3/21/2025

It was a long day. An hour into my workday - I found myself with a mouthful of blood and a busted lip, that just kept swelling all day. Injuries happen. Steps are taken to minimize risk and injuries at all times but it's part of the job. There's a reason why so many of us with domestic violence backgrounds survive/thrive in this environment. It takes a certain kind of person and culturing to empathize with the clients and behavior.

I can't say I enjoy that part of the job but I don't fear it. If anything, there is nothing but a desire to learn/adjust and prevent it from occurring again. Fighting those natural instincts - because afterwards I was still a little shaky with higher than normal protective reflexes and the bursts of adrenaline running it's course - all hard to describe but it made for a long day, pushed to the edge and I was already there. But time is weird under those pressures. It made for the longest short day. Time was wonky. I just couldn't catch up as the pain exhaustion and heightened sensed wrecked havoc on all of my senses.

Again - accurately capturing PTSD process, is important to me. Especially in caregivers because it's not studied or acknowledged nearly enough. One of these events could cause someone to spiral out into a destructive cycle. Every day societal resources are misdirected away from people who deserve it the most. The people who actually take care of others.

It's not like I ever forget this part of my advocacy. I have nothing but admiration for those who cared for Jake and Julia over the years, enough for me go into therapy for a career as well. The hardest part of me as a parent, was to witness their frustration, shared pain and lack of options medical providers face. Originally it tripped me into fiction writing as a solution. Back then I figured writing could draw attention and/or highlight concerns. It wasn't until I began to study SM that I realized the problem was so much deeper. Words are cheap.

But also, all the concerns I could ever desire to write about - already out there. These are not new issues to discover but the same ongoing problems that society shuffles and ignores. Like on some kind of dysfunctional playlist that only makes sense if someone purposefully does not want to learn from mistakes. It's like society itself is in a state of PTSD.

It's grief. And that I understand. The overwhelming amount of open grief present in society is too much to process. Asking someone to take on more grief is pointless. It's pressure, It's more added stress. Just like if I had to stand there and receive another blow to my mouth. I would hesitate and question why. And that's what we ask people to endure when we do not appropriately address and solve problems. I can't do that to others. As such, I don't understand how someone could gleefully deliver bad news or even want to deliver it at all. Avoidance seems so much more natural.

I'm grateful that I did not lose any teeth and the injury was not worse. I even hate writing of this because I would not want to scare others away from this career path but it's a serious reality to consider when working on the direct line of intervention service. Some days it's a physical injury. All days it's a psychological one. Yet learning occurs.

Today I felt the growth as I committed to a new day. I even started a new personal experiment last night with using loop earplugs in an effort to improve sleep quality and time. I felt rested as I walked into work, despite being punished by a long Spring break week - which really adds an extra hour of unpaid work due to transporting Jake/Julia between my house/grandma's, along with all the other caregiving concerns that arise from chaotic schedules. I'm still tired. The extreme weather conditions did not help. I'm so grateful that it's finally the weekend.

Did being tired contribute to receiving this injury? Yes. Which makes it all so much complex. When you're down, more and more likely to be kept that way. It's so hard to crawl out of a deficit. One day I hope we can address sabotage as part of a mental health management strategy instead of pretending it does not exist.