let's just say

[threeplusfire]

I don't get people. I don't get them at all. They interest me, constantly and often despite my better judgement. I expect so much, and it's a surprise that I'm not more bitter than I am.

Today's calls have been cracked out in all ways possible. I had a social worker who dumped four reports on me inside of thirty minutes. I had a teacher making her first report ever who had to take some deep breaths and obviously cares so much about her students. I had a caller make the comment that a woman was disabled "with that black people disease." I had a call about a suicidal six year old boy. I had a sex abuse call that involved something so painful and grotesque that even thinking about it gives me phantom pain and a shudder of revulsion. I dig into people all day on the phone and wonder what they are thinking when they are going through all this. I want to know, and I can't even give you a good reason why. I just want to know what they are thinking.

Part of me imagines that if I understand what they're thinking, things will make sense. That I'll gain some understanding of how they work and how I relate to them and suddenly things will just make so much more sense. I have that driving need to know, to just know everything.

Comments

[locknestra.livejournal.com]

I just want to give you a big hug, hon. Sometimes I feel bad that the only thing I can offer is RP.

[tsarina.livejournal.com]

Aww thanks. It's alright you know.

[alainn-sorcha.livejournal.com]

Believe me, knowing what they were thinking would not make the situation better. I'll give you the advice my Nazism and WWII professor gave me one day, "If you understood what they were thinking, I'd be worried about you."

Also, "that black people disease?" What the fuck?? What disease did he mean?

[tsarina.livejournal.com]

That's a good point. But I'm like that. I want to understand.

I still have no idea about that one. I asked the caller if she meant sickle cell but she said no. Whiskey Tango Foxtrot?

I don't know how you cope...

[patchwolf.livejournal.com]

...but I admire you.

You hear the worst humanity has to offer, and still manage to keep going. I'd go ballistic and probably end up as a vigilante.

Re: I don't know how you cope...

[tsarina.livejournal.com]

I also hear some good things from time to time, and I have the satisfaction of knowing that I'm doing something useful and good. I dont' have as much trouble coping as I expected to have, because I have a pretty good disassociation mechanism in my head. At times I have to talk or write it out to get rid of it, and that's probably harder on my friends than anyone else.

I couldn't work in the field. If I came face to face with these people, I might lose it on someone.