Posted by josiejo on June 30, 2001, at 18:25:43
Hi,
I haven't been here in a really long time... I've been self-medicating, and basically trying to get everything in my life back in order.
Now, I'm not writing about myself. I'm writing about an employee of mine, who is also a good, close friend. I'm posting here today as her friend, not her boss.
She was diagnosed as bi-polar about 2 years ago and has had her ups and downs. She has been in and out of hospitals, and in and out of work. About 3 or 4 months ago, during one of her 'out of work times', she called me and told me that she wanted to be honest. That she had been cutting.
Having read things, and having another friend who is a cutter (and has not hurt herself in over a year!!) I knew what she was talking about.
I didn't know how bad it was until just a few weeks ago when she came back to work for one day, and that night, she admitted herself to another hospital. After about 2 weeks in the hospital, she didn't feel like doing what they told her anymore, and she left. She came back to work. She came to talk to me and I could see after just a few seconds that she was 'not right'. First thing I asked her was if she was ok. It took her a minute or 2 to answer "uh huh". I knew she wasn't. I suggested that we go outside, have a smoke and just talk. While we were smoking, I had to ask about the obvious scars all over her arm. She was making light of it, saying that in the hospital, they had plastic knives with the meals and she used them to cut herself instead of the food. She had 15 or 20 very obvious cut marks that weren't very old on her arm. Because of her light attitude, I downplayed the whole thing too.
When we went back inside, she pulled out her daily pills and took her morning dosage. While she had her pill container out, I asked... she was taking a lot different meds including prozac, dilantin and ambien. Most of the dosages were incredibly high.
I had to play 2 parts now... her boss and her friend. As her boss, I had to tell her I couldn't allow her to come back to work now, and as her friend, I asked her to please keep me updated and call me, that I cared.I guess what I'm asking here is if anyone has had any experience with cutters or with cutting themselves. I'm not sure what to say or how to act...
Can anyone help?Thanks,
Josie
poster:josiejo
thread:68525
URL: http://www.dr-bob.org/babble/20010625/msgs/68525.html