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I've worn a few hats in the working world. I've been a dishwasher, a cook, a phone jockey, a convenience store attendant, a cook again, a pool guy...then I got together with the love of my life (twenty years into our previously platonic friendship...another story entirely) and she catapulted me into a more professional world.
As a mainstay in our community, her clout alone opened doors for me and I rode her coattails into a world of handshakes, elbow rubs, and as fancy parties as parties get in our mosquito infested, swamp dotted home in what pass for hills in Florida. Eventually, we wound up running a small charity for the homeless here, but that all came crashing down when a perfect storm of burnout, meddling by rivals, and Covid shut us out of our foray into success a'la podunkville and thrust me back into the workaday world I'd come up in.
I've taken the long way around explaining that at this point, I'm slinging three meals a day in an Assisted Living Facility. I was a shoe-in for the role thanks to my early experience cooking and later experience working with the homeless because the demographic in an ALF is strikingly similar. So there. All that exposition just mostly paid off.
Here's a little more: aside from the workshops and certifications involved in becoming a slightly less inept outreach leader at the charity, I also had a bipolar/schizophrenic father, aaaand (being a glutton for punishment) had a child in a long term relationship with a woman bearing the same diagnosis. I could spend years in therapy untying that knot, but for the purposes of this post it only goes to say that my experience dealing with Mental health came entirely from the order of the cards in the deck that life had dealt me. No college. No degrees. But here I am again, bringing coffee to crazy.
But here's the rub: I was mortified (no pun intended on my obviously made up name ((three cheers for anonymity, though, as I can finally SAY this stuff!!))) to discover that most of the medtechs and other employees in the Assisted Living community where I live had EVEN LESS training to deal with the quirks of working with Mental health demographics than I had gotten in the three years I spent with the outreach handing out little baggies of food to, collecting data from, and advocating for the peeps on the street I came to care for during that time (and care we did and do still--one of them is living with us today despite our walking away from the charity world with a bad taste in our mouths).
At the ALF, it seemed, the guy who made their eggs at 7, dolled out water at 10, slapped mayo on sandwiches at noon, trod up and down the halls with coffee at 3, and poured instant gravy over their instant mashed potatoes at 5 had a better threshold for their crazy antics, their uncontrollable tics, their attitudes of lack, than the two or three techs on the floor who were charged with taking care of them (from pill drops to diaper changes and showers) for THE REST OF THE ACTUAL DAY AND NIGHT.
So I introduced my new boss to my old boss (read ’old boss' as the Love of my Life, who had been the one actually running the homelessness project with me as her right hand). We spoke about sensitivity training, compassion fatigue, attitude of lack de-escalation training...all to little avail.
What actually wound up helping might surprise you: the model I set for patience and tolerance. Over meal services, being out among the facility workers and residents on drink carts, long talks over extended (probably over-extended: 'Who's watching the residents right now?') smoke breaks, etc and on. I fielded questions like, "Why did you just let her get away with that," and statements like, "If he'd said that to me I'd've...," with answers like, "Look. We're dealing with Mental health here. They can't help a lot of what they've got going on, and we don't get to decide what they can and can't help. Their brain is a spider web of intrusiveness that...on a good day...they might be able to articulate. I try to be mindful of that and err on the side of compassion wherever possible."
Now. Is the difference this has made palpable or quantitative? I wish I could say yes, and in a few cases I can. Some coworkers have glommed on and realized that our days go more smoothly when we...drumroll....simply don't pick fights with our mentally/emotionally/physically stunted charges! Oh the revelation and revolution of it all! Others, I simply dread working with.
The takeaway: Beyond encouraging you to be as kind as you can handle being in any given situation (really the backbone of any social contract, and the first and most crucial mandate of God Himself, whatever temple or text you find Him in), I wrote this post to bring awareness, for the two or five people who might actually read it here, to the fact that none of us are really equipped to deal with the unpredictable nature of this country's broken mental health system, and while the mentally/emotionally unsound may bear the brunt of it, it's no picnic for those who work with them either. So I suppose it boils down to the first point again: be kind.
This post could've been a lot shorter, had I just said that.
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Goblin Teatime
I was about to assume you are in the US as well (which, as I understand it is one of the most American things you can do on the internet) but I realized you didn't say that. It sounds like you could be though. Healthcare (especially mental healthcare) is so broken here that any time I hear about another system it doesn't even sound real to me. I can't imagine what it would be like to live somewhere that values mental health, considers teeth a part of health and doesn't charge for an ambulance.
Thank you for the insight into your work! It's very valuable!
Yes, US. Florida to be more specific.
Thank you for the kind words. :)
by Mori Bathory; ; Report
Rox Paradox
You're amazing and I love you.
️ Thought it would be funny to point out that, right now at our house, one of our former homeless clients is taking a shower before he goes to work in the bathroom, another is making a sandwich in the kitchen while checking on job applications, and the one who moved in is happily jamming Forza on the Xbox in the living room. We're clearly not done. 
Clearly.
by Mori Bathory; ; Report