BRIDGE CITY BUS DRIVER

 I’m at my wits end. I’m guessing most of you are as well. What can we do to survive this journey with our humanity in tact?

Hey guys. I posted about my “breakdown” in March 2020. After that terrible day, I have constantly tried to be optimistic and kind. It’s been a struggle, to say the least.

I had another breakdown on Saturday. Nothing specific happened that day to make me crumble into a useless pile of meat, as it had been building all year. I called dispatch to ask if they could let me go early that night. I was just done. I ended up having to call in “sick” to get relieved. When I got to my car, I took my mask off and gasped for air as I sobbed loud sobs of grief and rage and sadness and frustration. Just writing these words now makes me cry all over again. [And just proof reading this makes me cry again!]

I’m used to being able to put my finger on the one thing that has caused me to be upset. I am unable to do that now. It’s just......it’s so fucking hard to go out into the world every day.

I have felt an anger and rage towards everyone—even the nice, unassuming folks that get on my bus and say “good morning”. This is a new feeling for me and I’ve realized how self-centric rage and anger is. If someone ever took the chance to call me out on my shortness, my response would probably start with “YOU DON’T KNOW HOW IT IS FOR ME....”. The thing is that yes, they indeed know how it is. They are just mustering up their own optimism to say “good morning” to a stranger as they are also grieving what we once had.

I hate myself for this. I am saddened by the fact that I am no longer able to handle this job, as it is not the same job that I signed up for. I came home on Saturday and, in an attempt to re-center myself, read all of my first entries when I became a bus operator (“first six months”). Those six months I wrote down everything of importance—logged all of the exceptionally bad things that happened and recorded all of the fun, random acts of humanity. I realized at that moment that all of the bad things that happened in those six months could fit into about two weeks for me now, and all of the good things are absent.

As I’ve mentioned before, my little sister is an ICU nurse in Texas. Currently they are all out of beds and she is tasked with up to four patients a day. A normal day would only be one or two patients per nurse in the ICU. The hospital has allowed them to chart less to allow time for all of their tasks. When she calls me on her way home from work her stories are all about people that she hoped to help but are dead now. People who are brain dead and whose family is unable to let them go just yet. People who she thought had a chance, but whose body she just washed for the last time. She has watched as COVID has gone through a healthy young man’s body and torn their lungs to shreds. The virus will be gone by the time they die. There is nothing she can do. There is nothing she can learn from for the next patient. This is her life, and I worry about my baby sis every day. When I ask her about how she’s able to keep herself together through this and care for her family in the meantime, she attributes her strength to her coworkers. She has an amazing team of folks that she has worked with for years. They are able to debrief together and support one another on the tough days—every day now, as it seems.

I am not watching people die and witnessing those last moments with a loved one, thank goodness, but I am witnessing and experiencing the desperation of our town—by myself. I don’t have a team that I can go to when I need. Most days now I feel like I am driving a mobile psych ward around and I am the only (untrained) staff member there to keep everyone safe. I don’t have people to unload on when I need to. I don’t have a walk-in cooler to go and scream in for a moment (boy, do I kinda wish I was an out of work bartender right now). I don’t have a person whose cubicle I can walk over to and say, “Hey, so this guy has been yelling at the top of his lungs and slamming his foot onto the floor so hard that I can feel it. How would you approach this? I don’t want to escalate this situation and I’m worried that anything I do may cause that.”

So yeah. I feel alone and I feel like I’m a psych nurse driving a mobile hospital around town with zero resources right now. I’m at a complete loss. I’ve been crying on my days off and I’ve been trying not to cry every moment that I am at work.

There is a FB page that is for transit operators around the world and I posted a thing asking how others are dealing with this challenge right now. I got a mix of folks who feel the same way I do and others who have told me to “not give a fuck and just drive”. If you’ve had a chance to read any of my last posts, you would be safe to assume that I can’t “not give a fuck”. I believe the qualities that make me a good public servant are the same qualities that make this job extra hard for me right now. I’m struggling to find a balance. I wish I could just not care, but if I didn’t care I wouldn’t be able to allow myself to be open to those random moments of awesomeness with strangers, which is what makes this job worthwhile.

I’m on my 5th therapist in my adult life and I can say that she is THE ONE, I hope. I’ve told her all about my struggles at work and I also told her that I sometimes write about the job (used to) as a way to process that shit. Now it just feels like I’m writing a tragedy every day as I watch our city suffer. She suggested that I continue to write, even about the bad things, but change the ending. Her suggestion was to write about what David Rose (or any other character) would do in my situation. She also prescribed me to watch an episode of Schitt’s Creek every day after work (she saw my face light up on Zoom when I mentioned that show). I really like this gal. So this week I will try my hand at fan fiction—something that l have never felt a calling for and I may be really terrible at, but may allow me an escape from the reality that has become my job/life. I’m doing my very best here to survive.

I’ve also made an appointment with my doctor next week to talk about stress leave—it’s been a long time coming.

What are you all doing to get through this? How many of you feel like you’re the unsung heroes of this pandemic? I have a feeling that most of us are Captains of the Crazy, just waiting for the storm to subside. How do we survive this with our humanity in tact?

Much love,

BCB

Edit: “friction” = “doctor” and other typo edits for clarification. 🤷‍♀️

Edit 2: Thank you all SO MUCH for your kind words and encouragement for myself and each other. It’s a good reminder that our cups will once again be flowing over and we will be able to embrace our loved ones again. I am going to take a moment tonight to read all of the comments and respond. I’m cooking a tasty dinner right now and the smell of sautéed onions and garlic always makes me warm and happy inside.

This post was copy and pasted from REDDIT