Don't bring me down.

July 31, 2012 7:15 AM

Help me cope with my downer of a job.

I love my job. That being said, it is extremely emotionally taxing. Without going into too much detail, I'm (secondarily) immersed in a myriad of tragic, horrific, unthinkable situations on a day to day basis. I deal with people whose lives are destroyed, pitiable people with no hope, people most of the world would happily forget.

When I'm at work, i can deal with this heavy stuff. But at the end of the day, I find transitioning into my personal life increasingly more difficult with each passing day. Generally, I deal with my thoughts, anxieties, etc. by talking them out with friends. I find it's a big stress reliever. But I'm learning I can't talk about my job with family and friends even in the most generalized terms. People just don't want to hear awful, depressing stuff. At first they are into it because they think it's like a TV show, but then, it really isn't. I think hearing about it makes people uncomfortable and feel bad for me, or really wonder why it's something I would voluntarily sign up for. People tend to say things like, wow I could never do that, which isn't really the kind of conversation I'm trying to get into.

The other thing I'm noticing is that this job is really changing who I am, and I know I need to resist that if I am to avoid burnout and have a long, successful career. Generally speaking, I'm an unflappable optimist and I see a lot of good in the world. I take pleasure in little things. I am happy to be who I am where I am. But I feel this negativity creeping in, or rather, just a handicap on my ability to experience joy. It's just hard to walk away from someone in a dark, dark place and get in the car, blast peppy music, meet your friends and laugh over dinner, you know?

So my question... How do I maintain my cheery outlook? How do I balance work with home? How do I transition from a day dealing with something almost comically grotesque to a night enjoying my family? Who do I talk to and how do I talk without dragging people down?

posted by anonymous to work & money (20 answers total)

Hoo, I totally feel you.

I worked on restoration teams (with the phone company) for hurricanes Andrew and Katrina. I know EXACTLY how you feel.

One doesn't get into Social Work without having a big heart. So you have that working against you. It is necessary for you to become dispassionate. Not mean, but a place where you can evaluate someone's issues, without having any feelings (positive, negative or in-between) about them. Pity and empathy can't help the people you're trying to help.

I'd recommend working with a therapist to develop the emotional tools that you'll need to do this job.

I recommend having a decompression ritual, something that you do every day between work and home. Something tangible that closes the door on the your work and opens the door on your private life. It can be meditation, prayer, a gratitude journal or walking the dog.

My Dad was a social worker and for years he worked with kids in the foster care system. There were some real, tragic stories there. Yet, he was able to separate his emotions about the situation, and compartmentalize his work from his home life.

Take good care of yourself.
posted by Ruthless Bunny at 7:26 AM on July 31, 2012 [6 favorites]

I was recently recommended a visualization exercise to help transition from work to home: as I leave my desk for the day, I visualize myself holding a piece of chalk. I draw a line along the wall, and the chalk gets smaller and smaller and smaller as I walk. As I reach the door, the chalk is gone, and I leave work behind me. I don't have the kind of stress you do, but I think it helps.
posted by mchorn at 7:26 AM on July 31, 2012 [6 favorites]

Are you a social worker? Perhaps you can try to transition into a development role instead with a charity.
posted by discopolo at 7:28 AM on July 31, 2012

Can you decompress with some of your colleagues? Go out for a drink, or carpool home, with them? Do you have a friend in the same line of work you can phone each evening as you walk home? (These are strategies that work for me, and, in the case of drinks, that I've noticed social workers using.)
posted by feral_goldfish at 7:30 AM on July 31, 2012 [1 favorite]

All therapists have therapists. Take a lesson from that and get one.
posted by DarlingBri at 7:31 AM on July 31, 2012 [5 favorites]

Your job doesn't just sound like a bummer; it sounds like an ongoing cause of vicarious trauma. (I don't have the knowledge to suggest remedies, but perhaps just knowing this term will help.)
posted by ottereroticist at 7:34 AM on July 31, 2012 [1 favorite]

Friends in similar jobs have told me they have decompression rituals. These include going to the gym after work, going home and taking a shower to wash off the day, meditating, cooking. Are there any online support groups for people in your line of work?
posted by mareli at 7:35 AM on July 31, 2012 [2 favorites]

I like mchorn's suggestion.

You might hate me for saying this but learn to detach. When I started working in a stressful, heartbreaking job, I was horrified how some of my coworkers didn't just get heartbroken. But guess what? Those are the people that stay on the job for years on end. It's not that they didn't care, they did!, they just knew how to compartmentalize so they could stay energetic on the job. If you keep allowing yourself to get heartbroken with every case, your stress will compromise your work performance and you won't be able to help as much.

Also seconding the after-work rituals. Going to the gym did it for me. It gave me a buffer in between work and home, and gave me happy endorphins :)
posted by Neekee at 7:38 AM on July 31, 2012 [1 favorite]

Colleagues, whether from your actual office or just generally in your field, are a huge source of support. You talk over your job with colleagues or people in similar professions because as you note, you can't vent or work through the horrors and their flipside absurdities with people outside the experience. A regular lunch or happy hour with people in the same or a similar situation will be really helpful. If you can, go to conferences or workshops or networking events to meet folks who can help build a support network for you.

Establish a "leaving this at the office" routine or ritual. I had to do this during a homicide case I worked for a juvenile law clinic when I reached a point where every time I closed my eyes I saw the crime scene photos of the victim. My ritual was not much at all. I walked a particular route (about 3/4 of a mile) around a park, past one of my favorite buildings, and forced myself to focus on the things about that place which made me happy. Rain, shine, snow, wind. I walked my little route before getting on the bus and going home.

The rule was "in the time it takes me to walk this route, I will think only about the route. I will think only about what things in this setting please me." It was hard at first and I was also worried that I'd wear the joy out through overuse, but that didn't happen. It really was just a mental trick, a sort of ritual cleansing, but it works. I had colleagues who drank it away, others who did yoga, or ran. But nearly everyone developed a ritual which clearly marked off the moment when you set the work aside for the night. Those who didn't, eventually, crashed and burned.

Ultimately, having a counselor might help too.
posted by crush-onastick at 7:39 AM on July 31, 2012 [4 favorites]

Seriously, therapy. I dealt with exactly the same issues you talk about here when I was teaching at an inner city public school. I LOVED it, but the emotional toll burned me out and all but destroyed my social life (among other things). My coworkers were awesome and we did a lot of things together to let off steam, but it wasn't enough for me. I wonder to this day if I'd still be in the classroom if I had only gone to therapy. Don't be like me: get professional help.
posted by smirkette at 7:47 AM on July 31, 2012 [1 favorite]

I had a job like this once working with homeless drug addicts.

The best advice I can give you is to get involved with advocacy.

After my first six months at my old job, I found myself frustrated at my friends' lack of understanding. In fact, it got to a point where I started to resent some of them for their apathy and ambivalence. (Actually, I still do, years later, but that's another story...) I kept most of those friends, but I also made new friends by getting involved with political advocacy groups. The causes I involved myself sometimes succeeded and sometimes failed... but those victories: they were like a magic elixir; they kept hope alive and showed me that we really could change lives.

If you stick with both your job and advocacy, you may even find yourself in a position to work on higher level issues where you can make an even bigger difference without having to spend as much time hands-on dealing with abject misery.

No one (not even everyone) can get every broken person the help they need to transform their lives, but those few that we can reach make it worth it.
posted by GnomeChompsky at 8:18 AM on July 31, 2012 [1 favorite]

I would ask colleagues and (if there is such a department where you work) HR if there are groups for people in your profession to talk these things out. I know that nurses in my life have attended such groups, so I'm sure there are such things (or something close to them) that you could get involved with.

A weekly group session in a confidential setting might be just what you need.
posted by xingcat at 8:31 AM on July 31, 2012

Have you ever thought about changing roles so your day is not so dominated by the negative stuff?

I have a friend who was in a similar situation at a front-line social services charity, who spoke of many of the same things that you do. In her situation, the problem was more that she was at the front lines, exposed to the worst parts, but to little of the progress people made. She's since transitioned to a different role at the same organization, where she's helping people who have just made it past the front lines, and can help them start to fix things in a more permanent way. She's much happier now.
posted by cosmic.osmo at 8:31 AM on July 31, 2012

Read this book.
posted by Cygnet at 9:09 AM on July 31, 2012 [1 favorite]

I'm actually in a somewhat similar situation. Work is hard and I hear about a lot of sad things but I feel really connected to it so I want to keep at it. I've been struggling to find an outlet myself -- my husband zones out when I start talking about work and I don't want to bum out friends when I have a chance to see them.

My work offers people in my position the opportunity to work with reports and data a certain percentage of the the time to decrease direct support time. Is this an option for you at your work? I haven't taken them up on this yet for some reason (though I really should...) so I can't speak to the effectiveness super specifically.
posted by smirkyfodder at 9:33 AM on July 31, 2012

My father was a child abuse investigator, and had this problem as well. Recently he told me how he dealt with it -- and it was very much like what Ruthless Bunny suggests above. For him, the ritual of separating wasn't complicated, or drawn out. He just created a physical barrier: He worked across the Mississippi river from where we lived, and when he crossed the bridge to come home, he used that as a signal to feel himself separate from his work concerns and emotions. Having some sort of physical sign was apparently enough to allow him to compartmentalize the horrible situations he had to deal with every day, and separate them from his family life.
posted by ariel_caliban at 9:48 AM on July 31, 2012 [1 favorite]

I have one of those jobs, and after eight years, I (kind of) joke that it has turned me into a Calvinist - I now fully believe in the total depravity of humankind and its inability to save itself. Do I feel like a more callous person since starting this job? Yes. Sometimes my cynicism about human nature startles my family and friends.

Really, detachment is key. There are some cases that hit me hard, but frankly, they are fewer and fewer as the years go by. You can't take all of them personally or you will get too depressed to get anything done.

I also find that decompressing with coworkers over coffee or beer is a big help. They understand, and more importantly, we can discuss the actual details of the situation. Unless a case ends up in the media, I can't talk about it with family or a therapist - and even then, we can only discuss the public information - so they can only provide so much support.

Ultimately, if you want to keep your optimism, you may have to walk away and find something less traumatic. Since you otherwise love your job, try to focus on the good you are doing - you are there for a reason, and while you can't change these situations, you can help improve them.
posted by Flannery Culp at 9:49 AM on July 31, 2012 [1 favorite]

If it helps. You are doing what many of us hope we can do or think we should do in the future. Or worse what many of us complain about but you actually are out there taking care of people, making their lives better. We ALL think and want to do that but not many of us actually take that step.
posted by pakora1 at 9:58 AM on July 31, 2012

My friend, who is a social worker that works with domestic violence and introduced me to the concept of vicarious trauma, suggested a good article on the topic.
posted by ottereroticist at 10:13 AM on July 31, 2012

While my job isn't as intense as yours, it can have its moments. The book Trauma Stewardship, by Laura Van Dernoot Lipsky, really resonated with me.
posted by Kibby at 9:54 PM on July 31, 2012