Graphic and Painful...
Anyone looking for pleasantry should move along on this one.
I'm only sticking it here so I have it where I want it, as a vivid reminder of Rock Bottom- in stark, stark contrast to the great new upswing I get to start in a week. Shouldn't we all remain as aware as possible of our low points in order to appreciate what we have now?
So, apologies. Cheerfulness and frivolity will return after these messages!
From my secret anonoblog I was keeping at the time to document the horrors of my time working in animal welfare and to try to deal with the extreme, daily sorrow:
December 18, 2008.
"I wish there was a way I could saw open my own skull, just like that of the poor little Pom we necropsied yesterday who'd been blunt-traumatized to death by some girl's douchebag boyfriend. It's a great read, that police report. Some Facebook espionage has indicated that he and the dog's owner are still hot'n'heavy and he's placating her with some new, likely ultimately doomed, pug puppies. That's going to be a felony charge, I'm hearing...which means at least a year of legal dicking around while the dog sits in deep freeze. Then, maybe nothing happens in the end because nearly everyone pleads out anyway. Meanwhile I am lying awake at night having repetitive visions of holding a small, half-frozen lifeless body similar to that of my own dog, while my boss uses the handsaw on the skull. The sounds. Saw open my own skull, is what I would like to do...to release the last three years' worth of scenes...of situations, of first-hand stories. Release the hundreds of souls whose names and faces I have forgotten...and that's the worst part of it of all, the forgetting. I want to remember each one out of respect and love, but there is just no more room at the inn. They have to be hiding in the foggy tatter of some neuron, no? Crack it open and let it all run out...the shadow of hipbones, the cries of an agonal kitten...most of all that most hellish sound of ignorance and obliviousness..."Awwwwww!!" Like escaping steam to disappear. Purged, empty, innocent again.
Today I walked around a cavernous, empty, foreclosed tripledecker in the city looking for an elusive cat who had been left behind without food and water for a week or two. She wouldn't come out of hiding, somewhere in the walls or in the dark basement. The emptiness of the place and the disappointment of not finding the cat echoed within me. My optimism hid somewhere in a dark corner, too.
This is getting so bad. I wish I had the hope still. But the relinquishment excuses and the "getting rid of" and the movingallergiesbaby and the neglect complaint phonecalls and the mind-blowingly crazy MFers who seem to stream through the doors at times all go on and on...the URI in the cat room never ends...the staff infighting continues...smell of burning flesh from the crematory...the needle pokes and the plunger pushes and the eyes dilate with a final sigh and what the hell am I complaining about, usually doing just a couple undeniably justified, old/sick euthanasias a day when some people elsewhere have to do dozens? And the Pits sit back there day after day and all the dogs look hopefully at the visitors who only want puppies and the thought of all the undiscovered hoardings going on in the state, the country, the world...all the douchebag boyfriends or vicious little boys who will continue to hurt or kill and get away with it....try not to think of where everyone who we are too full to take in are going...keep telling myself that at least the ones who have passed on are 'safe' from this world. Try to sleep well at night. Try.
WHAT am I doing?
I wish sometimes I'd never answered that job ad those years ago...that I could've kept in my little private practice bubble where people take care of their pets and there's not much to agonize over after you leave to go home at night. Where you get to make efforts and put in IV catheters and do dentals and dispense expensive new pain drugs and go all out on treatment plans and good diets and supplements and hell, why not accupuncture, too? This time of year, private practices are overflowing with thankful fruitbaskets and chocolate samplers and baked goods. At the shelter, we get some cards and maybe a couple treats. Our "clientele" mainly just uses us as a dumping place for their discarded pets, whatever free or discounted services they can get and also sees us as jail wardens- big meanies who keep cats in cages and dogs in runs. We're a place to grab some (like, 10) free Iams samples on the way out while bitching about what jerks we are for not picking them out of the stack of 30 applicants for the young Golden back there. I wish I'd have stayed in my world sometimes. I was still helping. I was still doing good. And I actually thought the world was a nice place. I wish I'd never had to see so much evidence to the contrary.
That I'd never had to see so much misery and stupidity and pathos....
Or even see the repetitive endless smaller disappointments like seemingly good adopters standing a dog up....of your own friend returning a dog...of a kitten going home with someone you got a funny vibe from- but beggars can't be choosers when they are coming out your ears. Of 18 hamsters being turned in by a guy who adopted 2 a couple months back and swore he was going to keep them seperate.
Oh yes, 'bright side' and focus on the happy endings and friggin' starfish and our adoption rate is really high, yes, and I should focus on the good things of which there are plenty...
But the images stay in my mind....and my innocence is lost and I do not know how I went from a wittle puppeeee and kitteeee wuvving wittle girl like everyone else to a deadpan 30-something year old woman in scrubs, with a tranq dart pistol aimed at the hindquarters of a snarling dog behind chain link. Easily squeezing the trigger. Doing my job. Proud of being a good shot, in some sick sick part of my brain.
In a flash, it seems. Innocent to Hellbound. WHAM.
Turn away, reader. Go watch some Animal Planet. It's more cheerful and the soundtrack is better. And there you can keep your little Sarah Maclaughlin, "Awwwww!"-exclaiming, 'I'm an animal lover!,' storybook illusions...it's nice to not have to see any deeper. Feel like a hero for sending a whopping $20 to the ASPCA. Yay, you! I bet it bought a couple boxes of pens for the office staff. And all you had to do was forego a couple Venti Macchiatos! Go practice your pageant wave in the mirror, because there's a seat reserved for you in a vintage convertible in the next parade! Yay!
(Seriously, don't mind me...I'm just angry and exhausted. Every little bit does help, actually....though you'd be more contributional if you merely spayed/neutered, adopted and not purchased, cultivated empathy and instilled it in your kids, did everything you could to commit to lifelong ownership and go give truly needed items or time to your much more desperate local pound or shelter instead of some huge, wealthy entity somewhere else!)
I envy those in the field, those mythical beasts, who can keep their fire going. Those who have actual support and consideration from management. I envy those who can brainstorm and think of solutions...which is vastly easier when you are not in the trenches 40+, shaving a frozen disemboweled half-cat for official photos, euthanizing a perfectly healthy and friendly tabby with a tiny bite wound soley on a rabies law technicality, sitting on a Strategic Planning Committee that you know (due to the politics of a board made up of wealthy people who have NO idea what goes on every day here and you know see most of us employees as "The Help") will likely not get very far at all...when you are gagging, despite the Vicks Vaporub which is stinging your septum, behind a respirator mask in a hoarder house, discovering ancient cat mummies practically cemented to a basement floor among the dog shit...
How much more do I have to give? I give my hope, my patience, my heart...of which there ain't much left most days. It's all I can do to get through the day, let alone come up with solutions to big picture problems, to come up with even simple ideas that are so often met with crossed-armed, naysaying coworkers.
This is so hard. The MFing starfish fable isn't cutting it for me right now.
How do you know when to keep fighting and when to know that you've made your contribution and given all you can for the time being?
And if you decide the latter, how do you step back and avoid the 6 ton anvil of Guilt that you know will be falling right on your head? All the imaginary furry faces like big sad-eyed velvet paintings that I know I will be abandoning if I go.
What if the thing you are good at, the thing that people tell you is your "gift" is the thing that destroys you? Why couldn't my gift be auctioneering or judo or caricature-drawing or beekeeping or freediving and NOT euthanasia grief counseling and fractious animal handling? Huh? Why?
Next year I plan to move into a more focused area of animal welfare...spay/neuter. Will I be able to live with myself or will I feel like a traitor?
And my most favorite thing to hear in the course of the day, in a simpering visitor's voice:
'Ohhhh...I could never do what you do...I wuuuuv animals too much.'
Screw you. Don't even frigging talk to me."
Soooo hard to fathom how I lasted another year and a half beyond that.
Ugh. But now...
*cue "Happy Days Are Here Again"...*
Thankful thankful thankful!
I'm only sticking it here so I have it where I want it, as a vivid reminder of Rock Bottom- in stark, stark contrast to the great new upswing I get to start in a week. Shouldn't we all remain as aware as possible of our low points in order to appreciate what we have now?
So, apologies. Cheerfulness and frivolity will return after these messages!
From my secret anonoblog I was keeping at the time to document the horrors of my time working in animal welfare and to try to deal with the extreme, daily sorrow:
December 18, 2008.
"I wish there was a way I could saw open my own skull, just like that of the poor little Pom we necropsied yesterday who'd been blunt-traumatized to death by some girl's douchebag boyfriend. It's a great read, that police report. Some Facebook espionage has indicated that he and the dog's owner are still hot'n'heavy and he's placating her with some new, likely ultimately doomed, pug puppies. That's going to be a felony charge, I'm hearing...which means at least a year of legal dicking around while the dog sits in deep freeze. Then, maybe nothing happens in the end because nearly everyone pleads out anyway. Meanwhile I am lying awake at night having repetitive visions of holding a small, half-frozen lifeless body similar to that of my own dog, while my boss uses the handsaw on the skull. The sounds. Saw open my own skull, is what I would like to do...to release the last three years' worth of scenes...of situations, of first-hand stories. Release the hundreds of souls whose names and faces I have forgotten...and that's the worst part of it of all, the forgetting. I want to remember each one out of respect and love, but there is just no more room at the inn. They have to be hiding in the foggy tatter of some neuron, no? Crack it open and let it all run out...the shadow of hipbones, the cries of an agonal kitten...most of all that most hellish sound of ignorance and obliviousness..."Awwwwww!!" Like escaping steam to disappear. Purged, empty, innocent again.
Today I walked around a cavernous, empty, foreclosed tripledecker in the city looking for an elusive cat who had been left behind without food and water for a week or two. She wouldn't come out of hiding, somewhere in the walls or in the dark basement. The emptiness of the place and the disappointment of not finding the cat echoed within me. My optimism hid somewhere in a dark corner, too.
This is getting so bad. I wish I had the hope still. But the relinquishment excuses and the "getting rid of" and the movingallergiesbaby and the neglect complaint phonecalls and the mind-blowingly crazy MFers who seem to stream through the doors at times all go on and on...the URI in the cat room never ends...the staff infighting continues...smell of burning flesh from the crematory...the needle pokes and the plunger pushes and the eyes dilate with a final sigh and what the hell am I complaining about, usually doing just a couple undeniably justified, old/sick euthanasias a day when some people elsewhere have to do dozens? And the Pits sit back there day after day and all the dogs look hopefully at the visitors who only want puppies and the thought of all the undiscovered hoardings going on in the state, the country, the world...all the douchebag boyfriends or vicious little boys who will continue to hurt or kill and get away with it....try not to think of where everyone who we are too full to take in are going...keep telling myself that at least the ones who have passed on are 'safe' from this world. Try to sleep well at night. Try.
WHAT am I doing?
I wish sometimes I'd never answered that job ad those years ago...that I could've kept in my little private practice bubble where people take care of their pets and there's not much to agonize over after you leave to go home at night. Where you get to make efforts and put in IV catheters and do dentals and dispense expensive new pain drugs and go all out on treatment plans and good diets and supplements and hell, why not accupuncture, too? This time of year, private practices are overflowing with thankful fruitbaskets and chocolate samplers and baked goods. At the shelter, we get some cards and maybe a couple treats. Our "clientele" mainly just uses us as a dumping place for their discarded pets, whatever free or discounted services they can get and also sees us as jail wardens- big meanies who keep cats in cages and dogs in runs. We're a place to grab some (like, 10) free Iams samples on the way out while bitching about what jerks we are for not picking them out of the stack of 30 applicants for the young Golden back there. I wish I'd have stayed in my world sometimes. I was still helping. I was still doing good. And I actually thought the world was a nice place. I wish I'd never had to see so much evidence to the contrary.
That I'd never had to see so much misery and stupidity and pathos....
Or even see the repetitive endless smaller disappointments like seemingly good adopters standing a dog up....of your own friend returning a dog...of a kitten going home with someone you got a funny vibe from- but beggars can't be choosers when they are coming out your ears. Of 18 hamsters being turned in by a guy who adopted 2 a couple months back and swore he was going to keep them seperate.
Oh yes, 'bright side' and focus on the happy endings and friggin' starfish and our adoption rate is really high, yes, and I should focus on the good things of which there are plenty...
But the images stay in my mind....and my innocence is lost and I do not know how I went from a wittle puppeeee and kitteeee wuvving wittle girl like everyone else to a deadpan 30-something year old woman in scrubs, with a tranq dart pistol aimed at the hindquarters of a snarling dog behind chain link. Easily squeezing the trigger. Doing my job. Proud of being a good shot, in some sick sick part of my brain.
In a flash, it seems. Innocent to Hellbound. WHAM.
Turn away, reader. Go watch some Animal Planet. It's more cheerful and the soundtrack is better. And there you can keep your little Sarah Maclaughlin, "Awwwww!"-exclaiming, 'I'm an animal lover!,' storybook illusions...it's nice to not have to see any deeper. Feel like a hero for sending a whopping $20 to the ASPCA. Yay, you! I bet it bought a couple boxes of pens for the office staff. And all you had to do was forego a couple Venti Macchiatos! Go practice your pageant wave in the mirror, because there's a seat reserved for you in a vintage convertible in the next parade! Yay!
(Seriously, don't mind me...I'm just angry and exhausted. Every little bit does help, actually....though you'd be more contributional if you merely spayed/neutered, adopted and not purchased, cultivated empathy and instilled it in your kids, did everything you could to commit to lifelong ownership and go give truly needed items or time to your much more desperate local pound or shelter instead of some huge, wealthy entity somewhere else!)
I envy those in the field, those mythical beasts, who can keep their fire going. Those who have actual support and consideration from management. I envy those who can brainstorm and think of solutions...which is vastly easier when you are not in the trenches 40+, shaving a frozen disemboweled half-cat for official photos, euthanizing a perfectly healthy and friendly tabby with a tiny bite wound soley on a rabies law technicality, sitting on a Strategic Planning Committee that you know (due to the politics of a board made up of wealthy people who have NO idea what goes on every day here and you know see most of us employees as "The Help") will likely not get very far at all...when you are gagging, despite the Vicks Vaporub which is stinging your septum, behind a respirator mask in a hoarder house, discovering ancient cat mummies practically cemented to a basement floor among the dog shit...
How much more do I have to give? I give my hope, my patience, my heart...of which there ain't much left most days. It's all I can do to get through the day, let alone come up with solutions to big picture problems, to come up with even simple ideas that are so often met with crossed-armed, naysaying coworkers.
This is so hard. The MFing starfish fable isn't cutting it for me right now.
How do you know when to keep fighting and when to know that you've made your contribution and given all you can for the time being?
And if you decide the latter, how do you step back and avoid the 6 ton anvil of Guilt that you know will be falling right on your head? All the imaginary furry faces like big sad-eyed velvet paintings that I know I will be abandoning if I go.
What if the thing you are good at, the thing that people tell you is your "gift" is the thing that destroys you? Why couldn't my gift be auctioneering or judo or caricature-drawing or beekeeping or freediving and NOT euthanasia grief counseling and fractious animal handling? Huh? Why?
Next year I plan to move into a more focused area of animal welfare...spay/neuter. Will I be able to live with myself or will I feel like a traitor?
And my most favorite thing to hear in the course of the day, in a simpering visitor's voice:
'Ohhhh...I could never do what you do...I wuuuuv animals too much.'
Screw you. Don't even frigging talk to me."
Soooo hard to fathom how I lasted another year and a half beyond that.
Ugh. But now...
*cue "Happy Days Are Here Again"...*
Thankful thankful thankful!
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