"He who fights with monsters should look to it that he himself does not become a monster. And when you gaze long into an abyss the abyss also gazes into you." -Friedrich Nietzsche
last week wore me down.
there is this dynamic in my patients' lives that i just can't understand. so much of my nursing practice involves working with this population, and it completely baffles me. we take care of this core group of 18-21 year old men who are trauma patients (usually shot or stabbed) with no jobs, criminal records, multiple children by multiple different women, and seemingly no desire to do anything worthwhile with their lives.
i just can't figure it out. it's not a race thing (although it's way more prevalent in certain groups), it's not a class thing it's a LIFESTYLE, and this lifestyle is being glorified all around us. somehow these guys have gotten the idea that certain things in life are the most important: money (the biggest problem, in my opinion), power, reputation, being desired by multiple women, having a lot of kids as a symbol of being "a man", certain clothes/shoes, a "hard" attitude, etc. i see the same signs of people trying to live this life all the time. it's in the tattoos covering my patients' bodies that say things like "money power respect" and "get rich or die tryna". it's the fact that these boys have the mentality and impulse control of children but the anger and ability to destroy things of adults. it's the way that these patients cry like little boys when they're in pain, and then an hour later are on the phone ranting about "doing their business" and how they're "grown". there is such a disconnect here that i have trouble putting it into adequate words for myself, much less explaining it to other people.
essentially, i often feel like my patients are doomed, and their children who are being born into this lifestyle are doomed, and that society in this city is destroying itself and there is nothing we can do about it.
working with this population has changed me, and probably not for the better.
i want to grab these boys and shake them. i want to talk some sense into them, to make them realize that this life they are aspiring to is beneath them, and that the things that they are living (or more accurately, dying) for are not as important as they think.
but i also realize that i have no idea how life is for these guys. i haven't grown up in their neighborhoods, i haven't been indoctrinated with the idea that selling drugs is normal, going to jail is no big deal, that getting shot is some bizarre rite of passage. i've had opportunities, and a safety net, and a chance.
so instead, i find myself without sympathy. i am SO SICK of this. i'm tired of watching people perpetuate the behaviors that are hurting them. it's like watching someone smoke 2 packs a day for 30 years and then get lung cancer. do they deserve it? no one deserves that. did they earn it? probably.
i sent a patient to jail last week for violating his parole by accidentally shooting himself with a weapon he wasn't supposed to have. he had no idea he was being discharged, and no idea the police were waiting for him. when they walked into his room to arrest him, he didn't bat an eye.
it was like he didn't even care.
it's things like this that have worn away at my optimism, made me doubt that i can ever make a dent in the problems in this world, made me so jaded and cynical that even i am shocked at the things that come out of my mouth sometimes.
i have looked into the abyss, and it has looked back into me. and now i need to figure out how not to become a monster because of it.
