2.6-3

My Grandmother’s birthday is coming up this month. I know this is a difficult time of year for her, both her and my grandfather (who has passed away) have birthdays this month and it is the month of their anniversary. No other family lives even in the same state as she does and I know she gets lonely. My family loves each other very deeply and we miss one another but we are HORRIBLE about keeping in touch (on a [semi] regular basis). Most of us have Facebook now which is nice to get to see pictures and posts but it is not the same as a letter or a phone call. I am guilty of not reaching out to my family as often as I should, especially my grandparents. I always had a special relationship with them because I was the only grandchild to grow up around them (for 5/6 yrs anyway) and they would watch me while my mom worked late nights or had late night classes. I feel so guilty about it yet year after year it doesn’t change, we’re all like that. I know we are all spread out over the country and we all have our own busy lives but we just can’t seem to keep in touch the way we should. Why is this? Sometimes it’s almost infuriating because we all say we will and never do, again I am guilty of it too. It’s so weird because we really do love each other so much and when we do get together they are some of the best memories and we all hate to leave, so again why can’t we get our shit together and call one another every now and then.

 This took a very different turn from where I had originally thought. I know my grandma is lonely and I hate that for her. It’s is hard to make it up to visit her due to time, money, work, school, etc. I hate that my grandpa is gone. He was really and truly the kindest, gentlest, sweetest soul. This world needs more people like him. He used to have a saying that he would always tell us grandkids “out of all the grandkids named (fill in name) you’re my favorite”, mind you there are no grandkids with the same name. I miss his hugs. He hugged with such vigor yet it was as gentle as an angel. He had a great laugh too; more like a chuckle which is funny because most people knew him as Chuck (his real name is Charles).

The reason I am think about them is that my Aunt reached out to some of us, ironically via Facebook, to see if we could all make an extra effort to call or send her a card or pictures. All I know is that I’ve got to make this happen. Funerals shouldn’t be the only time we see or (really) talk to family, especially when we love each other so dearly. This again did not go as I thought in terms of writing but sometimes it takes calling ourselves out to “get it”.

2-5

Sometimes I can’t help but question my job. I work with mentally ill patients who are typically at their worst. Recently one of my coworkers was severely injured at work as a result of a patient. Since then myself and other colleagues have questioned the safety of our jobs. We are supposed to be treating people with mental illness, and I understand that mental illness and substance/alcohol abuse goes hand in hand, it’s hard to determine which came first at lot of times. It’s like the chicken or the egg. Anymore though we seem to treat more and more people who are substance abusers and those who are trying to avoid jail or prison. It feels more like a rehab and a jail than it does an inpatient unit at a hospital. There is a trend of increasingly more violent people coming through and the question arises are we properly trained to deal with this type of population. We go through training and we have to physically restrain people from time to time but anymore it seems like the training is not up to par with the people we are treating. Do you justify letting someone who willfully and knowingly attacked someone else try to calm themselves down or do protect them and everyone else by physical restraints. De-escalation works don’t get me wrong but at that point I can’t help but think it’s too little too late for that. Then you get into another sort of ethical issue of how  do you properly train your staff to handle situations that get physical and making sure that they are given the tools and techniques to protect themselves while at the same time not being violent towards the patient? I am in school working towards a nursing degree and psychology is by background. I have pondered whether or not I want to do psych nursing but lately after the increase in violence and lack of suitable treatment for the type of population we are now dealing with it has made me question that thought.  None of us have seen violence to this degree and that has resulted in such severity. It really has shaken us to the core. I would like to think we do good work and I know that the group of people I work with, who are like second family, are the best to work with and can’t imagine working with anyone else and to seeing one of our own get hurt is tragic. We deal with a lot of crap and very sick and difficult people, and we sure don’t get paid enough, but hopefully at the end of the day it matters.

4.1.1

What is a credo? Credo is actually Latin for "I Believe" and is a statement(s) that represents one’s beliefs and ideas. Basically it’s the beliefs and ideas that guide someone’s life.What type of statement represents me? What defines me? What makes me how I am? Values, beliefs, principles. What do I believe in? What are things I value? I am a mother first and foremost. I am a wife and value my husband and marriage/relationship. Family, friends, loyalty, love-represents Claddagh. Claddagh is an old Celtic symbol of a hands holding a heart with a crown. The hands represent friendship, the heart represents love and the crown represents loyalty. I have been wearing one since I was 12, clearly means a lot to me in fact for the longest time I wore one on my left hand per tradition which was that it would one day be replaced by an engagement ring that would also represent those same things.  I also value the ability to learn, growth, peace, tolerance, diversity, equality. I believe in overcoming adversity, resilience, strength not of just the body but of the mind and spirit. I believe intelligence is not always intellect. I have liberal and conservative views. I don’t like labels. I don’t like hypocrites. I don’t like (organized) religion. I am spiritual but not religious. I don’t know what to believe. Empathy is important. Helping others means you help yourself however the former is much more important than the latter. Words matter just as much as actions. There is more to this life than money and materialistic things. Happiness is what you make it. We should always try to be better versions of ourselves.