Self Awareness

How truly aware are you of yourself? Do you know yourself very well? Are you confident enough with how you interact with people around you? Do you easily get affected or influenced by other people's thoughts  or state of mind? Don't you question your sanity sometimes? Is your frame of mind intact? These are just some of the questions that we needed to ask ourselves before we get exposed  to VSMMC Center for Behavioral Sciences, the only psychiatric institution in Cebu City. (the only one we heard of so far) We had to be truly aware of ourselves..know ourselves very well, like a friend.

This morning, we had our first psychiatric ward exposure. I know most of us weren't ready for the day yet, not because we weren't sure of our true selves but because people with psychiatric conditions can be violent. We've heard some stories already about students getting their firsts in that ward; first kiss, first punch, first slap of their lives. haha! Anyways, today was all orientation to the place. Before we actually entered the wards, I wasn't really that scared. I was a little bit confident because my friends who were already exposed to that ward shared a lot of funny stories that they made it seem fun, exciting and nothing to worry about. So there we were entering the female ward first. The whole time we were touring the place, I was clutching on to my classmate's shirt too hard that it crumpled. (ok i was exaggerating) It was literally a mix of emotions; I was scared and felt like laughing at the same time. Some patient's behavior were actually kinda funny but scary at the same time. I know it wasn't nice to laugh at them but we couldn't help it. Of course we composed ourselves enough not to laugh like crazy.

There we saw different kinds of crazy; depressed crazy, manic crazy, paranoid crazy and mentally retarded crazy.The manic ones scared me a lot because they do whatever they feel like doing to you. Most of them are old enough to be my mother and then it saddened me that they were locked up in that looney bin. What happened to them that made them that way? Whatever made them that way, i dont think its their fault and so they need to be treated fairly as how we treat normal people. They've got feelings too so they also get hurt. Plus, they're someone else's parents only their sanity was snatched away. That's why the next time I enter that ward, I promise to respect what's left of them; their rights as human beings.