Wounded Warriors
I feel like this job is sucking the compassion out of me...
I have been feeling like this for awhile. I miss the kind heart I used to have.
I've only been in health care for three years and I'm already starting to get bitter. It makes me sad because I don't know what to do with my life besides health care.
Something that's not adequately dealt with in EMS is that we are exposed to a much higher proportion of desperate, degenerate, despicable human beings than almost anyone on the streets and in health care other than those specialties that deal with the desperate, degenerate and despicable.
But at least for them, that's all they deal with. We have to deal with them at the same time as we are dealing with people who really DO want to live but are interrupted by tragedy. A big part of the trauma of the work is that we're always facing the parts of us that love the ones that try, and we hate the ones who don't.
We REALLY want the ones who try to live, and yes, we wish the ones who don't want to live to succeed in their quest; just not on our shift!
The people you're talking about appear to be (in my mind) tragedies of choice, and it's a tough thing to always have to "save" them from themselves just so they can do it all again and again. You hit the nail on the head; this gets old!
Add to this the fact that we go to where THEY live and more often than not are witness to worlds filled with despair. After a while, you can't help but think this is the way the world really IS and you live in a Lucky Bubble! How much of this can the average person take? We are asked to occupy horrendous worlds that we work very hard to avoid in our personal lives.
Some days, and I don't think it's much different with most of us, I have to work pretty damn hard to want to get up in the morning. But I do and these idiots don't and they get to slide and suck off of MY life's energy! How fair is that?
It's called resentment. It starts with pity and then, after repeated exposure to all sorts of humanity that just doesn't have the will to go on, you become cold and hard and then, when you need an outlet, the Culture of the Paramedic demands that you apologize for whining!
There's another component as well, and this is something few talk about and perhaps many will disagree. Personally, I often questioned if I were in the same circumstances as my patients, could I possibly become just like them?
After years of such exposure I came to the conclusion that I was not immune, and that was scary because looking into their eyes, as much as I despised the thought, I could see glimpses of myself.
This is super-scary territory, but really, look at it; is this all that much different than looking at your burned out peers and worrying you could end up there, too? You know it's a possible truth because you see it every day.
You're not whining, Sash, you're telling the truth.
You're also defining a major component of burnout; it starts when you notice YOUR humanity is weakening and you don't want to lose it. Unfortunately, by the time you realize you're burned out, you've usually already lost it!
After a while it becomes a question of losing faith in humanity and ourselves because we start to "miss the kind heart I once had."
In that respect, there's hope. But you can't do it alone.
I'll be blogging on this because your post brought up something important: I don't have any better solution for your dilemmas than to urge everyone here to take your post seriously and do their best to contribute to the converstation by really looking at how this stuff lives inside them as well.
I honestly don't have the answer for you but I truly believe that were enough people here willing to share their similar deeply-felt dilemmas and how they've worked through them, EVERYBODY would get some ideas how to work through this stuff...
...and maybe some would get out of the biz for self-preservation before it's too late. That wouldn't be a bad thing.
But I'll guarantee you this; if we continue to hold to the Code of Silence about this, EMS will never become a true profession. Now, it's built for transients.
The reality of this industry is the shelf-life of the average medic is five years. Who are we kidding that this is a lifetime career? And then, when we do leave we're supposed to feel lousy about it?
I don't think so.
A normal part of our experience is it feels like we're the only ones who are seeing these things and feeling this soul-eating detest for other human beings; we question our own ability to experience compassion and as a result, wonder about our own humanity.
This is part of the territory of EMS, and I'm not saying everyone experiences this like you. You see the possibility and it's alarming; most don't. I'm not saying either side is right or wrong, everyone is wired differently but there ARE those amongst us who are a bit more vulnerable to soul-searching questions.
If you look at our
Greatest contributor to burnout thread you'll find about 90 resonses of which approximately 50 are related to the mechanics of the job (pay, hours, IFTs, respect, fatigue, absence of career opportiunities, management, politics, etc.) and 10 identifying more personal, human conflicts like your own. The balance of comments were tangential to the topic, or focusing on pay or how paramedics are or are not like Doctors!
Something interesting to note, however, was many of those 50 comments INCLUDED issues around working with burned out peers! Yet, none of them defined what made their peers burned out! Maybe we need to hear more from everyone so we can start looking this in the face.
Thanks for the Thread, Sasha and we'll see where this goes. I'm always available by PM.
