The illness is lurking

Sometimes I feel I'm going a little crazy.

Not like my residents. I'm not hearing or seeing things that are telling me what to do. I do talk when I know there's no one there. I talk in the car everywhere I go. Sometimes I pretend there's someone in the seat next to me sometimes I don't. Sometimes I lie and talk about what I wish my life was. Other times I'm so honest I'm in tears. I can't decide if this is a good coping mechanism or a step on my slow descent into madness.

There are statistics out there on everything but one that I feel may actually be accurate is that 1 in 17 people (6%) will at some point have a serious diagnosable mental illness. While 26% will meet diagnostic criteria for any form of mental illness. The odds are at some point in my life I'll be one of those people.

I don't know if it's scary or a relief but I feel like it's looming, like the clouds are closing in around me and that I'll never ever be happy. I know I have every reason to be happy. I have friends, a family, a place to live food, a job that even though I hate pays well. I have plans for the future and I have ambitions. I have every reason not to feel like this but I do. The worst part is I've felt it before. I feel like things are out of control and swirling around me like I'm at the event horizon of a black hole about to go over the edge where I'll spend the rest of eternity falling into nothingness.

I want to get help and I know how. I spend my who day telling people to ask for help when they need it to just stand up and tell 'it' that you don't want it there and that you can take control of your own life. We all need to take our own advice more often than we like. Tomorrow I'm going to call and make an appointment for myself. I get some counseling sessions with my insurance so I might as well take advantage of them while I still have it.

It's lurking around the corner. Sometimes I want it to get me to suck me in but for now I'm going to fight it. I'm going to ask for help.

Work & Life and things I more than likely shouldn't be talking about.

You know things are bad at work when you come home have dinner and have a nap in total silence. I just couldn't inject anymore stimuli into my life than the thoughts going on though my head. You call someone to talk about it and you find yourself immediately just falling to pieces and then you're unable to pick to pieces up. That's how it feels like now. I called my Mom to talk but just ended up sobbing into the phone making little sense. I'm still crying it's so bad. I don't know how to explain how this all works. How I know it's not healthy for a job to make you feel this bad.

I try not to talk about work to much since it's kind of sensitive. There are big professional boundaries when working in the health and mental health field. I could be here telling stories about for real crazy things that happen to me but I don't because I don't want to take advantage of my residents like that. It's my job to keep my work place and their home safe and comfortable. I feel like it's neither of those things now. We're mandated an unsafe amount of overtime work, we have dangerous residents who need more security and more staffing around, and most of them aren't getting what they need to help them be able to re-enter the community when their commitment is up. All in all the facility that I'm employed at is failing the people it serves and it's killing me. I don't feel safe there, neither do our residents and my manager does not intend to do anything about it.

I'm at the end of my rope. I've started looking for a new job but I don't feel like I can leave this so easy. I feel like I can't leave my residents there like that in that place that's so bad. Some of them just deserve so much better. I wish I could get them all out and in better places.

I feel so powerless.

This is just my brain kind of spilling ick everywhere. Sorry you made it this far without knowing there really wasn't a point to this.

You might not know...

In general most people don't know I'm a hockey fan. Hockey is my winter soccer and the only professional sport I follow. To me Hockey is this game that throws me back into a more primitive state where I love to see someone get slammed into the glass and the joy of winning just takes over. It's this amazing way to let out so much pent up anger and aggression as I cheer for my team.

Thankfully I live near Pittsburgh, PA allowing me to follow the greatness that is Penguins Hockey. I've seen the Pens go up and down in my life and will admit it wasn't till I was in High School that I started to see the beauty of Hockey thanks to minor league games. In general tickets to see the Pens are far to expensive for me. Now that I'm an adult with a job I can say I'll be attending my second Pens game taking my Dad with me for his first Pens game.

So there's this little bit most people don't know about me.