We've all done it, I'm sure - Been frustrated or angry about some circumstance or string of events, and pinned it to the closest person possible, whether or not they were to blame. I catch myself doing this from time to time. Maybe I've had a frustrating day with the kids where everyone is whinny and nothing has gone right. My innocent husband comes home, and I find myself finding reasons that my tightly wound, frayed nerves are his fault. And our minds weave clever narratives. They are very adept at coming up with reasons that sound plausible to justify an emotion, whether or not they really caused it. Sometimes circumstances directly cause emotion, sometimes the emotion is there on it's own and we make up reasons why - often implicating someone in our current sphere.
Especially anger. To put it poetically, anger is a restless spirit searching for somewhere to rest. It's funny how we can be happy without finding someone to credit it with, but we can't be angry without finding someone to blame. Even when there is no one. We see this very intensely in the ER. If ever there was a perfect environment for combustible emotion, an ER is it. I'm sure every single one of my co workers has been on the receiving end of anger with no where to go.
People come in and are sick or in pain or already inconvenienced by "having" to come to the emergency room in the first place, and sometimes they have to wait. Or have uncomfortable procedures done. Or stay overnight when they want to go home. Or stay in the ER because there are no inpatient beds. People become volatile and angry, and since the anger feels it must go somewhere, it's often directed at the nurse. Is it our fault the waiting room is full because we're seeing record breaking numbers? No. Can we help the inpatient situation of limited space and staff? Nope. Can I magically make IVs feel like angel kisses? Not really. Are we working our butts off under difficult circumstances? You betcha! But it doesn't matter. You are a body and a face that's related to the situation making someone uncomfortable or afraid or restless. I even had an old lady who was - probably - very sweet under normal circumstances call me a jerk one day when I was working triage because it was taking so long to get rooms. I won't lie, it hurt my feelings.
And there is the challenge. It takes a long of perceptiveness and emotional control to absorb anger sent at you unjustly without responding with it's cousin, defensiveness. It's hard to feel like you are pouring out everything you have to help your patients, and yet they are angry with you. Our natural defense systems rear up with force . People with lesser verbal filters have been known to say things like "you're waiting a long time because you aren't actually dying and we're trying to help people who are." True? Often. Helpful? Not really.
Although I can recognize when someone's anger at me doesn't have anything to do with me, it's much harder to control the anger I feel in response. Because that too wants somewhere to go. But it's my goal to become so full of God's grace that I can absorb and neutralize negative emotions directed at me and respond with kindness, instead of joining in a useless racquetball war of projection. Sadly, I've got a long way to go...
Thursday, May 24, 2012
Wednesday, May 16, 2012
Lessons From My Son
I love how my children view the world. An ugly car lot to me is a marvelous scape of colored balloons to them. While I am annoyed at a delay at a railroad crossing, they are ecstatic about the passing train. They rejoice in the majestic wonder of nature that is a bunch of crows sitting on top of a building ("Mama, look! Birds!!") while I see ugly birds. To the pure all things are pure, and to a beautiful soul all things are beautiful.
Not too long ago, me and my kids were in the bathroom at Walmart. I don't know what it is about Walmart that awakens my daughters GI system, but I swear 85% of our trips there involve her needing to "go poo-poos". So we spend about 15 minutes (a girl needs time to relax after all!) in the bathroom, while I try and keep Jackson from feeding his little budding nervous system with tactile information from every germ ridden surface possible.
On this occasion, Kinsey was sitting in the stall while I walked Jackson around to try and keep him from squirming out of my arms. A lady walked out of a neighboring stall looking a little bit like one of the stars of those "people of Walmart" photo albums. I hardly realized the subconscious appraisal I was doing of all of her physical deficits when my son leaned out from my arms and gave her one of his award winning dimply grins and exclaimed "Hi!" in the sweetest, most friendly voice possible. The lady smiled back with obvious pleasure and I felt the familiar pang of much deserved conviction.
No wonder the world loves babies. A baby doesn't see old or young, ugly or pretty, fat or skinny, fashionable or tacky. They see a human face and they want it to smile back at them. I know that the time will come when my son will no longer just see a human face but will start adding judgements to it. The seeds of brokenness will grow in time as they do in all of us. As his mother all I can do is weed as many out as I can identify and passionately plant as many gospel seeds as I can while I can and pray they grow. But how I love this time of purity and beauty. And how thankful I am for how it convicts my own heart of the weeds I've allowed to grow there.
Not too long ago, me and my kids were in the bathroom at Walmart. I don't know what it is about Walmart that awakens my daughters GI system, but I swear 85% of our trips there involve her needing to "go poo-poos". So we spend about 15 minutes (a girl needs time to relax after all!) in the bathroom, while I try and keep Jackson from feeding his little budding nervous system with tactile information from every germ ridden surface possible.
On this occasion, Kinsey was sitting in the stall while I walked Jackson around to try and keep him from squirming out of my arms. A lady walked out of a neighboring stall looking a little bit like one of the stars of those "people of Walmart" photo albums. I hardly realized the subconscious appraisal I was doing of all of her physical deficits when my son leaned out from my arms and gave her one of his award winning dimply grins and exclaimed "Hi!" in the sweetest, most friendly voice possible. The lady smiled back with obvious pleasure and I felt the familiar pang of much deserved conviction.
No wonder the world loves babies. A baby doesn't see old or young, ugly or pretty, fat or skinny, fashionable or tacky. They see a human face and they want it to smile back at them. I know that the time will come when my son will no longer just see a human face but will start adding judgements to it. The seeds of brokenness will grow in time as they do in all of us. As his mother all I can do is weed as many out as I can identify and passionately plant as many gospel seeds as I can while I can and pray they grow. But how I love this time of purity and beauty. And how thankful I am for how it convicts my own heart of the weeds I've allowed to grow there.
Thursday, May 3, 2012
Something To Look At
A long time ago I had a patient with a horrible skin infection. It had literally eaten away almost half of his face, leaving it raw and disfigured. I've seen a lot as a nurse, and have learned to take in something awful with my eyes without letting it hit my face. And I'm glad, because he turned out to be one of the sweetest patients I've had. Gentle mannered, polite, and kind.
This patient's ER stay turned into a hospital admission. It was back in the old days before our hospital had built us a snazzy new ER and there were no private elevators. Patients being transferred on gurneys shared the same tiny space with the rest of the foot traffic going up and down in the building. As I was pushing his stretcher up to the elevator there was a group of young women waiting.
They saw us instantly as we rounded the corner toward the elevators, and their facial expressions took no pause in reflecting their disgust at my patient's disfigured face. They glanced at him and at each other making faces and whispering about how gross he looked. I felt a distinctly protective anger at their reaction to him. I felt his exposure, laying there on the gurney with no where to hide, front and center. I couldn't see his face, but I felt his shame and his embarrassment. I wanted to hit those girls in the face and tell them to learn some manners. But instead, as I walked I nonchalantly turned the gurney backwards so they couldn't see him and so he wouldn't have to see them. I stared hard at the girls as they stepped into an elevator. There was room for us. I let the door close and waited for the next one.
It is understandable when someone's face registers momentary shock at seeing something about someone they didn't expect. It's a human reaction. But we have to remember there is a person in every broken and crippled body. Take care to control your face and your words. A wounded body doesn't need a wounded soul too.
This patient's ER stay turned into a hospital admission. It was back in the old days before our hospital had built us a snazzy new ER and there were no private elevators. Patients being transferred on gurneys shared the same tiny space with the rest of the foot traffic going up and down in the building. As I was pushing his stretcher up to the elevator there was a group of young women waiting.
They saw us instantly as we rounded the corner toward the elevators, and their facial expressions took no pause in reflecting their disgust at my patient's disfigured face. They glanced at him and at each other making faces and whispering about how gross he looked. I felt a distinctly protective anger at their reaction to him. I felt his exposure, laying there on the gurney with no where to hide, front and center. I couldn't see his face, but I felt his shame and his embarrassment. I wanted to hit those girls in the face and tell them to learn some manners. But instead, as I walked I nonchalantly turned the gurney backwards so they couldn't see him and so he wouldn't have to see them. I stared hard at the girls as they stepped into an elevator. There was room for us. I let the door close and waited for the next one.
It is understandable when someone's face registers momentary shock at seeing something about someone they didn't expect. It's a human reaction. But we have to remember there is a person in every broken and crippled body. Take care to control your face and your words. A wounded body doesn't need a wounded soul too.
Tuesday, May 1, 2012
Thoughts on Suicide
Long before I began living under the rainy skies of the Pacific Northwest, I had heard the statistic: highest suicide rate in the country. Not exactly something to list under "best place to live" categories. Working in an ER here, I can say I believe it's true. It is a rarity it seems to work a shift where one to multiple patients are not there for either a suicide attempt or suicidal thoughts. The attempts range from a few scratches on the wrist by a paperclip to a call from paramedics on our base station line alerting of one all too successful. One call I took was for a 15 year old boy. Another was for a 75 yr old man. Both surely unable to fathom the emotional wreckage they would leave behind them.
I've lost count of the number of nose to stomach tubes I've threaded into unconscious (or conscious but uncooperative) young women to administer thick black charcoal with the hopes of absorbing some of the toxic chemicals from their medication of choice before it hits their blood stream. I've watched people start thrashing around their stretcher from the "crawling out of your skin" side effects of a med they ODed on that they certainly didn't count on. The average person is no pharmacist, and often doesn't realize that what they are taking in the amount they are taking won't make them dead so much as seriously miserable.
This cumulative effect over the last 6 years of talking to patients with suicidal thoughts and aggressively trying to save others whose thoughts took form has caused to me to think a lot about suicide, and what causes people to attempt it (or say they want to). There are three reasons I have noticed.
1. The obvious one. Despair. An inability to see any way out of the pain or struggle of life. They've been besieged by tragedy or unrelenting physical illness or pain and they just want out. This reason breaks my heart.
2. A call for help. These are the people who don't really want to die, but are looking, consciously or subconsciously, for a way to make people notice they are not coping well with life. This too makes me sad.
3. Manipulation. This is the one you don't hear about, probably because it sounds so harsh. But it is so true. These are the people that use suicide attempts to win the upper hand relationally. Because the tortured soul on a ventilator or languishing on the stretcher in an ER is surely not the one to blame. Whoever did not care enough about her or realize she was so fragile is the one to blame. And the guilt this generates will keep them in their place for some time to come. These are the people who harm themselves intending for the real hurt to fall on others. Deceiving and self deceived. Leaving suicide notes that make you cringe because they are so obviously manipulative. These make me angry. And sometimes they succeed on accident.
Suicide is no escape. If the soul is eternal, there comes a time when we have to look back on the domino effect of our choices. Feel the enormous pain and destruction that taking our own lives leaves. It's no romantic "lay me in the river at dawn" scenario.
For those who have considered suicide, for whatever reason, please remember that the pain inflicted on others by harming yourself will be no salve to your own wounds. Working through our hurts and disappointments and pain is harder sometimes than the escape, but healing is possible. And there is Someone whose wounds are powerful enough to heal all of our own. Don't extinguish a flame you didn't lite in the first place.
I've lost count of the number of nose to stomach tubes I've threaded into unconscious (or conscious but uncooperative) young women to administer thick black charcoal with the hopes of absorbing some of the toxic chemicals from their medication of choice before it hits their blood stream. I've watched people start thrashing around their stretcher from the "crawling out of your skin" side effects of a med they ODed on that they certainly didn't count on. The average person is no pharmacist, and often doesn't realize that what they are taking in the amount they are taking won't make them dead so much as seriously miserable.
This cumulative effect over the last 6 years of talking to patients with suicidal thoughts and aggressively trying to save others whose thoughts took form has caused to me to think a lot about suicide, and what causes people to attempt it (or say they want to). There are three reasons I have noticed.
1. The obvious one. Despair. An inability to see any way out of the pain or struggle of life. They've been besieged by tragedy or unrelenting physical illness or pain and they just want out. This reason breaks my heart.
2. A call for help. These are the people who don't really want to die, but are looking, consciously or subconsciously, for a way to make people notice they are not coping well with life. This too makes me sad.
3. Manipulation. This is the one you don't hear about, probably because it sounds so harsh. But it is so true. These are the people that use suicide attempts to win the upper hand relationally. Because the tortured soul on a ventilator or languishing on the stretcher in an ER is surely not the one to blame. Whoever did not care enough about her or realize she was so fragile is the one to blame. And the guilt this generates will keep them in their place for some time to come. These are the people who harm themselves intending for the real hurt to fall on others. Deceiving and self deceived. Leaving suicide notes that make you cringe because they are so obviously manipulative. These make me angry. And sometimes they succeed on accident.
Suicide is no escape. If the soul is eternal, there comes a time when we have to look back on the domino effect of our choices. Feel the enormous pain and destruction that taking our own lives leaves. It's no romantic "lay me in the river at dawn" scenario.
For those who have considered suicide, for whatever reason, please remember that the pain inflicted on others by harming yourself will be no salve to your own wounds. Working through our hurts and disappointments and pain is harder sometimes than the escape, but healing is possible. And there is Someone whose wounds are powerful enough to heal all of our own. Don't extinguish a flame you didn't lite in the first place.
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