Long week at the ranch...
Another week over. Its not been a good week.
One of our residents was found dead in his room on Wednesday evening, by the smell staff who found him think he was there for over 24 hours. Apparently it was an overdose, but the Police believe someone else was in the room when it happened so they're treating it as suspicious and the room is still sealed off.
On the same day a man came in to tell us that one of our residents who had just moved out was found dead in his flat. He had been a heavy drinker for years but had recently been making movements in the right direction, trying to avoid drinking and attending AA meetings. He was about 55 and couldn't read and write, he was a nice bloke and was always polite and had never given us any grief.
The guy who died in the hostel was always in an urgent hurry to get his script, rude to everyone and always walked round with a miserable look on his face and a bottle of cider. I judged him to be unpleasant, unlikeable etc. I don't know what went on in his life to make him the way he appeared. The whole thing made me feel quite sad, dying perched up against the radiator whilst the fella who was with you ran off and didn't get help.
Since December we've had four deaths in the hostel and one ex resident. Apparently there hasn't been a death at our hostel for over three years.
Personally I'm suprised that it doesn't happen more often, we work with 160 people and a good percentage of those have serious substance misuse issues.
I feel quite subdued by the whole thing, I've accepted the the deaths and its back to work.
It has knocked me a bit, sometimes I feel that I'm wasting my time and that whatever I do some residents will never change their self destructive behaviours.
Of course not everyone will change, my head tells me this nice and logically, my heart on the other hand will always have trouble accepting this fact.When these deaths happen I ask myself if I could have done more surely if I was good at my job these things wouldn't happen. I forget that there's another 40 staff having similar thoughts.
I love helping people and I'm good at my job. However I sometimes get a sense of being fraudulent, like I'm putting up a whole pretence and one day somebody's going to turn around and say "What the fuck are you doing?". The fact that this hasn't happened shows that I'm more than capable of doing my duties at work. Self doubt is something I've struggled with for many years, the underlying feeling to that doubt is fear... fear of being wrong, fear of harming others, fear of others harming me.
I've had good opportunities to accept this fear and not allow it to take control. If I give in to this fear I end up running away and hiding from life.
A week like this has left me feeling scared, angry and shameful though I also feel some joy at spending this weekend with my partner being in love.
One of our residents was found dead in his room on Wednesday evening, by the smell staff who found him think he was there for over 24 hours. Apparently it was an overdose, but the Police believe someone else was in the room when it happened so they're treating it as suspicious and the room is still sealed off.
On the same day a man came in to tell us that one of our residents who had just moved out was found dead in his flat. He had been a heavy drinker for years but had recently been making movements in the right direction, trying to avoid drinking and attending AA meetings. He was about 55 and couldn't read and write, he was a nice bloke and was always polite and had never given us any grief.
The guy who died in the hostel was always in an urgent hurry to get his script, rude to everyone and always walked round with a miserable look on his face and a bottle of cider. I judged him to be unpleasant, unlikeable etc. I don't know what went on in his life to make him the way he appeared. The whole thing made me feel quite sad, dying perched up against the radiator whilst the fella who was with you ran off and didn't get help.
Since December we've had four deaths in the hostel and one ex resident. Apparently there hasn't been a death at our hostel for over three years.
Personally I'm suprised that it doesn't happen more often, we work with 160 people and a good percentage of those have serious substance misuse issues.
I feel quite subdued by the whole thing, I've accepted the the deaths and its back to work.
It has knocked me a bit, sometimes I feel that I'm wasting my time and that whatever I do some residents will never change their self destructive behaviours.
Of course not everyone will change, my head tells me this nice and logically, my heart on the other hand will always have trouble accepting this fact.When these deaths happen I ask myself if I could have done more surely if I was good at my job these things wouldn't happen. I forget that there's another 40 staff having similar thoughts.
I love helping people and I'm good at my job. However I sometimes get a sense of being fraudulent, like I'm putting up a whole pretence and one day somebody's going to turn around and say "What the fuck are you doing?". The fact that this hasn't happened shows that I'm more than capable of doing my duties at work. Self doubt is something I've struggled with for many years, the underlying feeling to that doubt is fear... fear of being wrong, fear of harming others, fear of others harming me.
I've had good opportunities to accept this fear and not allow it to take control. If I give in to this fear I end up running away and hiding from life.
A week like this has left me feeling scared, angry and shameful though I also feel some joy at spending this weekend with my partner being in love.
posted by big-gig at 6:56 pm
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