This incident happened many years ago when I was working in the ‘locked’ inpatient psych/addiction scene. We had a patient whom I shall Timmy throughout this story.
Timmy was a regular at our facility; as he was at many other facilities throughout the area since his early adolescent years. At this point in time, he was 33 years old.
When he arrived to us this time he had lost a substantial amount of weight. He was down to a svelte 400 hundred pounds. During a lengthy commitment to one of our state facilities he had shot up as high as 600 pounds. They decided at that point to more closely monitor his food intake (good idea huh?)
His primary diagnosis was schizophrenia coupled to recent episodes of binging and purging. He I.Q. had been tested out over the years to be that of an eight to ten year old; his behavior was indicative of this range.
Timmy liked to hang-out with me on the unit and tell me all his jokes and stories (he knew I was still performing on the comedy scene a couple of evenings a week). I would laugh heartily after almost every joke or story he would tell me; not so much due to the content, but rather for the way he would crack himself up!
At this particular hospital the patients would order their meals for the following day when they were having breakfast the day before.
I had come in to work a day shift on the morning of the incident (7am start). Breakfast usually arrived around 8:30.
On this particular morning the patients were pulling their trays from the food cart and heading into the dining room. Timmy had just sat down and had lifted the cover off the top of the tray when I could hear him in an uproar.
I raced over to him. Timmy what is the matter? Willy, I ordered Coco Puffs and they didn’t send them up! I told him I would call down to kitchen and have them sent up. He was annoyed but seemed satisfied with my response.
I went into the staff room and phoned down to the kitchen to request that “Coco Puffs” be delivered to our unit. They informed me that they were out but that they were expecting a shipment that afternoon so he would be able to have them the next morning for breakfast.
I had a feeling (and not a good one) of what was going to happen next when I went back to tell him the news. As I did so I could see his face get beat-red and he started to breath heavily. I’m sorry Timmy, I said to him. He did not respond he just kept staring at his tray.
As I walked back to the front desk area that is when all hell broke loose. Timmy had decided that if he could not have what he wanted for breakfast, then no one could have breakfast.
He jumped up and started racing around the dining area flipping over everyone else’s trays and knocking over tables and chairs. As the patients ran out of the dining room I knew I had to take some sort of action.
The dining area had three columns on the outside edge of the main area. Knowing his intellectual age level and his love of humor I did the following: I would jump out from behind a column and yell, ‘pick-a-boo,’ and wiggle my fingers at him with my thumbs in my ears then jump back behind the column. After about the third time doing this he stopped his rampage and he yelled to me, ‘Willy don’t make me laugh!’ After several more times doing this he began to laugh uncontrollably.
I figured it should be safe to enter the kitchen with him in that state of mind and it was. ‘Timmy, why don’t we go down to your room and talk for a while. What do you say? ‘O.k. Willy, we can do that.’
So ended the ‘rampage.’
I could not help chuckling later on that day thinking that for Timmy the Coco Puffs slogan in addition to, “I’m Coo-Coo for Coco Puffs,” could also be in his case, “I’m Coo-Coo WITHOUT Coco Puffs.”
Peace, Out
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