Starting Yesterday:
We went to see this thing called "Ice!" at a resort called "Gaylord Palms" (hee). Basically it's this huge walk-through ice sculpture with slides and stuff. Only it's much less impressive than it sounds. The ice was made out of this compressed shit and dyed colors, it was kind of bogus. There was one part, a nativity scene, which was an actual ice sculpture, and that was totally rad. Icy baby Jesus, y'all! The other cool thing is that the place was kept at 9 degrees. The cold was quite a novelty. They even gave you parkas when you came in.
Back at the villa, we had a community meeting, because all the rules have kind of totally deteriorated and everyone is fucking insanely rude and everything is totally shitty. The meeting was really tense and brought out the worst in everybody. Some people couldn't stop talking and talking and talking (including the Know-It-All, who REALLY just drives me nuts. Dude! You are a patient here! You do not know the definitive answer to all my life's problems!). A lot of people stormed off. No taking responsibility whatsoever.
After that total fucking debacle, I went with my therapist to run some errands, including sending out some Christmas presents. So, that was a thing.
After dinner a patient ran away and the cops were called and everything. Third time the cops arrived since I've been here. It was monstrously stressful. He did come back, but I don't like seeing the cops, period. They terrify me.
Fast forward to today, and another patient took off. This time it was one I actually cared about, my second favorite schizophrenic. No one will tell me what exactly happened, but they say he's safe, so he's probably been found and sent to a real psychiatric hospital. In other words, still worried about him.
There was a really unhelpful Grief and Loss Group (I'm grieving over my marriage, my grandmother, my freedom, etc). Basically we just say how crappy we're feeling and how much we miss things, and... that's it. There is almost no therapy here, maybe 45 minutes a week of one-on-one time with your therapist, that's it. Everything is just based on participation. I really don't know if this is the best model but whatever. In today's therapy session I cried for the first time. I'm having a hard time. This is hard.
I did get to go on this cool outing with TLLC. We went on a boat tour through the lakes of this really ritzy neighborhood called Winter Park. The boat driver was this funny old man who was full of information and jokes. I love being on boats, and it is always sooo nice to get the hell away from the villa.