Self Care At Work (Or Away From Work)

Not My Image 

I'm back from vacation this week, so I thought I'd write a little bit about balancing self-care and work.
I work in the mental health field, so federal confidentiality prevents me from speaking in specifics about my job. As a mental health consumer in recovery, I am grateful for the federal statutes that protect confidentiality. So I will endeavor to discuss dynamics and not people going forward. The only exception to this will be my story, as it relates to working in the recovery field and maintaining personal wellness.
I've been in the field in one professional capacity or another for over 25 years now. My resume includes experience working in group homes, drug and alcohol treatment facilities, acute psychiatric, inpatient hospital care, shelter services, detoxification units, and group homes.
I've also been a consumer of just about all of the above services. I started out in a detox on October 30th, 1989. I went to outpatient treatment (Now there's a place I've yet to work). I then went, begrudgingly, to a men's group home that focused on treating drug and alcohol addiction. My first couple of years of sobriety saw stays at some supportive living environments that were for addicts/alcoholics in recovery. At seven years sober, I had a 14 day stay in an inpatient psychiatric hospital.
I've also been to Caron Foundation in Wernersville, Pennsylvania. And made gains via individual and group therapy. I'm currently in a facilitated men's group with a therapist whom I see on occasion.
During my psychiatric inpatient stay, I was working in the mental health field as a per-diem worker for a local organization that provides supportive housing.
My first day on the regular unit, I recognized a patient I had provided support to as a staff person at that housing organization. I avoided all eye contact, and returned any chance mutual glance with angry glares. Inside, I was so ashamed to be on the unit (in general) and with this other patient; whom I thought must hate me.
This guy ( I will call him "Russ") waited until I was seated and comfortable before approaching me.

Hey Mike.
Hey Russ.
How long you been here?
Two days.
Are you takin' any meds?
Paxil
That's good Mike. It's good to see you takin' care of yourself.

I ran to my room and cried.
I need to talk about shame. We can get to ego later, but the fist thing I am aware of as I type this is the shame that I felt at having been diagnosed with a mental illness. I thought my recovery program from drugs and alcohol was strong enough to keep me from having a mental illness. I also believed the skills I had gained during my own recovery from trauma would shield me from any additional mental health diagnoses. And I further believed that working in the mental health field was somehow an immunity from being one of "Those people."
A friend in recovery came to see me, and I instantly started critiquing my recovery program. If only I had wrote in my journal more, prayed harder, tried to stop cruising, made a bigger effort to let go, did something, anything but what I was finding fault with about myself under the present circumstances.
My friend stopped me in my tracks. He said,

Mike . . . You're sober, you're breathing, you're in a treatment facility . . . That's going to any lengths.

There was no margin for error in his statement. Another friend from recovery had blown into the hospital a day after me. He had finished off a manic episode with a cocaine, free-base, three day binge. He had asked how I managed to get to the psych hospital sober, and asking for help.
I think I just disclosed the ego piece, let's return to shame.
Depression is a physical illness. Shame is a different animal altogether. In my quest for recovery, I had dispersed (so I though) some of my deeper fears about mental illness by holding up the things I had done well as justification for the deeper feelings of guilt and shame around my trauma history; much of which had yet to be revealed to me. Thank god for that!
And there's nothing wrong with gratitude! But what I had done was place my level of wellness above the misfortune of those I was working with professionally. This ego-driven form of self justification in search of my better self (in comparison to others) had set me up for shame at the humanity of my circumstances with my own mental illness. I had, in effect, built my own pedestal of perceived wellness to stand upon and judge those I was charged with supporting. In doing so, I contributed to the very pitfall I had ended up in when depression had its way with me.
In retrospect, depression had always been with me. I could check out of life for days at a time with little or no contact with others. The exception being the ever-present obsessive pursuit of anonymous sex. I could sleep for 12-14 hours and claim to myself that I was tired or overworked. Then take a long drive, and end up showered and back in bed for another day or so.
The medication I received as a result of the hospitalization was truly life saving, but the trip out from the hospital and into the community was a long and bumpy road. Thank goodness for the funding streams of the time with the state bureau of mental health for support with medications, short-term rent subsidies, and other supports. I would not have made it otherwise. It can take upwards of six weeks for an SSRI (Selective Serotonin Re-Uptake Inhibitor) to have a consistent therapeutic effect. I spent two of those weeks in a hospital, and a few weeks just trying to stay around people and fight off the continued thoughts of suicide. There were friends who looked after me, and community supports that kept me going. I would wake in the morning, take meds, have breakfast, pray, and retreat to the couch to cry until my appointment with local supports. That's about all I could do for the first two to three weeks out of the hospital. And people wonder why patients cycle in and out of treatment.
When I was ready to work again, I got hired to look after folks who were in need of support in their own homes. It was a great job, and afforded me both an income and a flexible schedule with which to attend to my own recovery
As time went on, I found that my professional work helped center me and keep me keenly aware of my own need for emotional wellness. But I started viewing the population I served in a different light. I had been where they were at on a more intimate level, and I was embraced by many of the folks I had served professionally. And like getting clean and sober, they were quick to both love and offer supports unique to staying well and keeping my emotional ship sailing; even in rough seas.
From time to time, I would encounter one of these folks who stayed in the hospital with me in my professional life. Nothing of my hospital stay was ever disclosed, and the former patients who were now consumers in whatever capacity I worked in were open to the process the given organization offered.
Like maintaining personal sobriety, I needed to pursue personal mental health recovery independent of my work environment. I had made some wonderful connections over seven years of staying clean and sober, and these connections served me well in discovering avenues for mental health wellness too.
Occasionally (more often than not, it seems at times) I will access professional services to work on that emotional wellness. I currently attend a facilitated men's group. When needed, I will meet individually with one of the facilitators for some more intimate conversation. This latest set up happened as a result of good supervision at work. I confided in a supervisor that a treatment related intervention had triggered some memories for me, and they directed me to the employee assistance program. EAP, in turn directed me outside of the footprint of my agency, so I could have the freedom to talk with a provider about my own experiences without trying to please that part of my ego that says I need to put on a good face for work.
There are other providers in my men's group, and while we don't "tell tales out of school," there is the mutual understanding of maintaining our own wellness while facilitating recovery for others. Some folks call this wearing two hats, or being a "two-hatter."
I recently had a dear friend receive services from a division under the umbrella of the agency I work for. Given that they had experience working in the field, we were able to establish what our personal and professional boundaries would be with ease. Some additional supervision helped to shore up those boundaries as well.
But I forgot about the intensity of the feelings I may experience, given their personal situation. I have been focusing on supporting the significant other of my friend with their sobriety and left the mental health piece to the competent and capable professionals in their life.
And I took the intensity of the feelings to a private mentor, so as not to break any confidentiality. A fellow provider for a different agency, they know how to help me process feelings without going into specifics about the individuals in question.
It's said that Maine is one big, small town, and these situations come up from time to time. For me, it is important to remember that there are folks who can deliver services while I engage in self-care. And that there are others (both professional and personal) that can help me chunk down what is mine, and what belongs "on the clock" so to speak.
The biggest lesson though, is to never, ever, consider myself to be better than anyone I provide services to. Twenty years ago, that ego-feeding process kept me away from accessing services long enough to be almost fatal. And the love and support from folks I judged so harshly, helped create the cornerstone to the platform I have for wellness today.
Peace,
M :-)