Lobotomy Lad and Drawing Pin Girl

Hail,
Thanks for the comments. And in the tepid light of day, and after close on thirty six hours sleep (only interrupted by shuffling to the cupboard for drugs stolen from work - i.e.: half a packet of home brand paracetamol and some out of date phenergan) I suspect that things are not as crap as they seemed to be before.

So, not sick and not depressed.

I tell you what though, none of the credit for this can go to my patients, some of whom have been deeply depressing. A few days ago I had a new nurse at the prison and she mentioned some crime that one of the boys had done, which is the kind of stuff I go out of my way to avoid knowing. And so there's me looking at this guys dodgy wrist and wondering if he might have strained it when he and the other guy (who is no longer with us, having graduated to the Big House) HELD SOME BUGGER DOWN AND TRIED TO SAW HIS HEAD OPEN WITH A HACKSAW.

Apparently this guy owed him money or something. I don't know what they were trying to achieve by cutting his head open, dead men write no checks and I doubt they were going to flip up his up and find a crisp roll of twenties wedged between his cerebral hemispheres. Anyway, that was Lobotomy Lad. He got his wrist strapped and was told to take a few days off metalwork - presumably including hacksawing.

Later that day I saw the next disturbing patient. The precise details of Drawing Pin Girl's history are too horrible to go into, but she spent half her childhood in Furby Ward (the Paediatric Psychiatric ward attached to the Royal) and wears these special glasses now, because there is some part of her sight they were not able to restore.

I have always thought we have names for the class of people who are depressed, paranoid, anxious, etc., but not for the class of people who make them depressed, paranoid or anxious.

Well, that was a few days ago, when I met these two patients, and to a certain extent I'm over the horror now. I have arranged for the other doctor to see Lobotomy Lad (sounds like someone from the old Legion of Superheroes, doesn't it?) and I am referring Drawing Pin Girl to a paediatric psychiatrist. Ideally one who practices on Mars.

Tell you one glorious thing about an anonymous web diary. I can confess all these unsuitable emotions and feel cleansed. I feel like Midas' tailor: I have got up in the night, ran down to the riverside, dug a deep hole and whispered my terrible secret into it:

"Sometimes my patients just freak me out".

Thanks for listening,

John