A few evenings ago at the diner around the corner from my apartment, I was chatting with the guy behind the counter and he asked me what kind of work I do. The answer to that question is complicated right now — the other morning, I accidentally left the house wearing beat-up Docs with a skirt suit — so I just told him a little about my day job as a social worker while I ate my onion rings.
“Does it desensitize you to other people’s pain, doing that kind of work?” he asked.
The question threw me for a moment. My eyes were still stinging from the tears I couldn’t shed during my workday, one in which I absorbed another person’s fury and fear for several unrelenting hours while I tried to help unravel the red tape preventing them from getting something they desperately needed.
In every place I’ve been employed as a social worker, there’s been a spot where my colleagues and I have gone to cry when navigating other people’s pain feels overwhelming. A supply closet, a tree at the back of the parking lot, any stall in the employee restroom with a functioning lock.
My new job is in a cramped building, and I haven’t yet found a good place to take a few deep breaths when I need them. (One of my coworkers occasionally hides out in the staff locker room, but I can’t spend even two minutes anywhere that reminds me of high school gym class). I’ve been trying to hold it all in until I get into my car to drive home.
I think of my commute like the airlock in and out of a space station. There’s a persona I don as a social worker: Patient, resourceful, kind, and above all else, a really good listener. Sometimes at the end of the day, I can’t wait to yank that spacesuit off and shriek along with Sleater-Kinney or L7.
In my MSW program, I was told again and again that social workers must draw crisp boundaries to avoid burning through their compassion. I diligently filled my notebooks with bullet points about the importance of stress management and self-care.
Out in the field, though, the lines often smear between my identity as a professional trying to do my job and my experience as a human being engaging with another human being who is in anguish. I don’t cry if one of my clients lashes out at me, but my heart plummets when we run into brick walls of bureaucracy and indifference that amplify their suffering.
I know I’m not supposed to let the challenges of this work weigh on me. Sometimes I can’t find a way to shake it off, though. The best I can do is swallow my dismay so it doesn’t break through the composed demeanor I offer my clients, and then scream it out into the void when I’m alone.
While I was thinking about all of this, I looked up and realized that the man behind the counter at the diner was still waiting for me to answer his question. “I hope not,” I said. He nodded and poured me another cup of coffee.