Tuesday, November 07, 2006

...of fun!

My job has its ups and downs, its highs and lows, its moments... Actually, I could keep going on that for a while, so let's just cap that with the vernacular, if I may. It's a rollercoaster. I've said before that it's challenging, but really, what else would be expected on a unit for the treatment of convicted sex offenders? Sometimes, a patient will surprise us and make us reevaluate where we think they are in treatment, other times they... well, not so much. On a lot of days, we see both those things. As I'm sure that you have surmised, dear reader, today was one of those days, making everything up to a now an elaborate way to state the obvious.

A lot of this is actually pretty standard. Some patients are on positive bends right now, others: not so much. High Risk group was especially difficult, but it often is. The more cognitive groups can be more difficult, especially after an emotional day of psychotherapy. As things often do in life, confusion gives way to embarassment and very often a healthy dollop of anger, which means that an equal amount of effort is often needed to work through this. At its best, the group takes care of this as peers help those having difficulty work through it. Almost as often, though, there are some who end up making it worse. Today was, let me hear it: BOTH! It's a lot of effort, but yeah, it's satisfying. I was able to talk to the unit psychiatrist (no, not about that, Hana!) to summarize one of the more stressful groups and got a lot of positive feedback for what I said in it. After some months on the job, I'm getting pretty good at calming down agitated patients. This ended the workday, which was good.

Apolgies for vagueness, but it's required. Working in a healthcare facility is one part of it, but I'm also working in one of the most secretive aspects of it, given the sensitive nature of the clientelle. Yes, I do realize that's pretty anticlimactic after the epic introduction. For that, I beg your forgiveness. Formalities aside, the hourlong drive home and trip to the grocery store is always a way to let the stress evaporate. And that's including bad road conditions and other drivers! Fuck yeah!

Epilogue: As some of you know, I've been theoretically participating in NaBloPoMo, but have missed a few posts already. I've been battling the beginnings of a cold and have been falling asleep before my routine posting time as a result, making the last post somewhat of a painful stopgap. The weekend summarizing post is often that, I've found. The point is, I'll make up for those posts.

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