth be known...I actually do sympathize with the plight that patients deal with - otherwise I would not stay in the mental health field.  That said...onto my "froth."

First of all...do you KNOW how fucking RUDE it is to try and kill yourself in your provider's office?!  It is just so socially unacceptable on so many different levels.  You have the "mess" it creates if you're going to go the bloody route.  You have the emotional havoc it wreaks on your provider - with THAT little visual memory seared into your provider's brain forever and ever.  AND most importantly - do you KNOW how much mother fucking paper work it makes The Reckmonster have to complete?!  Oh mother of all three-nutted jackasses!  The fucking reports I had to write.  The fucking e-mails I had to send.  See, the "cleaning up the shit" element of my job that makes it so fucking glamorous includes THAT kind of "cleaning up."  I'm sure they're going to be launching some type of investigation now to see "how" that could have been prevented.  How???  The bitch should have done that shit at home BEFORE her appointment, that's how!!!  And NO...there is NOTHING that Senorita Tamisita could have done differently...I already know how this witch-hunt bullshit starts.

Second of all...GODDAMMIT...everyone and their mother fucking preppy brother KNOWS that slicing from side to side doesn't do one bit of damage.  The proper way to inflict serious damage if you're really intending to "off" yourself is to go vertically up your arm.  Superficial side to side slices are merely "attention-seeking" bullshit behaviors.  Annoying.  You don't really want to "die," per se.  You just want folks to see that you feel so shitty that death would be a nice alternative, but you're too much of a pussy to really "DO" it to yourself.  (and NO, that is not mean...it's just the fucking truth...if you've been in the mental health field long enough - you know damned well that when someone is serious about offing themselves - they DON'T tell anyone they're going to do it - and they sure as shit don't ask for "advice" about which plan would be preferable).

Third of all...seriously - you thought that you would "run" your plan for suicide or homicide or both by your provider - and that they would just "tell" you which one to go with?!!!  For fucking REAL???  And that in doing so - they would just LET you walk out of their office to go and carry out your plan???  And then you act all fucking HOSTILE about the fact that you no longer have a CHOICE but to go hang out on the locked psych ward because you're on papers now???? Give me a mother fucking break.

source

Fourth of all...I'm pissed.  I had to RUN down the hall.  My forty year old, chunky ass doesn't "run" anywhere but to the bathroom when I really need to take a leak after holding it in for too long.  But, you made me worry about one of MY providers (who happens to be one of my BFFs) being in danger.  I seriously do NOT appreciate that.  The only thing I DO appreciate is that you had a KNIFE in your purse instead of a GUN.  Yep...now I'm resuming my rant at work about how dangerous that hospital is.  We have no metal detectors anywhere (like most of all of the other big medical centers around the nation) to stop folks from carrying weapons in.  We DO have signs though.  "You can't bring in deadly weapons, or else, blah...blah...blah" is posted at the entrance to every building.  As you can see, it's highly effective.

I'm not trying to lump all mental health patients or veterans into that "dangerous" category but if you stop to think about it - security is actually an important issue.  The one thing all of our patients have in common:  at some point in their life - they were ALL trained in how to kill people (that was their job...and pretty much - that's what you want from your military force when they're in charge of defending your country).  It's just that this little "incident" could have been sooooo much worse...and what sucks is that is what it will take for the fucking "upper echelon" administration to actually DO something about all of the bullshit that exists.  Shit won't change until someone dies.  

Incidentally, I have heard stories about the disgruntled employee who went on a shooting spree and shot up a bunch of people in human resources at my hospital a few years back.  Of course, nothing happened - because nobody died.  Just a few serious injuries...back to the status quo.  Just like this incident in my clinic...just a few superficial cuts on a wrist...back to the status quo.

Nauseating.  REALLY nauseating.

Jesus Horatio Christ

Yeah...I've been on my hiatus for a while.  And mentally, I'm still on it...  I have nothing intelligent to say.  So instead, I'll just tell y'all what the hell I've been up to this past month or so.  

Last month I went to Gatlinburg to a beading retreat with my girlfriends.  We had a jewelry-making bonanza!  And I drank a LOT of beer.  There were a bunch of stuffy yankee broads (which technically, I am one of) there who had some serious sticks up their asses.  And there were some seriously fucking hilarious southern broads there.  Needless to say, me and my crew of three best gal-friends were THE fuckin' rockin'-est bitches there.  I also made some rad jewelry and betwixt my beer buzzes DID learn a few new things.  Oh, and I won a contest too!  EAT THAT, Bitches!!!!

I made this bracelet at the retreat!

For those of you who are familiar with my battle of GOOD vs. EVIL...You'll remember that I have this ongoing battle with "The Bulgarian Bear" at work.  He is the DEBILLLLLLLL!!!!  I don't hate a lot of people in this world...but he is definitely on the fucking, "BURN! ROT! DIE!" list.  After about four long fucking years of dealing with his soul-sucking ass, I have the distinct pleasure of announcing that the mother fucker has tendered his resignation.  His last day is May 31.  I shall dance and prance and frolic like a giddy school girl on that day.  I have outlasted that evil sum'bitch.  That is because I love my vets.  He does not.  So, may he rot in hell and all of that other delightful well-wishing shit you heap upon the spawn of Beelzebub.

I'm still in the midst of dealing with my "whatever" of a relationship with Prince Charming.  It's getting tiresome.  He is one delightful mother fucker.  This "whatever" is quickly approaching the year mark soon.  We have great times when we're together.  He is a very decent human being.  And yeah...I "heart" him.  HOWEVER...he lives 400 miles away.  Yeah...I don't know if I ever mentioned that.  I don't see him leaving there any time soon.  And I NEVER see me leaving here to go there.  So, why do I continue?  I don't fucking know.  If somebody would please tell me what my fucking problem is, I'd be ever so grateful.  Things would be grand if he lived HERE.  But, that's not the case...so logic says, "Reckmonster...stop being a fucking dumb ass and just let it fucking go."  Someone...slap me.

And, then there is sadness.  My bestest bud, DonnaBelle...the Thelma to my Louise...is retiring at the end of this month.  She has been my rock.  I run to her office when I'm about to fucking rip someone's head off...and she brings me back to earth.  I call her when I am in serious shit and I need someone to get me out of it.  She is one of the few people who can straight up tell me I'm being a crabby bitch and I actually PAY ATTENTION and straighten my shit out.  If I could pick one person in the world to be my blood-related big sister, it would be DonnaBelle.  She is one of the wisest, most noble, most loyal and SPEC-MOTHER-FUCKING-TACULAR friends that I have.  I'm happy that she is able to retire early (she's still pretty damned young!) and travel with her hubby because she's definitely earned it.  But, the selfish part of me wants to tell her, "NOOOOOOO!  You can't gooooooo!"  Instead, I'll put my big girl panties on and send her off with a bang and stalk her on a daily basis via text, e-mail, phone, and however else I need to stay in touch with her.  I love her.  She is one BAD ASSED BITCH!!!

DonnaBelle and The Reckmonster!

Okay.  That's it.  That's all I have to say.  Mooner, get your head out of your ass and quit whining about nobody posting on your fucking blog.  I commented.  Squat...watch your back...askin' where the hell I am and shit - making Mooner even MORE delirious!!!  Mel (lie Dee)...YAY is all I have to say to you...you know what I mean!  Q...much love for still tweetin' my shit, even though I'm all under the radar and shit.  Peachy - I keep up with your ass daily, so I don't expect that you have missed my posting - but I love your crazy Thai ass anyway!!  Jewels...I desperately need to read your "other" blog - I'm dyin' over here and shit...