[jackflashdrive]

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How do "normal" people react when you tell them these stories? Are there crazy chicks that find all this attractive?

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I try to stay away from crazy chicks nowadays. The stories go over really well with most people. The story that gets the best reaction is probably the "Memento Guy" story that I refered to in my first post. I generally say a lot more about him so I can elaborate if anyone is interested.

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Yeah, please elaborate

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Sorry, missed this the first time.

So as I was saying, the most interesting guy I met was 'Jose' (I'm just making up names, instead of going with my first [lame] impulse to use letters).

It's tough to convey how fast Jose' went from being such an extremely interesting and unusual case (for my kind of facility, which didn't typically get people like him), to being regarded as utterly, hopelessly, obnoxious. The fact that he couldn't remember how staff treated him meant that staff could be completely dismissive/rude/mean and not feel the least bit bad about it. I mean the guy had anterograde amnesia -- it's not like he's going to hold a grudge.

Because this guy was such a handful, the day shift had no problem letting him sleep in all day -- sometimes till 3:00 PM. This meant that on night shift (which I mostly worked at this time, though I still did some day/evening shifts), he was up all night asking the same old questions over and over.

It got to a point that the nurse I was working with just started locking him up in seclusion (but not restraining him in any way). She knew he couldn't possibly file a complaint, or even feel any basis for complaining. So he would bang away on the plexiglass window for a while before giving up and just wander the 10ftX10ft seclusion room in confusion.

On one occasion during evening shift I was given the task of dealing with him for a few hours because the regular evening staff had had enough (and of course I wasn't a regular on evening shift so the job fell to me).

At first, he would be asking questions of everyone and I would interupt him and say "Allright, I'll tell you what. You need to speak to the person in charge if you want your questions answered. Go down to the end of the hall and talk to the woman in the red coat. The woman in the red coat was of course a raving schizophrenic, so when he got to the end of the hall the conversation would go something like:

Jose': Where am I? Where's my mother?
Woman in coat: Exactly! That's exactly what I'm talking about. They don't think you'll eat the doughnuts but that's exactly why you NEED TO EAT THE DOUGHNUTS.
Jose': I don't understand.
WIC: You gotta listen. Your not listening. Do you know what you sound like? Are you telling me you don't KNOW that it's the COFFEE you shouldn't drink? [censored] christ get out of my face.

So then Jose' would walk back to the nurses station and start asking more questions and I would send him back down the hall, ad infinitum.

On one occasion I had a test the next day. So I brought him in one of the conference rooms, with a big white board and markers, and I said "OK, I'm going to answer all your questions for you." I then proceeded to draw a neuron in as much detail as I could, and described for him in painful detail the actions of various neurotransmitters, and how various substances (like drugs) could mimic the action of these neurotransmitters. I talked about serotonin reuptake, dopamine, etc. He kept interupting, but I would cut him off with "Listen, you said you wanted answers and I'm giving you answers. Just wait till I finish and then I'll get to your questions." I never finished, though -- he just left and started his questions anew with someone else.

Where am I?

Where is my mother?

Where is my brother?

Why am I here?

What memory problem?

No, you've made a mistake, I don't have a memory problem!