Stress From Aggression Need Help

[Slavik]

     Hi, I am working in a psychiatric hospital with a severely disturbed individuals, on most days everything is somewhat calm.  There are some days however that send me into a spin.  On a few occasions I get targeted by these mentally ill patients, and there is a lot of aggression towards me, I redirect them the best I can, but by this time the fear that I experience sends me into a tail-spin.

 

   After effects of such episodes, I feel severely dissociated.  Once I deal with dissociation and "come back," I feel extremely stressful for days, sometimes even weeks.  

 

  My question is, is there any way that I can deal with my stress, to relieve it much faster?

 

Thank you for replies in advance. 

[dsayers]

Two things come to my mind. Hopefully they'll be of some use for you.

 

First things first, the old nautical mantra: One hand for the boat and one for yourself. Meaning you have to preserve your ability to remain on the boat in order for ANY of your actions on that boat to be helpful to the journey. If I could not find a way to keep a hold of myself, I would get out of that situation. You come first.

 

Secondly, it's important to understand where personhood comes from. I apologize if this bit doesn't apply to your situation since I don't know the specifics of what you deal with. Anyways, we're responsible for our actions because we have the capacity for reason and therefore understand the consequences of our actions. That's a way to generalize humans, but it's not true of everybody. Assuming the people you deal with are genuinely "psychiatrically disturbed," it's important to understand that at times when their brains aren't functioning normally, they may very well not qualify for personhood. Obviously I don't say this for the sake of advocating cruelty against them. But if a situation would arise where you sort of have to act in a manner that you wouldn't with a loved one, you shouldn't beat yourself up about it.

 

I'll give you an example if I may. I work as a private investigator/private security. Been doing it for almost a decade now and have actually made one arrest. As a guy who understands that government/police is institutionalized coercion, this might surprise many people. However, this individual was somebody I had kicked out of the property in question once before. Earlier the day I busted him, I had a separate burglar alarm call, where I found an interior door's lock had been defeated by a bus schedule jammed into the door jamb. Once he was caught, he even admitted to having been in the building even more times than we were aware of. In other words, he was literally taking the option away from me to just let him go.

 

Additionally, the time I did bust him, he was in the bathroom shaving. He had a duffle bag on the floor, so I told him to back away from the pack and keep his hands where I could see him. He was trespassing and I was given the property rights that this business legitimately possessed and therefore could legitimately transfer to me. He started to go for his pack, so I drew my gun on him. He started freaking out. I've had guns drawn on me before, so I COMPLETELY empathized with his reaction. I felt VERY bad for having to do that (and put it away as soon as I realized he wasn't engaging in a threatening behavior judging by his reaction).

 

These were not easy things for me to do. In a vacuum, they would even appear to be contrary to my values. If I had my way, we could've had a conversation, I could've collected from him the damages he did (namely the expense of us having to answer alarms relating to him three times), passed that on to the business, and called it a day. But we live in a statist society and this is what I was hired to do. Not saying that justifies it, but again, this guy knew exactly what he was doing and what the consequences would be. So it was easy for me to process the cognitive dissonance I experienced in a philosophical and unbiased manner.

 

Is any of this helpful at all for your situation?

[Matthew Ed Moran]

I don't know.

 

If I was working in a place full of people whose actions resembled that of my most primary abusers from my childhood, and furthermore they escalated their abuse to the extent that I felt completely helpless, then I would disassociate and feel constant stress, too.

 

I don't think there is a solution to that but to remove yourself from abusive and insane people. That is my opinion at least, I am not anywhere near the most informed person on this subject.

 

Why were you attracted to taking this job? What does it say about your history that you think it is a good use of your time to manage crazy people?

[Sima]

Those people have very bad connection between their amygdala and prefrontal cortex in the brain therefore they cant work through their agression and cant control it.  They get angry but its not about you, its about poor connections between those 2 parts of the brain (podcast The bomb in the brain), lets say , you friend is late, you can start shouting at him when he comes (bad connections) or you can ask him why he was late ( good connection). Maybe his car got broken or the babysitter came late, or there was a traffic accident on the road and he stood in a traffic jam. 

Hope that helps, try digging for information and you will find it

[MrNlul77]

Apprehension is understandable; however, If the mental patients aggression is stressing you out, IMO you shouldn't be working in such an environment, you clearly aren't up to the job. Maybe look into your own mental health, you may have underlying anxiety issues.

[Quadrewple]

Apprehension is understandable; however, If the mental patients aggression is stressing you out, IMO you shouldn't be working in such an environment, you clearly aren't up to the job. Maybe look into your own mental health, you may have underlying anxiety issues.

 

 

I agree.  If you have your own unprocessed issues, I don't see how it would be possible for you to work through those in such a chaotic work environment.

[Slavik]

I don't know.

 

If I was working in a place full of people whose actions resembled that of my most primary abusers from my childhood, and furthermore they escalated their abuse to the extent that I felt completely helpless, then I would disassociate and feel constant stress, too.

 

I don't think there is a solution to that but to remove yourself from abusive and insane people. That is my opinion at least, I am not anywhere near the most informed person on this subject.

 

Why were you attracted to taking this job? What does it say about your history that you think it is a good use of your time to manage crazy people?

Thats a great question, about my attraction to the job.  I will explain.  I am not at all attracted to this job, I was hired on a post where there are no aggressive individuals, as a part of my contract however, I have to go to an extreme facility once a week.  This is why I am having such trouble recuperating.