Black: My patients, my patience

I just finished seeing a patient with whom I could completely commiserate.  

I'm starting to wonder if I'm cut out for this.  If I can be objective and detached yet empathetic enough to help others feel better.  

Do I truly know what I'm doing????

My patient told a tale that I know too well.  Of not having money to make ends meet.  Of figuring out how to rob Peter to pay Paul. Of having to be humble and swallow your pride despite having the burning hatred of fire in the pit of your stomach that cries out against God or Fate or whatever being that may be because you simply can't believe that everything bad is coming your way.

Sure, it's probably a huge cognitive distortion.  But at the time, psycho-mumbo-jumbo doesn't matter because you're so angry that things have gotten to this point.  Some of us (like my patient) turn to substances to address this issue.  Other's of us (like me) just turn it all inward and slowly feel pieces of you falling away that you may never recapture.

Damn, psychiatry is taxing. 

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