Short visit

Toots didn't like the Aveeno skin lotion I brought her last weekend, and she requested baby lotion. She didn't like the smell of the Aveeno. Why did I accede to her request? Because she gets very dry skin in winter, and needs to be using lotion. Now that she's decided against the Aveeno, she'd rather eat nails than use it. So I brought her baby lotion. After that, my visit this afternoon didn't go well. You see, when Lew was on the phone with her the other night, and she was talking about having assaulted a staff person, he said (as we have done before), "Toots, I can't continue this conversation when you're talking about having beaten someone up. Love ya, honey, good night." And hung up. Note that he did not slam the phone down abruptly. Today, Toots started in on how she feels very insulted and disrespected by that action of his. I tried to explain to her that we cannot accept her assaulting staff, and that it is in no way OK. She said that it wasn't her fault (it never is), she got mad when they tried to get into her room, and "I just blacked out and didn't know what I was doing. When I realized what I was doing, I stopped." It was further excused by the fact that she hasn't done anything like that in years. I corrected her memory; it's been just over a year since she assaulted a police officer. She said, "Well, many months." In the discussion somewhere was, "I'm not stupid, I'm not a little kid, don't you think I know better, I apologized." Sorry, Toots, I don't buy that. Up till now, you've gotten a bye because you're a psychiatric patient. In the outside world, if you assault someone, you will be arrested and go to jail. Her reaction, of course? "Well, I won't do that!" Famous last words. How many times has she said "I know how to behave, I'll just do it", and then gone blithely on to do exactly the opposite. Anyway, to make a long story short, I left 25 minutes into an hour-long visiting period.