Quiet - Moral Distress and Mental Health Nursing

I hadn't talked to anyone outside of work in four days. Going out last night was a strenuous task. The idea of leaving my apartment and meeting new people, hanging out with a friend from my Margaret House days seemed like a well-conceived plan but it didn't translate well into practice. 

I'm not sure why but lately I find myself not having the energy to make new social relationships. This lack of interest in being social combined with hanging out with three people slightly my junior in different places in their lives boozing while I remained sober proved an unpleasant combination. I found myself being increasingly irritating by being told that I am incredibly fascinating because I: "don't emote". What the fuck does that mean anyway? That's not a compliment. Well, I'll fucking tell you right now: To express emotion, especially in an excessive or theatrical manner. That's not a fucking compliment...Especially when this is followed up with, "You have such a blase attitude about everything". No, I think you're motherfucking misreading my shit. It's not that I don't give a fuck, it's that I can't force myself to fake laugh at jokes that aren't funny, or be interested in things I don't give a shit about and understand when to control my reaction, let go of things that ultimately do not matter and restrain from focusing my energy on bullshit. I know when to back off and not involve myself in battles that I know nothing about and I cannot force myself to pass judgments about situations that I was not involved in and people that I have never met. I'm not going to let near-strangers into everything that I am and lay everything out on the table for people to judge because I know better than that. 

However, I will tell you that it made me mad as fuck when you kept on and kept on and motherfucking kept on telling person number two that he was a fucking idiot for being with a former lover because "everyone hated him" and they all knew better thus you should have known better and why won't you motherfucking admit that you were a stupid fucking idiot of being in love with and still being in love with that person? Just admit that you're a fucking idiot and that your fucking feelings don't matter worth shit...just say it so that we can all be right and take comfort in the fact that you are once again wrong proving that in fact you cannot care for youself...FUCK! 

You have never been there and instead of listening and supporting this person that you love you keep hurting him and making him feel like shit because somehow his experience of being abused and hurt inconvenienced you...that's bullshit. Should I have been enraged and screamed and stormed off or made a scene beating you over the head with the fact that I am right and you are wrong? Maybe...but what would that have accomplished? How would that have helped anyone or moved forward with anything in a positive direction? These are the things that occupy my mind. So maybe you look at me and all you see is that I seem restrained, guarded, emotionless but maybe that's what want to see because that's easy, that's effortless, that's how you can define me.

Love,

Michelle D. 

P.S. An addendum. A few weeks later the person with who I was quite enraged turned out to be having a first break in mania. And, the moral of the story is that we do not know what other people are going through. It's not always about us. We can control ourselves and make a choice to take a step back.