Behavioural Crises
Prologue – Psycho Workaholic
It was 3:10.
Gerard glanced up from his Dante Club. A young man who was sitting beside the bay window caught his gaze. It wasn’t the first time he had looked up from his book and noticed the man’s presence. It had been six months. The man had been there ever since Gerard first discovered this small local coffee shop located a couple of blocks away from the hospital he was working in.
Gerard had been forcing himself to stay away from the hospital and just go for some fresh air for at least half an hour a day, every day. He wouldn’t have to do it if it hadn’t been his boss, who was being absolutely nosey in Gerard's perspective. His boss, Dr. Cazifield, had convinced him to see a therapist. ‘But that’s absurd,’ you may say. Every doctor is living under a hell lot of stress and pressure, why is this young doctor the only one who can gain this privilege of being a slacker once a day?
Gerard never took it that way. It was actually the slacking that was killing him. He hated getting out of the hospital when he was in the middle of work. He hated leaving his patients inside the hospital while he was outside breathing fresh air, he hated leaving his fellow colleagues inside the hospital to suffer while he drank his latté, he even hated leaving his paper work in the dark on his office table while he enjoyed reading another stack of it in a coffee shop. He hated it, but it was his boss’s ‘ friendly advice’. So there was nothing he could do but to comply, like a good boy.
Gerard had developed a couple of ‘psycho problems’ over his years of being a doctor in the most frequently visited hospital in New York city. The death of friendly patients, stress from work, and so on had finally collapsed onto him and caused a serious break down a year ago. It wasn’t obvious to the people around him, but it was a hell of a lot more obvious to his brother Mikey, who had seen Gerard’s blood shot eyes at his door steps in the middle of the night one night. After a night of his brother’s soothing comforts and easing cuddles, Gerard thought he felt a lot better than he did before. But it seemed that his stress was accumulating in another form. He quickly recovered from his break down because of fearing it might slow down his work efficiency, but on the other hand his obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD) behavior – which was another psychological problem he had managed to develop in his early years – had yet seemed to be worsened.
He started washing his hands a lot more than necessary before and after surgeries. He washed his blood stained clothes over and over again, sitting in front of the washing machine in the laundry and picking on the invisible bloodstain he thought he could still see – leading him to washing it a couple of times more, ok, or maybe it was five or six times more. When he first stood at his bedroom door and switched the lights for the sixteenth time – until he thought it ‘felt’ right – he knew something was wrong about him.
But he just couldn’t bring himself to face it. There were too many things waiting for him to accomplish in the hospital, he just couldn’t let these little things slow down his pace. Even though he is now willing to admit those ‘little things’ weren’t as little as he thought back then, he just couldn’t. Despite not being a specialist in psychology, he had learn enough in his college years to know he was psychologically abnormal.
As days past by, Gerard became more and more aware of his obsessive-compulsive disorder. After two months of suffering from this behavioral disorder, he finally mustered the courage to knock on Dr. Cazifield’s office door and face his problem. If it wasn’t slowing down his work pace, he swears to god he would never have done such a thing.
Turned out Dr. Cazifield had been waiting for him. Dr. Cazifield cared about this young doctor of his so much that he had already contacted a few of the finest therapists in New York City, but he feared that forcing Gerard to see a therapist might hurt his feelings, so he never dared ask again after his first offer had been politely declined by the youngster.
Dr. Cazifield scrambled across the room and started looking for the contact numbers he had abandoned along with a pile of bills a month ago, feeling hopeless about the young doctor’s health/mental condition. A rush of joy lightened up the old man’s face when the words ‘personal problem’ slipped out of Gerard's mouth.
“I must say I’m glad you asked,” the elder doctor had said breathily when he finally found the papers he was looking for and handed them to Gerard. Although New York - Presbyterian Hospital was one of the finest hospitals in New York City, he still wasn’t ready to lose yet another young but experienced doctor with perfect attitude towards patients just because of his inappropriate stress dealing.
“Some of them are my old friends, so don’t worry about the prices,” the elder sat back on his black leather seat and smiled. “Y’know, most of them are mainly douchebags who love to overprice their therapy courses to make themselves feel better about their crappy choices of being a therapist instead of surgical doctors.” Dr. Cazifield winked at Gerard.
Gerard tugged a faint smile.
He thought he could repay the old doctor’s kindness with effort and hard work, but shook it off when he walked through the doors. Dr. Cazifield probably would literally cry if he saw him working any harder.
His therapist advised him to take breaks from work and one of them had to last at least half an hour – out of hospital area. At first, it seemed impossible for him to leave all his work behind and step out of the hospital. His patients needed him; his colleagues needed information from him because somehow he was the only one who knew the patients. Operations were going on almost every second inside the hospital, people were feeling sick, someone might be dying while Gerard was strolling in a park nearby. He could be saving somebody with that amount of time! Goddamn it! Gerard always felt useless and frustrated when his thoughts settled onto this particular subject.
How could he possibly bring himself to forget about all of these and relax? He thought the therapist’s idea was absurd to a doctor like himself, but a fact came knocking on the door when he finally ended up drop down unconscious in the corridor after seven hours of heart surgery. He needed the rest. Even his colleagues and patients to whom he swore he would not leave had no choice but to force Gerard out of the hospital. Dr. Cazifield, too, had literally begged him to stick to his therapist’s advice after that incident.
So Dr. Gerard Arthur Way was banned from existing within the hospital area from 3:00 p.m. to 3:30 p.m. ever since. They figured if they didn’t decide a fixed time for Gerard, he would only end up saying ‘later’ or ‘give me ten more minutes’ or ‘ I really need to see this patient’ and stay at the hospital until his working hours were long over and had to be forced away by seniors or his only respected boss, Dr. Cazifield, like usual.
There was also an unspoken rule among the employees in the hospital. Never page Dr. Gerard Arthur Way within that half an hour. Regardless you’re an intern who just managed to light yourself on fire or you’re a nurse or a doctor who couldn’t find the piece of information you need and you know Gerard Way is the only one who would possibly know. If you paged Gerard Way, giving him an excuse to slip right back into the hospital, then you’re working 105 hours that week, even if you’re Dr. Cazifield.
There was an inside joke within the hospital about Dr. Gerard Arthur Way. There were only two words – out of all the words to describe a fine young lad with a modest salary and a healthy social lifestyle – that could describe the whole of Gerard:
Psycho Workaholic
*
Gerard sat back up straight and pulled up his sleeve to reveal his Rolex.
3:31 p.m.
Gerard smiled to himself and stole a glance at the man who was still sitting beside the bay window peacefully. I’ll talk to him tomorrow.
Really, tomorrow.
Gerard glanced up from his Dante Club. A young man who was sitting beside the bay window caught his gaze. It wasn’t the first time he had looked up from his book and noticed the man’s presence. It had been six months. The man had been there ever since Gerard first discovered this small local coffee shop located a couple of blocks away from the hospital he was working in.
Gerard had been forcing himself to stay away from the hospital and just go for some fresh air for at least half an hour a day, every day. He wouldn’t have to do it if it hadn’t been his boss, who was being absolutely nosey in Gerard's perspective. His boss, Dr. Cazifield, had convinced him to see a therapist. ‘But that’s absurd,’ you may say. Every doctor is living under a hell lot of stress and pressure, why is this young doctor the only one who can gain this privilege of being a slacker once a day?
Gerard never took it that way. It was actually the slacking that was killing him. He hated getting out of the hospital when he was in the middle of work. He hated leaving his patients inside the hospital while he was outside breathing fresh air, he hated leaving his fellow colleagues inside the hospital to suffer while he drank his latté, he even hated leaving his paper work in the dark on his office table while he enjoyed reading another stack of it in a coffee shop. He hated it, but it was his boss’s ‘ friendly advice’. So there was nothing he could do but to comply, like a good boy.
Gerard had developed a couple of ‘psycho problems’ over his years of being a doctor in the most frequently visited hospital in New York city. The death of friendly patients, stress from work, and so on had finally collapsed onto him and caused a serious break down a year ago. It wasn’t obvious to the people around him, but it was a hell of a lot more obvious to his brother Mikey, who had seen Gerard’s blood shot eyes at his door steps in the middle of the night one night. After a night of his brother’s soothing comforts and easing cuddles, Gerard thought he felt a lot better than he did before. But it seemed that his stress was accumulating in another form. He quickly recovered from his break down because of fearing it might slow down his work efficiency, but on the other hand his obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD) behavior – which was another psychological problem he had managed to develop in his early years – had yet seemed to be worsened.
He started washing his hands a lot more than necessary before and after surgeries. He washed his blood stained clothes over and over again, sitting in front of the washing machine in the laundry and picking on the invisible bloodstain he thought he could still see – leading him to washing it a couple of times more, ok, or maybe it was five or six times more. When he first stood at his bedroom door and switched the lights for the sixteenth time – until he thought it ‘felt’ right – he knew something was wrong about him.
But he just couldn’t bring himself to face it. There were too many things waiting for him to accomplish in the hospital, he just couldn’t let these little things slow down his pace. Even though he is now willing to admit those ‘little things’ weren’t as little as he thought back then, he just couldn’t. Despite not being a specialist in psychology, he had learn enough in his college years to know he was psychologically abnormal.
As days past by, Gerard became more and more aware of his obsessive-compulsive disorder. After two months of suffering from this behavioral disorder, he finally mustered the courage to knock on Dr. Cazifield’s office door and face his problem. If it wasn’t slowing down his work pace, he swears to god he would never have done such a thing.
Turned out Dr. Cazifield had been waiting for him. Dr. Cazifield cared about this young doctor of his so much that he had already contacted a few of the finest therapists in New York City, but he feared that forcing Gerard to see a therapist might hurt his feelings, so he never dared ask again after his first offer had been politely declined by the youngster.
Dr. Cazifield scrambled across the room and started looking for the contact numbers he had abandoned along with a pile of bills a month ago, feeling hopeless about the young doctor’s health/mental condition. A rush of joy lightened up the old man’s face when the words ‘personal problem’ slipped out of Gerard's mouth.
“I must say I’m glad you asked,” the elder doctor had said breathily when he finally found the papers he was looking for and handed them to Gerard. Although New York - Presbyterian Hospital was one of the finest hospitals in New York City, he still wasn’t ready to lose yet another young but experienced doctor with perfect attitude towards patients just because of his inappropriate stress dealing.
“Some of them are my old friends, so don’t worry about the prices,” the elder sat back on his black leather seat and smiled. “Y’know, most of them are mainly douchebags who love to overprice their therapy courses to make themselves feel better about their crappy choices of being a therapist instead of surgical doctors.” Dr. Cazifield winked at Gerard.
Gerard tugged a faint smile.
He thought he could repay the old doctor’s kindness with effort and hard work, but shook it off when he walked through the doors. Dr. Cazifield probably would literally cry if he saw him working any harder.
His therapist advised him to take breaks from work and one of them had to last at least half an hour – out of hospital area. At first, it seemed impossible for him to leave all his work behind and step out of the hospital. His patients needed him; his colleagues needed information from him because somehow he was the only one who knew the patients. Operations were going on almost every second inside the hospital, people were feeling sick, someone might be dying while Gerard was strolling in a park nearby. He could be saving somebody with that amount of time! Goddamn it! Gerard always felt useless and frustrated when his thoughts settled onto this particular subject.
How could he possibly bring himself to forget about all of these and relax? He thought the therapist’s idea was absurd to a doctor like himself, but a fact came knocking on the door when he finally ended up drop down unconscious in the corridor after seven hours of heart surgery. He needed the rest. Even his colleagues and patients to whom he swore he would not leave had no choice but to force Gerard out of the hospital. Dr. Cazifield, too, had literally begged him to stick to his therapist’s advice after that incident.
So Dr. Gerard Arthur Way was banned from existing within the hospital area from 3:00 p.m. to 3:30 p.m. ever since. They figured if they didn’t decide a fixed time for Gerard, he would only end up saying ‘later’ or ‘give me ten more minutes’ or ‘ I really need to see this patient’ and stay at the hospital until his working hours were long over and had to be forced away by seniors or his only respected boss, Dr. Cazifield, like usual.
There was also an unspoken rule among the employees in the hospital. Never page Dr. Gerard Arthur Way within that half an hour. Regardless you’re an intern who just managed to light yourself on fire or you’re a nurse or a doctor who couldn’t find the piece of information you need and you know Gerard Way is the only one who would possibly know. If you paged Gerard Way, giving him an excuse to slip right back into the hospital, then you’re working 105 hours that week, even if you’re Dr. Cazifield.
There was an inside joke within the hospital about Dr. Gerard Arthur Way. There were only two words – out of all the words to describe a fine young lad with a modest salary and a healthy social lifestyle – that could describe the whole of Gerard:
Psycho Workaholic
*
Gerard sat back up straight and pulled up his sleeve to reveal his Rolex.
3:31 p.m.
Gerard smiled to himself and stole a glance at the man who was still sitting beside the bay window peacefully. I’ll talk to him tomorrow.
Really, tomorrow.
♠ ♠ ♠
Ok, so, yet another crappy story by me. Hope you enjoyed it.Let me know what you think of it!
No, seriously, comment.