Before we begin to process whatever is happening in the polls today, I have to get this out and purged.

Yesterday was a particularly heinous day at CPE. Not because of patient visits but because of the group session.

J did a verbatim on a visit he did in the mental health unit with a depressed patient who had checked himself in because he wanted to end his life.

J’s response to this patient pushed all my buttons. Every single last one of them.

Instead of listening, J told the guy why he was wrong to feel despair. “You are worth more than money troubles.” While true, having this be your immediate response is NOT HELPFUL. What this man needed was to talk it out. To have someone listen. To have someone feel a small portion of the pain he was feeling. Or at least pretend.

J apparently has never been depressed, clinically or situationaly or anything more than “the blues” so his answers smacked of “pull yourself up by your bootstraps” or “snap out of it.”

Through the course of the conversation, I risked more about my own battle with this disease in the misguided notion that he actually wanted to understand where this guy was coming from. He did not want to understand. He used what I shared to claim that he “doesn’t ever feel that way because I trust in God and have my faith.”

And that’s when I said “f**k you.”

I get the prize for flinging out the effenheimer first I guess.

But it really feels like he swung his bat and blaming me for getting hit.

His kind of response is why I don’t think anyone should ever go to a religious source for counseling. Ever. Period.

Ever.

And it’s the kind of attitude that almost makes me despair of being a church worker. That people hear this kind of shit from pastors makes me sick to my stomach. His sanctimonious condescending attitude is everything that’s wrong with organized religion and why I don’t blame a single person from opting out.

I don’t know how to say this so that it is clear: prayer and faith and right doctrine and “a personal relationship with Jesus” is no guarantee of a happy life. If bad things happen to me or I am depressed or schizophrenic or have cancer or lonely, it is NOT because of some default in my faith or moral grounding.

It just is.

It is life.

Shit happens.

Depression happens. I don’t choose it. My God, who would choose it??

LC mentioned that based on last week’s conversation, she doesn’t feel safe in the group anymore. I don’t either. And that makes me sad. And I’m not quite sure how I will participate in the group next Thursday. But I know that I feel I need to protect myself, and so I will.

— — —
A year ago (or longer) on This Journey…

Five years 2009
Actual Blogoversary 2008
3 Years Ago 2007
Go Vote! 2006
Ha! I knew it! 2005
Reflection – October 2005
This guy is much calmer than I was on 11/3 2004
A beginning… 2004

November 7th, 2006 | Category: CPE | Subscribe to comments | Leave a comment | Trackback URL