All posts by ravenguild08

Scenes from the Psych ED

The psychiatric emergency department is not where you want to end up. Yes, it’s an essential piece of every big hospital, but it’s not a happy place. mental illness — often silent, minimized, and neglected — can become so severe that it bursts forth conspicuously from their brains and force the people into involuntary incarceration. The Psych ED receives these people and gathers them in one confined space.

Here, let me describe it.

Continue reading Scenes from the Psych ED

The 2 North Milieu

When you visit 2 North at Westchester, you might find 20 teenagers hanging out in a spacious sunlit living room. There’s a big group crowded noisily around a card table as they play Egyptian Ratscrew, slapping their hands in as fast as they can and laughing raucously as cards fly everywhere. Kids are lounging on comfy couches, some conversing quietly with each other, others idly doodling on folders, others next to them read well-worn paperbacks. One sits at a bay window looking out onto the lush lawns and groves of upstate New York. They’re all clad in pajamas and sweats and slippers, all without makeup, all without pretense. There’s not a cellphone in sight. The place looks so placidly idyllic that you might wonder why a place like this exists in a modern world like ours. Well…

NYP Westchester is a dedicated psychiatric hospital, and 2 North is the adolescent unit. Almost all of kids there are admitted for depression and suicidal ideation. Continue reading The 2 North Milieu

Diabetes Details

I dread Type 2 diabetes as a disease entity. It is the most rampant, urgent, yet insidious epidemic of our age. It’s frustrating how straightforward the preventive medical intervention is (don’t eat shitty), but a good diet is low many people’s priorities and taste buds. The disease develops so slowly and silently that the general population too often dismisses its distant consequences, but the medical community is witnessing the deluge of diabetes firsthand. Continue reading Diabetes Details

Sports Spectating

I follow two sports: NBA basketball and pro Super Smash Bros Melee.

Growing up, I was blindly anti-sports. How people could get so invested in their region’s sports team, enough to spend hundreds of dollars for seats and enough riot when they lose and parade when they win? It’s just a sport! You idolize men who spend their livelihoods throwing a bouncy spherical thing through an elevated hoop! Continue reading Sports Spectating