Yeah I feel like it’s one of those things that sounds completely insane unless you’ve been through something similar. A lot of it was learning how to respond to crazy but I did actually learn a few positive behaviors directly from them. You’d be surprised how much please / thank you and sir / ma’am they use. I also learned to stand a lot taller, swagger a little, and speak from my chest. Like people will comment on how much confidence I display which is wild to me being actually in my own head. There are also a few really poignant lessons I learned from some very specific patients but those are much longer stories of their own.

I also always said I wanted to be someone worth listening to and I will say I never seem to have a problem with that now. When I took my instructor classes to start teaching violence deescalation and physical management classes they told me it was going to be hard to get people to stay engaged and pay attention but I rarely have trouble with that. Organization and staying on topic are hard but my ratings on how much is learned and enjoyability are consistently high.