Green Acres: Decor Questions
Do you think it is a good or bad idea for a coed, inpatient psychiatric facility to put up Valentine's Day decorations? (Pink hearts, cupids, etc.) What about holding a Valentine's Day dance? (Note that facility policy "strongly discourages" physical intimacy between patients.)
And then there's Halloween-- Are carboard decorations of headstones, skeletons, and witches "fun" or "inappropriate"? Should staff be allowed to paint their faces green with fake scars?
And then there's Halloween-- Are carboard decorations of headstones, skeletons, and witches "fun" or "inappropriate"? Should staff be allowed to paint their faces green with fake scars?
posted by Turbo at 4:00 PM
2 Comments:
I think it's a *great* idea, due to its very democratic nature. I can think of only three situations:
1. people who are irritated by pink cardboard and flying babies
2. people who are irritated that they are in GA and not with the one(s) who are brought to mind by bows and arrows and sayings on sugar hearts
3. people who are irritated that there is no-one to go with the lovely decorations in their lives
(unless of course you actually have happily stable coupled up patients whith a high tolerance for lace doilies and crepe paper where both partners are resident in the facility?)
I can also see two probable responses:
1. screw that, hand me another bowl of those sugar hearts, I'm getting me a sugar rush.
or
2. screw ... ummmm... yeah.
Oh. Right. You said you had a staff shortage, not a surplus.
No opinion on Halloween.
I can see where you are going, and no doubt that some of it is inappropriate, but if you start now, where will it all end?
I've always thought of Valentine's Day as celebrating friendship as well as erotic love, so why not emphasize the friendship part?
When I was hospitalized 15 or so years ago, I was on suicide watch and was stuck in the day room. Guess what was on the television? "The Good, the Bad and the Ugly." Yup, I got to watch a disturbing hanging scene while I was on suicide watch. Yup, I told my psychiatrist.
Also, when I was on suicide watch and forced to sleep in the hallway, I could hear the night crew, forced into the hall to babysit me, watching loud scary movies. That was disturbing!
I think that you can celebrate Halloween without the gore. Why not emphasize that? Instead of a zombie or a witch or Dracula, be a cartoon character. Maybe y'all can agree on a theme and go as that. For example, me and my coworkers all dressed up as rappers one year.
Good luck! It's great that you are sensitive about these things.
Lily
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