A hailstorm, damnit. That’s what it feels like. “Paging Allison Frame to Admitting”—oh, I dare you to page me again, Jessalyn. You work reception; receive something. I’ll decide when I come back there and you’ll stop paging me. Because this closet is the only place I wish to be. In addition, I’m not your personal therapist. You need to make a goddam appointment with someone—not me—and work out your own shit. Just like I am doing in this closet. Sitting next to you in the entrance lobby doesn’t make me your shoulder to cry on. And, for the love of God, find someone else to come to Admitting.
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Sheila Petty, Licensed Mental Health Counselor. Case notes from crisis meeting, 11/20/20.
Allison: social worker, single mother, peer counselor to burned-out therapists, and hospital volunteer during the pandemic. Stretched too thin. Her children, deprived of friends and activities, need constant attention and consoling as do the “fresh-faced therapists, unprepared for this mental health crisis.” Was referred to me after verbal altercation on floor A. She said “I don’t know if I can take it anymore.”
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Let’s take stock. I’m in a supply closet at Sacred Eve Medical Center in Costard Township, an enclave of irritability seventy-five minutes outside the metropolitan center where no one wants to wear a goddamned mask. Directly opposite me: shelf after shelf of polybagged disposable surgical masks like sandbags against the storm surge. On the other wall: gloves, face shields, eyewash, hand sanitizer, biohazard bags, suction tubing, a fancy-looking aspirator unit (somebody must be looking for that)—my own Covid bunker. I’m not hiding though. I’m scheming, plotting how to beat them. Because if one more patient questions having to wear a hospital-issued mask, I will flip the welcome table. People who are bitter to a volunteer in a hospital handing them a free mask do not deserve a welcome. “Why do I have to cover my nose?” “Why are you policing my appointment with my doctor?” There aren’t enough biohazard bags for all the hot air.
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In our crisis session, I asked Allison why she was holed up in a closet until the receptionist found her. She said her only alternative was to yell at patients. In my office, she was fixated on masks. She said, “If our Joker-In-Chief had tweeted, ‘Let’s kick Covid’s ass! Put an American Flag where your mouth is!’ oh, then they’d be masking up.” When I suggested she take the rest of her volunteer shift off, she said, “And where would I go? They’re everywhere.”
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Okay, Jessalyn, that better be the last time you page me or I may need to aspirate my name right out of your voice box. I know you just want to unload about your boyfriend problems. You don’t care whether people entering this hospital are pushed surgical masks or methamphetamines as long as you get a few free hours in conversation with a licensed clinical social worker. If you were my therapy client, I’d help you see that paging someone seven times is unrelenting and fanatical. I’m not a heart surgeon skipping out on a bypass here. Get a hold of yourself.
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When I told Allison that she sounded a bit unhinged over nothing, she became more agitated. She asked where I got my degree. I recommended she resign from the volunteer program if she had such strong opinions on patients’ political views—and she shouted, “Masks are not political!” I asked her to lower her voice and said not everyone, including me, shared her views of the President or the outcome of the rigged election. She said, “Well that takes the cake, darling” and got up to leave. When I said I’d call for a Security escort, she said, in a tone I found intimidating, “Feeling insecure, are you?”
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I know I’m not handling things well today. I’m one of the helpers—one of the essential punching bags in Costard. But you can live among people who just don’t want to get it for only so long without snapping. I know these local folks are in a cult of toxic belonging, prone to deep-seated push and pull factors—easy to radicalize. So I’m one more layer in some conspiracy. A volunteer at a hospital during a pandemic is a threat because leaders keep legitimizing—no, recreationalizing—hatred. Festive-fun disinformation events! Primetime propaganda variety hours! Some Joker-appointed federal judge said that the mincemeat spewing from Smucker Carlson’s piehole is “non-literal commentary.” That he engages in “exaggeration” and “bloviating,” not “actual facts,” so no foul. I’d argue it’s ideological arson. I saw an op-ed from a county public health director who resigned because anti-maskers were stalking her, taking photos of her kids. Covid-denying paparazzi: put that in the history books. I’m going to write a letter to all the editors. I don’t care who pickets on my front lawn. I’ll name names of idiots in this very building—doctors, nurses—who remove their masks, who don’t follow protocol. We’re at 21 percent positivity in Costard. You want a fight? I’ll give you a fight. Oh, for chrissakes, who’s at the goddamned door? That better not be you, Jessalyn.
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When I recommended to Allison that a woman in her fragile state can’t oversee others’ mental health, she told me not to gaslight her. I told her that her strident attitude smacked of indoctrination and ideological extremism and that she might want to examine her sense of self. That’s when she really lost it. Banged my desk, knocking over my American flag. Accident? Fortunately, Security got her. I’m well-versed in de-escalation strategies for the therapeutic environment, but this woman was deliberately caustic and belittling in my own office. And she’s not even my patient. These notes are my honest assessment of the events of Friday, November 20, 2020, saved to my Future Criminal Evidence folder, just in case. She was pretty mad at me. And you really never know with these people.
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Find Stacey on Instagram @staceysaw.
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