Sometimes all I can do is just hang in there. My work at the hospital is wearing me down more and more each week, and I’m getting the feeling–sorta like a dull nausea in the pit of my stomach–that my days on the Adolescent Chemical Dependency Unit are numbered. I’ve been doing this for about three years now, and perhaps this kind of burnout is simply inevitable. I’ve not yet in my life been able to stand a full-time work routine for more than a few years without needing to make a change. Working forty hours a week at any one thing has always struck me as mind-numbing and counter to a life of embodied spirituality. At least for me, that’s been the case. I can only trudge on for so long. Of course, the job has also been edifying in many ways, but somehow, on balance, it feels like a losing battle that will eventually end with a bayonet in the belly.
It’s hard to maintain a strong sense of hope when you spend too much time in a psychiatric hospital. Lately, our unit has been accepting patients with serious criminal backgrounds. Criminality and drug problems often go hand in hand, but there’s a difference between a kid who commits crimes to support a drug habit and a criminal who happens to use drugs. Most of the kids I’m working with right now look at our treatment center as a softer and easier alternative to jail time. They don’t want my help, unless it’s geared toward getting them out as soon as possible with minimal effort and hassle. I’m expending tremendous amounts of energy throwing out life preservers to kids who don’t think they’re drowning. They swat away whatever I offer, and I can only watch as they drift further out of reach. It feels like the ship is sinking, and I’m setting aside a life preserver for myself as I look out with trepidation into the deep blue beyond.