2024-06-17 17:39:34
Marc den Heijer, initially from Scheveningen, was a greenhouse builder, however about twenty-five years in the past he obtained a name to the emergency providers. He has an enormous ardour for serving to individuals so he goes down the trail of nursing. He finds his option to jail, the place he tries, as a nurse, to offer a greater life to probably the most troublesome individuals to deal with.
The psychiatric division is Marc’s dwelling base, the place he generally offers with as much as twelve sufferers a day as a nurse. He treats and supervises sufferers on this division. If there are incidents, Marc additionally has to intervene, he’s at all times the primary. He feels utterly at dwelling as a jail nurse. “You see plenty of stunning issues in jail, for instance a custodian who’s making progress and actually engaged on his future. I actually labored there with an excellent workforce, surrounded by individuals I may depend on.”
There’s a downside behind each door
Though Marc enjoys his work, he additionally has many disagreeable issues. “I got here throughout plenty of issues that nobody ought to must see. It was not unusual to search out self-harming habits and suicide makes an attempt. Behind each cell door was one other downside.”
Violence is repeatedly used in opposition to him and his colleagues as effectively, which is why Marc typically drives dwelling with a black eye. “You actually neglect that you’re working in an uncommon state of affairs, although it feels very regular. You might be working with people who find themselves sick. When you’re working with youngsters, I perceive that it calms you down. Nevertheless , when you work with twelve. psychiatric works for sufferers, it will be unusual when you had no impact.”
Skirmish
At one level, Marc is going through his sixteenth try at suicide. “That evening I used to be attempting to fall asleep. As I used to be mendacity in mattress, I noticed the face of that boy who tried to commit suicide become my son’s. I sat up in mattress and I couldn’t sleep that night That is all. And the times I did not sleep a wink after that.”
However Marc continues. The autumn continues a lot later. That day, he and a few colleagues take the cutlery from a affected person who’s exhibiting aggressive habits, which is important for his personal security. A skirmish ensues during which Marc takes a beating. Marc is aware of at that second that issues like this can not proceed for him.
After
Marc will get dwelling, can now not work and step by step turns into in poor health. He closes himself off from his spouse and kids, he worries and withdraws. He’s quickly identified with PTSD. As a result of he cannot sleep, he typically sits exterior in a backyard chair. Typically he spends as much as sixteen hours a day in that chair, staring into house on a tree, remoted from his environment. “At one level I used to be so scared. Sure, I used to be sitting right here with golf equipment and even knives in my chair. I used to be afraid they’d come over the fence and do one thing to me.”
Marc later realizes that his PTSD was not attributable to a single suicide try. It’s an accumulation of adventures throughout his twenty-five yr profession. “I acquired a little bit sick, each occasion stuffed my backpack much more. At a sure level I could not do it anymore. That backpack was too full.”
Group
Marc seeks assist, undergoes a years-long course of with trauma psychologists and slowly comes again. Though he’s happy with the assistance he receives, he realizes that paying extra consideration to his working situations may have prevented severe psychological issues. “Individuals are not ready sufficient for what would possibly come their means, even in uniformed professions. I’m certain of this. Right here in that chair I’ve considered what occurred, what was occurring with me and what ought to or should not questions be requested. In fact there may be excellent care after severe incidents, however should not we act extra preventively if we all know that such incidents occur typically?”
Marc is now virtually totally recovered and is working full time once more in a psychological well being establishment. He determined to not return to jail, regardless of the constructive facets of his work there. And that chair? He is not going to eliminate it proper now. “That chair nonetheless means one thing to me. Sometime, once I’m feeling effectively once more, I will sit in it once more.”
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