3 for 1: What I can say

It is now my 3rd week of my internship and I have already believe I have learned a lot. I have had the oppertunity to meet many of the residents and have had the oppertunity to read through a number of their case files. Most of the people in the long term facility fall under the diagnosis of Schizophrenia, Schizoaffetive, or Bipolar(generally with psychotic features). What is interesting to me is the level of some of these people's functioning. I am going to refer to a couple of people, but i of course will not use their actual names or anything spcific enough for you to ID them.

There is one guy there who I will call Michael Dowd. This guy has been diagnosed with Bi Polar with psychotic fetaures, yet when I talked ot him yesterday he seemed very lucid. He seemed very articulate and was able to have a convsersation. It was interesting to sit down and listen to him talk about himself in his own words.

Another person i met yesterday was a guy named Jason Franklin. He is diagnosed with schizophrenia and it became very obvious after i sat down and talked to him. He kept leaping from topic to topic without any real flow. Furthermore he kept referring to a wonderful job he had even though he had no real training. Finally he talked about a home he purportedly owned on a lake in Wisconsin that he was going to share with a famous mvie star. Apprently when he got out she was going to join him there with her kids and they would live in that home on the lake.

These are just two of the people i have met in my three weeks at the internship. What is interesting is on any given day anyone can be functioning pretty close to "normal" while others seem to be in a world of their own. It makes me really appreciate the purported fine line between genius and ...