other side of the camera

[perseus]

My niece had posted this on fb - I think despite what your position is on shelters/rescue - this is powerful. I know this would be me.

How it FEELS on the other end...Photographers who take pictures of Shelter pets, DO NOT have an easy job...It is gut wrenching to know this may be the last photo they are ever going to be seen in again.

[michele5611]

I saw this and it broke my heart.

[suziriot]

Really powerful. Thanks for posting.

[johnr]

Try being the one who has to make "that decision" on a dog you've been working with for months and who greets you happily as you turns his paperwork. If I owned a gun, I probably would have shot myself long ago.

[suziriot]

Aug 29, 2012 15:19:33 GMT -5 johnr said:

Try being the one who has to make "that decision" on a dog you've been working with for months and who greets you happily as you turns his paperwork. If I owned a gun, I probably would have shot myself long ago.

One of my "dreams" is to start a foundation/sanctuary one day, and I want to have a program that provides compassion fatigue counseling for shelter workers. It's not just the dogs that need our help.

[michele5611]

Right on Suzi.

[catstina]

That's a great idea, Suzi.

[perseus]

Aug 29, 2012 15:22:57 GMT -5 suziriot said:

Aug 29, 2012 15:19:33 GMT -5 johnr said:

Try being the one who has to make "that decision" on a dog you've been working with for months and who greets you happily as you turns his paperwork. If I owned a gun, I probably would have shot myself long ago.

One of my "dreams" is to start a foundation/sanctuary one day, and I want to have a program that provides compassion fatigue counseling for shelter workers. It's not just the dogs that need our help.

I can't even imagine John.
Suzi -you always have the best, most positive perspective.

[johnr]

I can imagine. Worse, I can remember. And I always know who's next on the bubble. Some always make it, but it's pretty much never the case that all do. Will it be Cheech, Ty, Lewis, Ginger, Spike. Baby, Roland? I work with them all every day and none are assured safety.

It just plain never goes away.

But then you look at the ones who still need you, remind yourself that you have already survived any number of prior emotional tsunamis and carry on. Who knows. Just as there is that straw that breaks the camel's back, maybe there will be the euth decision that breaks the "difficult dog" expert's will to go on. It needn't be objectively worse or more heartbreaking than prior ones. It may be just one too many. Or perhaps better: the one that makes you finally feel the enormity of how many too many it has already been.

But that's for some tomorrow to know.

But I really wonder. I read Lysa Buehler's posts as she discusses the extraordinary highs and devastating lows as she tries to get her shelter with its insanely high intake under some control and I wonder if this best person I know in all of rescue is going to be able to hold it together. But then I don't know if I will, either. So you really learn to focus on getting through this day, getting through this day, getting though this day. When I quit drinking and smoking, all the talk was of taking it one day at a time. Drinking? Smoking? Oh, you have NO idea. Every once in a great while I have an urge I need to resist and get through that one day. But that is truly once in a great while and was never a real day in, day out thing. Shelter work is a day, day out thing that I need to let go of every night and give myself a pep talk for every morning. I have heard that shelter workers have been diagnosed with post-traumatic stress disorder. I don't know. It's more of a constant stress, repeat waves of sorrow kind of thing. But it's really brutalizing in its own way. It really, really is.

[suziriot]

I worked in social services until this past February when I took a new job. Seeing the worst of humanity has a horribly detrimental impact on your mental and emotional well being. I completely understand, John. And my heart goes out to you. At my agency we talked a lot about self care and maintaining boundaries. I know it's easier said than done, but try to take care of yourself and find healthy distractions from the pain and stress.

[johnr]

Aug 29, 2012 19:52:35 GMT -5 suziriot said:

I worked in social services until this past February when I took a new job. Seeing the worst of humanity has a horribly detrimental impact on your mental and emotional well being. I completely understand, John. And my heart goes out to you. At my agency we talked a lot about self care and maintaining boundaries. I know it's easier said than done, but try to take care of yourself and find healthy distractions from the pain and stress.

Yes, healthy distractions are of particular importance. So is understanding that if you are going to have any shot at happiness, happiness has to be a positive thing in its own right based on positive activities and experiences because it can't be defined as the lack of stress and sorrow as there will never, ever come a day when I am not engulfed in stress and sorrow. I would like to say that people I had considered friends have been supportive, but in fact, most have not been. People who don't have time for a cup of coffee still think I need to know about every fucked situation involving dogs or other animals they come across. Or they do something fun and then check it off like it's a bucket list item that you do once and forget about. I'm sure they'll all be oh so concerned if I end up hospitalized with catastrophic depression, but I won't bother listening to them next time around. Doing my own music, my own math work, just going and doing things by myself, finding that math forum full of people who don't dump animal horror stories on me but like the kind of offbeat number theory I do, these things have really helped. I think any real friends will have to come from outside the animal world. But when things hit the fan simultaneously at my home shelter with a push to limit holding time just as the horribly depressing tale of Spindletop's descent into hell came to light, I got so overwhelmed that I lost touch with my safe havens. I didn't go to the shore, I disappeared from the math forum, I barely did any math and only a little music. I will never make that mistake again.

Thanks, Suzi, I'm sure your social service experiences took a toll. You don't want people who don't give a damn doing certain kinds of jobs. But when you have people who DO give a damn there, people got to understand that these people take a real hammering. If you can't be a true, positive, upbeat friend, leave them the hell alone.