second day at job thoughts

I'm starting to think the nurse thing is an age issue. the younger nurses seem to be little jerks and the older nurses seem to have enough wisdom to not be little jerks. but yeah lots of "them being little jerk" moments to me today which I won't get into yeesh.

i also learned today that the main part of the hospital has a bad reputation - apparently stuff happened 20-30 years ago and in a small community like this people just… you know. I don't know about BHU though.

you can learn basically any unlicensed positioned in the hospital on the job here. for example, the rehab people said that if we ever get bored of behavioral health we can float to rehab or even pick up extra shifts there. that is, if our manager would let us - because apparently behavioral health is VERY busy from what everyone has said.

my autism continues to make me weird and unlikeable in group settings/classrooms ahaha. because I cant read the room sometimes. no "major missteps" but, for example, she showed a video with a true story where two people went into the ER at the same time & one had really bad wounds and the other had not as bad but had an alcohol addiction. she said it was a high speed chase. she asked who we thought the victim was - of course my brain goes "well she wouldn't ask this question if it wasn't an m night shamalayan twist" but also I was like "well it was high speed which makes me think the non addict was speeding and hit the addict" and yep that was the case… I was like "you can't ever truly know who it was just based on their addiction status" because it is entirely possible for some kid texting and driving to hit someone who just also happens to have an alcohol addiction (maybe they weren't even drunk then) but yeah didn't make me the most likeable person there.

I try to step back in classroom settings from answering all the questions but always it feels like the teachers are specifically teaching me because I'm the one who nods my head, writes notes, asks questions, stays engaged. a lot of these nurses seem to have the "been there done that" attitude and it's like, you might learn something new, you don't know?!

a lot of this content isn't relevant to me in behavioral health like catheters but the wound dressing lady said "we get a lot of gunshot wounds in BH" and I was like is that because of the jailed people or suicide….

I signed up to volunteer for the Sunshine Guild here at the hospital - it's a volunteer group that does stuff like patient and employee help, runs the little shop, etc. they said they needed someone to run the shop because everyone there is a little old lady afraid of the register - and they went from 30 people to 8 because they lost a lot of their volunteers (old people) to COVID which is incredibly sad. but I can come in on my days off and work the gift shop. the shifts are a pretty small commitment (i think only 5-6 hours per day?) and since they work directly inside/with the hospital, i'm sure that both parties will be able to work with each other schedule wise.

we ended up running literally 45 minutes late from leaving today for a really dumb reason. I don't mean to be judgmental, but if you can't follow simple instructions like "at least ten characters, one capital, one special character, and not your name" then I'd be scared to have you as my nurse… other people had serious things they needed to be attending to - one girl next to me is late to her study group and the other she is the caregiver for her mom and her mom was at home waiting for her. and none of us even got paid for those 45 minutes because it was a manual punch today. :/

sometimes (most of the time) when I'm around other people besides close friends and family I feel like I'm just faking all my reactions and emotions which makes me very likeable because I am decent at gauging what reactions someone expects and subtly pivoting when needed. i don't know if it's the autism or the trauma (probably a combination) because obviously it's an autism thing but also growing up in a severely abusive environment i was basically every single second watching everyone's micro reactions and reacting back in the exact way that they wanted me to, to diffuse their abuse

for example, today, the trainer at work told us a story about how she had to go sit and watch someone in the psych unit for her entire shift. she was like, "oh, he told me 'give me one good reason i shouldn't kill you then everyone else in here'" and i didn't react at all, ahaha. like, my face didn't move even a little bit. i just have no reaction to that information or someone saying that. but all the others in the room (just nurses today) audibly gasped and had gigantic reactions. and the trainer was like, "see, you can't have that kind of reaction when you're watching psych patients." and it's not like i was particularly having to bite my tongue or change my expression, i just… didn't have any reaction to that information? i might also be desensitized from being friends with literal sociopaths over the years who have said things 1,000 times worse, but like… yeah.

i'm almost like "that's not even the most awful thing someone has said to me this week let alone the worst thing I've ever heard." reminds me of the therapist who threw a gigantic fit (started crying???) when elias told her their trauma.

then i came home and ava had ingested something bad and we might have to take her to the ER. ah, life.