Random meetings & internship observations

On my way to my internship last night, I ran into an old friend (Hi Dave!) and found out he's reading my blog (huzzah) as his way of keeping in touch. It doesn't surprise me that I would randomly run into him on the train platform of a train line I no longer live on...that's just the way Chicago is but especially how Dave & I are.

We met via a runners blog years ago...we both were going to run a race and decided to try and find each other, which happened way too easily. We became virtual & real life friends which was made cool. I helped him find a neighborhood in the city he and his girlfriend would like...and even found him a job at my old company (when we had our rockin' awesome boss!) We always seemed to run into each other in random places, so seeing him at the Belmont stop was nothing out of the ordinary. It was great seeing you Dave!

So headed to the internship we had a short visit to an open house and then returned to the hospital. This open house was much nicer than last weeks since it was not for the psych population. My observation here is that it's really sad how the psych population has to live and is almost forgotten about. The amount of money available to individuals who are in rehab due to stroke, injury (hip replacement or knee replacement) and need a place to stay and have treatment is insane. This place we went to was beautiful, state of the art facility, nice large rooms for patients, and staff that knew their art. There were beautiful paintings on the walls, flat screen TVs in every room, just very nice. The psych open house last week was quite different. Funding comes and goes, there can't be nice things on the wall (individuals in a psychotic aggressive rage could too easily take it down and use it as a weapon). The problem to me is that there is no attempt to make it look nicer. I understand that the psych population is forgotten about, put them in a home and let "them" deal with it. I don't understand why we can't create a nicer environment though. Why have the walls be so bare? Put up art therapy pictures or something. Why are the walls all so white? Add some calming colors.

I don't know, I just feel as though the psych population is either forgotten about or people just do not want to deal with them...but they are people too, they just need some extra time and care.