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Unread 2 Oct 2006, 06:31   #9
ChubbyChecker
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Re: The Alpha Male Confrontation

I can sort of relate to these sorts of mind games. When I spent time in a psychiatric ward we had pecking orders and little personal wars too.

When I was first admitted to hospital I was a tad insane (obviously) so I didn't really get the game, or even know that a game was being played. People would get endless amusement from taking the piss out of me. They didn't call me names or anything, oh no, games in the loony bin are a tad more subtle than that. Instead they'd tell me stories about how they'd ended up in there. Getting into fights, stabbing people, shit like that. One woman even told me that her husband was a very jealous guy and he was going to beat me up for even talking to her. She even led me outside and told me to catch the first bus out of town. I almost did as well. Bitch!

Another time one guy messed with my head so much that I actually jumped over the fence (it was a low security ward), ran to the nearest police station (I asked for directions on my way there) and asked the nice policemen not to take me back to that scary hospital. Obviously they took me straight back. Everyone in the ward had a nice laugh over that one.

Then I started getting better...

It was then that I realised that they'd been playing me for a sucker all this time (about a week) and it was time for payback. They'd soon find out who the real alpha male was!

Now, one of the best ways to exert your dominance in a pyschiatric ward is to clear a room. Walk into a room where a number of patients are sitting (preferably the TV room) and within minutes make it so that you're the only one left in there. How you do this is really up to you. Some people do it through body language. ie sitting very close to people, leaning forward in an aggressive fashion, shit like that. That's for idiots I say, do it with banter! Just talk enough crap to people and eventually you'll mind fukk them so much they'd have to go to their room and lie down (or run outside and start screaming, doesn't really matter what they do as long as they leave the room).

One good thing about being mentally ill is that you can talk endlessly about pretty much anything. Obviously the people listening to you don't have much of an idea about what you're on about but it doesn't really matter cos it all makes perfect sense to you. So I'd sit there talking to people about any old crap. One of my favourite games was telling people how bad it was that I was stuck in that hospital and how I really wanted to get out (I was sectioned so legally I wasn't allowed out). Now, the reason I did this was to make them feel guilty about being there. Most if not all the patients were voluntary so they could leave any time. Obviously they didn't leave cos they were messed in the head, so me talking about how shitty my sectioned life was just made them feel bad about staying. I made a fair few women cry over that one (a couple of men too). All in good fun really.

One of my favourite moments was one night when I decided to watch TV for a while. I went in the TV room, some shit was on, I cleared the room with my usual tricks and got myself the remote. Not much was on so I decided to stick BBC News 24 on. As luck would have it this was the day when that school in Russia had been taken over by Chechnyan terrorists and that was pretty much the only story they were covering. Fine I thought, I'll watch this.

Now I must say that psychiatric patients don't tend to watch the news. Pretty much anything on TV that relates to the real world scares them. They'd much rather watch a soap or some other shit. Needless to say when the people started trickling back in to the TV room they weren't best pleased that I was watching News 24. I got a couple of hints from people wondering if something else was on but since nobody asked me outright to change the channel I thought I'd leave it. As people came in I'd explain to them in great detail what was going on and how the school was under siege and such. Being the mentally ill people that they were they didn't quite get that this was happening in Russia, they also didn't quite get that this was not happening in our very own hospital. People would storm out of the TV room and go ranting at the staff or have hysterical arguments with each other. One kid even threw a bottle of water at a fellow patient and got moved up to the high security ward that very same night. I watched all this in amusement.

So anyway, within a couple of days I'd pretty much shown them who the sheriff was in them there parts. Started getting a bit boring really. Once you've scared off someone for the 4th or 5th time you start wondering what the point of it all is.

Then I had my revelation.

Why mess with just the patients when you can mess with the staff too?

That's when the fun really began. Thing about the staff in a psychiatric ward is that they can't tell you what not to do. They're pretty useless really, they only intervene if you get physically abusive with someone. Rest of the time they pretty much stand there looking like lemons.

That pissed me off no end.

So I decided to get some payback on them too. I'd ask for my razor in the morning (they keep sharp things like that locked away), give it back, ask for it again, give it back, etc... I'd ask to use the exercise bike, stop after 5 minutes then ask again, then stop, etc.... Same thing with the playstation. I'd also talk to them for hours. Obviously it's a lot harder to mess with someone's head if they're not already mentally ill but I gave it a good go.

Also I'd do silly things like accuse a fellow patient of making me smoke some cannabis (screw with both patient and staff with that little number) and demand that I get tested for drugs on the spot.

One of my favourite tricks was demanding that I get a tribunal. Since I was sectioned I could get a hearing where if I was successful they'd unsection me . So I'd let the staff do all the necessary paperwork and then tell them "Actually, don't bother, I can't be arsed with it." One time I even let the lawyer come down to talk to me about it and talked shit to him for a while until he finally stormed off.

My hard work actually seemed to pay off. Staff were dropping like flies. People were taking days off left right and centre. Staff were being drafted in from adjacent wards, having to do double shifts just to cover for the people who weren't there.

So basically yeah, I was the alpha male.

Then one day the unthinkable happened.

A usurper to my throne was admitted into my ward

I won't bore you with the details about that though, I've written too much already.
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