Bad Nights

Everyone has bad days, everyone has bad nights. Everyone is entitled to these. It's a part of life.
Tonight I was placed in a 1:1. The guy was a generally cool guy, and all of his 'delusions' were proven true by his friends showing up and proving to me that he wasn't lying. I took him out for multiple smoke breaks. We talked alot about his emotions and feelings, I felt like I was making progress.

Until he decided he wanted to end it. He first began with beating himself, punching himself hard in the head, neck and jaw. He screamed out as I tried to pin him down, then with the help of the nurse we calmed him down. We then let him make some phone calls to his family, bad idea.

I dropped my notebook from on my lap and jumped over the side rail, trying to pry my hands from around the telephone cord wrapped tightly around his neck. I kicked the nurse call light on with my elbow and tried to wrestle him free from the cord, but he was too strong. Fists flew into my face, arms hitting my arm and knees into my chin as he tried to regain control. I could feel his carotid under my fingers as I fought to get grip of the cord. "I need some help in here!" I yelled, then got kicked back by a knee to my chest. I started to panic and the adrenaline kicked into high gear as I jumped back into action. No one came. We continued to wrestle for a minnute more, him spitting on me and swearing, dropping all the bombs in the book, he gritted his teeth and began to thrash some more. "I need some frickin help!" I yelled, this time a parade of Nurses, aides and the on-call doctor came running in and we helped get him free from it.

My hands shook as I continued to hold him down to the bed by his wrists. We all had adrenaline pumping and tried to calm him down as he yelled and screamed, trying to break free. I could feel his radial pulse pounding quickly, and then realized it was my own pulse I could feel.
I went numb after that, and thank goodness shift change was ten minutes away. I looked at him, feeling empty and insecure, he lay quietly on his bed, watching Scrubs. I just held down a man who tried to kill himself in front of me.

Now I am home, have had a whole long drive, and even tried to eat a little, but it takes it out of you. I know I did the right thing, I had doctors, nurses and other aides shake my hand and inform me I saved his life and did a good job...but I just watched a man try to take his own life.

I'm not quite sure how to feel about it all.