The Last Time I Saw Jeannie

A Student nurse’s introduction to mental illness.

Photo by Sydney Sims on Unsplash

When I first met Jeannie she was lying quietly in a dark room staring up at the ceiling. The drapes were pulled and outside a late-winter snowstorm raged. She spoke slowly, haltingly, in an emotionless monotone. The nurses told me that she had been presenting like this for nearly two weeks.