Alright, now on to the Patch Adams quote...
"You treat a disease, you win, you loose. You treat a person, I guarantee you, you'll win, no matter what the outcome."
Okay, okay... maybe that sounds a little too cheesy, but I'm allowed a moment or two of nurse geekiness! I love this quote. If I'm honest though, sometimes I prefer to treat the disease. As strange as that sounds, bacteria is much safer than the human soul. It's easy to give someone a course of antibiotics, but broken spirits are much tougher. I sat down with a patient this week and listened to her for a good hour - one horrific story on top of another about the trials in her life. I lead a group therapy session where a crack-addict of 30 years celebrated 3 years clean and spoke of his biggest desire in life: having a good heart and loving everyone around him. Another patient looked me square in the eye and asked, "Tell me, how am I supposed to fix a broken mind with a broken mind?"... I could add to the list, but you get what I'm saying. I'm working with some pretty "broken" people this summer who've had hard lives... many have been rejected by their families and by the world, and dealt with more emotional pain than I can imagine. My heart is breaking for these people. My heart breaks over mental illness and the realities of its widespread arms.
In complete honesty, some days the weight of it all has felt like it was going to knock me down. I have seen and heard so much; like I said, people have shared some very personal and deep hurts with me. The heaviness of it has felt overwhelming, but I'm learning to focus on today. Because the reality is this, the world is a broken place and there are a lot of messed up things in it. I can choose to dwell on that and on the terrible things that happen to people, or I can be grateful for the chance I've been given to step in and make a difference for those hurting people. It's really difficult for me to keep myself from being consumed by the tragedies, but I'm compelled by hope and am trying to help others find hope in their lives too.
So, I apologize that I've been a little slow to write about the things that I've been seeing and experiencing at my job. These first two weeks have carried with them a whirlwind of emotion... it's been exhausting, but really beautiful at the same time. I am learning SO much about mental illness and nursing and people and just about myself. I feel like I have been so humbled by it already and am just having to learn to get over myself. I've already had to confront a lot of fear inside and just swallow some pride long enough to go to some of those hard places with people.
I don't know if any of this makes sense... I'm still processing it all, but I'll continue to keep you in the loop. Hope all is well with you! I'm headed out for a night of Mexican food and bowling with the new Minnesota buddies!
Have a happy weekend!
{xo. jarah}
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