I last volunteered for Samaritans nearly seven years ago.
Despite excellent supervision and training the calls eventually took their toil and I felt I lost my empathy with some callers which, as anyone in the trade would tell you, is the first sign of burnout.
I resigned and was happy to go
Another sign of burnout.
In my years working for the charity, one call will always stand out with me.
It kind of haunts me, even to this day and can still move me to tears if I think about it carefully enough.
It was from a young teacher, I will call David.
David had had a difficult year. His work had been stressful and many of his class had not achieved the grades that he and they had wanted. He felt a failure, isolated and miserable.
He also, more importantly, felt responsible .
He was sat in his car, near a beach, somewhere in the UK
He had no discernible accent and I could hear seagulls crying nearby.
He was drinking from a quarter bottle of Rum and had, he told me , taken enough tablets to put a horse to sleep.
He had started to slur his words and had cried for much of the call.
I felt as though I was losing him and called a colleague in to listen to the call.
She listened and shook her head and squeezed my hand and told me I was doing alright.
But, I was losing him and I knew it.
He took another pill and I heard him swallow it.
And I asked him about his favourite music, his taste in films, and his best friend.
Anything to engage him in conversation.
Anything to create a hole in his depression.
Every trick in the book.
We had been on the phone together for over an hour and I sensed that he was wrapping up the call.
“ I just wanted to hear a kind voice John” he explained and at the end of my tether I asked him not to go.
But he did go.
With a gentle “Thank You” he ended a call which may of been his last conversation with another human being on earth
And that was the day, I knew I had done enough for the Samaritans .
from Going Gently https://ift.tt/GtYyvjV
ليست هناك تعليقات:
إرسال تعليق