This is a list of real and made up words and phrases that I used to communicate with staff and other patients during my hospital stay between: Oct 31st till Nov 26th. It also has some phrases that I am learning now to help describe what I went through.
“Yes We Can”/”Si Se Puede” – from Barack Obama’s campaign, when patients understood “hope” we would double or single fist bump
“Hope” – from Barack Obama’s campaign, I have a wrist band that I bought at the DNC that says “hope”. I wore everyday since my boyfriend and I saw him accept the nomination at the DNC till when he was elected president. “Hope” in the psych ward meant that I knew things would change for the better with Barack Obama as president including the way patients were treated.
“geekery” – anything that is extremely nerdy or geeky, from http://www.etsy.com
“true blue” – any person who can bes described as good especially “warm fuzzy” people but also can be an ass-kicking personality, from my Aunt K.
“warm fuzzy” – a person who is kind and good to the core of their being and really just want to help, another Aunt K.
“Boat drinks” – is a phrase that comes from the movie Things to do in Denver when You’re Dead. It means that when all is said and done in this lifetime you’ll be on a yacht drinking with your buddies and having boat drinks. The is an accompanied motion for said boat drinks which is your palms touching, like a high five but not that fast. That motion is used because in prison you can’t shake hands because someone is behind glass when you are talking. But the “boat drinks” concept means you’ll meet again (or at least it does to me). Another way that I communicated with patients with the same or darker psychosis than my own.
“MacGyver It”/”MacGyvering It” – Using the materials available and know-how to make a situation work. MacGyver often used everyday materials to get himself out of crazy situations. I love Richard Dean Anderson especially in Stargate but I’ve seen a bit of MacGyver. My best example of “MacGyvering It” was taking a shower at the psych ward and using hand towels to act as a rug to capture all the water from the broken shower curtain and creative use of hospital gowns and blankets to make a bath robe so that I could actually take a shower and get out of the showere without having to walk around naked.
From Wikipedia: “MacGyver’s main asset is his practical application of scientific knowledge and inventive use of common items—along with his ever-present Swiss Army knife. The clever solutions MacGyver implemented to seemingly intractable problems—often in life-or-death situations requiring him to improvise complex devices in a matter of minutes—were a major attraction of the show, which was praised for generating interest in the applied sciences, and particularly engineering, as well as providing entertaining story lines.”
“Shotgun blast” – Being hit with various emotions without any warning much like a shotgun blast which is sudden and hits all over and in different ways, from my counselor
“Simmer down” – To calm down, for me this means change activity or even something as simple as having a cup of tea, anothe Aunt K. phrase.
“Too much” – When an activity becomes overwhelming and I can’t handle it anymore, I get very aggitated if I am forced to continue something that has become too much for me to handle, usually I can either push through or change it slightly to make it manageable but I’m learning
