Prompt: Write about a time in your job, career, or role that brought you to tears.
Just a quick backstory: I was going through my old notes, clearing out old emails and drafts, and came across something I was going to either include as a journal entry or a Facebook post, I believe. I wrote it in October of 2021, when I would have been 36-years-old, four years from the 40 I am now. And a lot was going on at that time...
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For those of you who work with people (health care workers, social workers, police officers, teachers, pastors/ministers, whatever...) has there ever been a moment in your job, career, or role that brought you to tears?
Yesterday, I was doing an intake assessment on an older Black gentleman. Homeless. Diagnosed with Schizoaffective disorder. (For those who don’t know, Schizoaffective disorder is a mental health disorder with combined symptoms of Schizophrenia such as hallucinations and/or delusions, and mood disorders.) He had a previous go round with the mental health center in the past but apparently was incredibly hard to track down and contact for follow-ups. Completely off his medication. He made delusional statements and became agitated in my office. My amazing co-workers helped to de-escalate him so I could at least complete a safety plan and help get him scheduled for the doctor for medication. Through his narrative, he told me he was “being hooked up to a satellite and being a god on a separate universe of aliens” that will accept him, “because these white motherf—king devils on this world just keep murdering people and don’t give a f—k what happens” (his words, not mine). “Murdering, murdering in all directions.” He said all he wanted was HELP, and people didn’t care that he was not getting it.
I was shooting out messages to my coworkers through Microsoft Teams and pulling my skills of improving on the spot (and for my friends and mentors who keep telling me to “go with the flow” with life, I think because of the type of flow I’m going with some of my patients I get tired of going with the flow of life).
I told him, as calmly as I could, “Sir. I’m trying to get you that help. All this is the first step in getting you to that help I know you need.” As he hung his head down and placed his head in his hands, he said quietly, almost as if ashamed, “Yes. I’m hooked up to these satellites that are causing me pain. But do your assessment.”
I don’t know if it was the way his demeanor had changed, like he was ashamed, or what it was, but I seriously had to keep myself from crying.
As we were waiting at the checkout window for him to make his appointment, he made this comment, holding his head down, “I’m getting old.”
And I looked at him, “Yes, sir. I haven’t been through your experience. But I do understand that feeling, that getting old—along with everything else one has to deal with in life—is a hard feeling to accept.”
After that, I had to step out of the office for some fresh air and a breather, and I called a good friend of mine to cry it out. For whatever reason, that comment the patient made about him getting old brought me back to my grandma, and how each time I would visit her during her the last couple of months of life, it seemed like she was having a hard time accepting the fact that she was getting older and she needed help and she tried to deny the fact that she WAS getting old and couldn’t do everything by herself anymore. How it kind of brought me back to MY days of darkness after my grandma’s death when the fact and reality hit me that I’m not the young person I was anymore, that I’m getting older myself.
(This is why I always say God bless my fitness instructors who make their classes into safe spaces for me, because I honestly had a mental breakdown with one of my awesome, awesome instructor friends after her class one day and just broke down crying like, “Dammit, I’m getting old!” And she just gave me a hug, letting me cry it out, and was like, “Yeah. We are getting old, P.”)
But, again, even though that experience was totally unexpected, I think I needed it for my growth in my role, because it opened my eyes even more about some of the population that the agency is serving that often gets overlooked. And I want to get more experience in serving that population. I’m not sure where my social work future is going to be, but for whatever reason, that population holds a special place in my heart.
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And four years later, my life and my role as a social worker has been through a journey of not quite knowing where I will fit. But even today, that population still holds a place in my heart.
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