A Peculiar Rose

Work was very interesting this past week with all the casework I went through. One particular case was very bizarre. Since I can’t share the real names of the patients we analyze, I’m going to refer to this patient as Emily Rose. Emily was to be discharged from the Southern California Mental Institute but before a patient can be cleared they must be evaluated by “The Board”. The Board is a team of psychologists, including myself, that carefully analyze patients coming in and out of the institution.

Usually I tend to go through the motions of work and remain unattached to cases, but there was something about this one, about Emily, that stuck to me, like glue. She was an elderly woman, a frail soul at that, living in solitude for many decades in a home where only her housekeepers visited. I felt great sorrow for Emily, and now it was my job to either make her stay alone in this institution or send her back home where she had no family. I couldn’t allow myself to get caught up in personal feelings that would get in the way of the heated discussion that awaited me in the board meeting that afternoon.

I looked at the notes that I had jotted down from my personal time with Emily and I remembered how the subject of “death” was heavily on her mind. Emily had been put in this institution because of how she hid dead bodies in her home. If that doesn’t sound crazy enough, there was even evidence that showed she may have poisoned one of the deceased, but it had not been proven at the time. When I was talking to her I watched her responses. She was very soft-spoken, giving me very vague answers, almost as if she couldn’t answer my simple questions. Not only that but I could have sworn I heard whispers, as if she had to self-check herself before and after each response.

After Emily had been analyze and her behaviors were recorded, now all that was left was to debate on the case. I had already came to a conclusion that she still had issues and definitely needed more time in Southern California Institution. We pulled her medical records and the fact that she had been previously diagnosed with schizophrenia didn’t aid her chances. Dr. Winchester suggested that the disease could have led to the fact she lived alone and hid the bodies from her town.

After about a half-hour of discussion my panel finally came to a conclusion, Emily was not ready to go home. Her medical history could have led to her strange behavior and it could be a danger to not only herself, but to the public if we allowed her to leave the facility. Not only that but the fact that she was already very elderly led to the outcome also. Even though I felt that the right decision was made for Ms. Rose I couldn’t help but still feel horrible about the entire case. Did I feel a connection with this woman because I too was once alone, having been adopted into a home? Either way, I plan to visit Emily from now on in her final years. She could really use a friend, and I think that’s one thing she missed out on in her life.