Documenting my journey through the mental health system

I am exhausted!

But I am also damn good at what I do. I didn’t mean to be, it just happened organically.

I’ve been at my local VA hospital as a lowly CNA for ten years, with the help of supported employment and a case manager. I started working for an agency back in January to moonlight on my nights off. I always have three-four nights off a week since I do 12s at the VA. Agency pay is REALLY good. The facility I’ve been working through this agency is HARD. Especially if I’m in LTC (long term care) as opposed to their second unit, rehab. That’s my specialty, and hospice. The third unit is people just getting out of surgery or the hospital, they are stable and no longer need the hospital, but they can’t quite go home. That’s my favorite unit. All ages, all varying levels of ability. It’s still rehab.

Throughout these years, I’ve noticed my background in the mental health system has been useful with difficult patients. I was a difficult patient. I’ve cared for a patient in restraints and that was extremely difficult and triggering for me. I’ve counseled, reassured, listened, de-escalated, and commiserated with patients. Their life sucks, especially those in LTC. Two crowded to a room, incontinent, one CNA for every 15-20 patients, which is considered pretty good. I had 15 last night and over half were very heavy care. I have to keep moving. I’ve done CPR several times, breaking bones, but also saving a few. I’ve been furious on behalf of patients in regard to shitty doctors and even shittier family members.

Twice tonight I received compliments on my hair. I spend time talking to them. They are so relieved when they see me. I am overwhelmingly favored by patients in both places – the VA and other facility. I don’t know why I’m so good at what I do. I can see inside their heads. I didn’t want this for myself, a lot of it really sucks. Especially the politics of it, the state of healthcare in the US, the burgeoning boomer population who need care but there aren’t enough people to provide it, no one wants to do it. Somehow, I manage to be adept at patient needs, able to anticipate them well in advance. My floor is always wrapped up tight. The patients are comfortable and I’m thorough and fast without being overwhelming. I don’t know, it’s just something I make look easy.

I’m one of the highest paid CNAs in the region and state. As a federal CNA, my scope of practice is higher than state or Medicaid CNAs, and I make a lot more money. I’m on a salary but it boils down to about 31 an hour, plus overtime. I get a lot of overtime. Everyone wants CNAs, and the VA is no different.

That’s how I got into this. During the Great Recession I moved back home from California to Washington. It was 2008 and there weren’t any jobs. After a couple months of searching, I got a janitor job at Goodwill. I was managing the Goodwill 6 months later. I quit for school, I really wanted my degree, and the GI bill was paying for it. I lived on grants and scholarships and after college there were no jobs. Still. Except CNA positions. So, I learned how to do it, got my first job working with disabled pedophiles (that’s a crazy story in its own right) and the rest is history. I worked at a psych residential facility passing medications for three and a half years, attempting my masters at the same time. My supported employment case manager helped me get that job too. Then he told me about a CNA position open at the VA, so I applied, interviewed, and got the job. Back then we barely made 15 an hour. It was still a lot more than I was making in psych, and I was essentially unable to do that job anymore. I went back for a year, putting my life back together after a traumatic and violent detainment and hospitalization. I had to move, find a new place to live. In the summer of 2015, I got the job at the VA but took a month off first. And now it’s been 10 years. Time sneaks by you fast.