Diary Entry: December 8, Age 14
As part of my Advent Calendar project, I am presenting excerpts from my actual teenage diaries!
[backstory: my father was a psychiatrist. he was working at a mental hospital at the time of this entry.]
Hmm. Well, weird — very weird day. After school, Naomi came over after delivering Christmas trees with Bobby. We started doing homework when the doorbell rang. It was a patient of dad’s and he was psycho. His mind skipped constantly, he would not leave, and it freaked us out! Thank the lucky stars, dad called and I told him Mr. Demento was here. Dad talked to him over the phone and told him to leave.
Naomi is spending the night and she’s depressed. Aren’t we all.
This post completely reminded me of the movie “What About Bob” where Bill Murray is a psych patient and Richard Dreyfus is the psychiatrist.
It’s so funny to see how your 14-year-old persona was sort of over the fact that Dad’s patients show up at your house and flip out.
“Dad talked to him over the phone and told him to leave.” Just so blase. Love that!
Yeah, it’s a weird life when you are jaded about the mentally ill so young. All us Hambox offspring are — some are a little more compassionate than 14-year-old Becky was..
wow, that’s a brave idea, I don’t think I could barely read my diaries, let alone publish them….
Ha ha! As you know, we have somewhat of the same background here – and I can totally relate to this entry – it brings back memories. We lived in a house with many kids and many doors – and of course there were always one or two open. Being the youngest, I was the first to come home from school, and if our family dog was acting all crazy, I knew there were patients in our home. One time a lady was playing the piano. I think I followed her back to where she belonged.