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I Should�ve Taken That Left Turn at Albuquerque |
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Hello and welcome. If you're new here, be a dear and Read my Disclaimer. My diary not good enough for you? Fine, be that way. Try these instead: plf
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2004-05-31 - 7:37 p.m.� Work was beyond awful again today. And when I say awful, I mean in all honestly. This is not like when I rant about office politics, or who yelled at who for some stupid shit, or even an influx of particularly crankly oldsters. I'm talking life and death kind of awful. I've got a client who is dying, who really needs our service, but for reasons I really can't get into, we can't help him anymore. I've got two volunteers, my two best and busiest volunteers, off ill. One of my volunteers called in today to give me her monthly reports and then ended up breaking down and sobbing as she told me about how her husband is undergoing cancer treatments in another city. It really didn't sound like his chances are very promising either. It was heartbreaking. She kept talking, and crying, and apologizing for crying. Not ten minutes after I got off the phone with her, I got a call from one of my clients who needed to cancel her service because her father just had a stroke, and she needed to be with him. She also broke down into tears as she went on and on, trying to explain why she needed to cancel, even though I was certainly not asking for her to justify anything. I kept telling her that cancelling was completely understandable, and not to worry about it. Then, in the midst of her sobs she blurted out, "This is very hard for me. I have a mental illness." All I could think of to say to that, "I'm sure that this kind of stress mustn't be helping." What the hell kind of answer is that? It seemed to be comforting though, and she did get progressively calmer after that. I was pretty much emotionally spent after that, but the fun kept coming. I got a call from another client asking for my advice on how to with a really stressful and sad family situation. Am I qualified to help? No. I gently tried to explain that. She said she knew that it wasn't my job, but she didn't want to talk to anyone else about it, so I let her talk. And seeing as she had basically worked out what she had decided to do, leaving me just to listen, I didn't really cross any boundaries. At least, not too badly. After she had finished, she asked me she was a bad person for putting herself (essentially her health) over her family. I told her, "of course not." And I meant it. I so do not want to deal with these kinds of things. I'm not trained to do it. I know that all I really did was listen, and that I must be a good listener for people to keep telling me all these things. I know that I should feel good that I was able to help these people. I don't good though. I feel sad, and drained, and helpless. And all the while-- as I listened, comforted, or whatever I did for them-- inside I was wishing they would stop. I don't feel like I'm strong enough to carry the weight of what they unloaded on me. And feeling like that makes me feel like a bad person.
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The big 3 0 - 2006-06-03 Hello again - 2006-05-03 Random stuff in place of an actual update - 2006-03-15 Pictures. Just Because. - 2006-02-23 Christmas 05 - 2005-12-26 Currently listening to: |
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