Life Lessons
Today I learned that a fellow animal rescuer has died after a very private battle with cancer.
I’m not sure how I feel about this. She was not a nice person, at least not to me or to my volunteers or the rescue itself. She was a troublemaker and a gossip, someone who spread drama and misled a lot of people into believing that TARC dogs were not properly cared for. She did some damage, and the fact that she is dead does not undo any of it.
The past five years were very hard on me, trying to run a charity for animals in one of the most hardscrabble and socially toxic regions of the U.S. Even before that, though, I didn’t have an easy go of things. I won’t get into all that here, but I haven’t been truly at peace for a long time. I’ve recently received a clinical diagnosis of PTSD and compassion fatigue, which is the leading cause of suicide in animal welfare workers. No, I’m not about to pull the trigger or jump off a bridge or anything like that. But the fact that veterinarians are eight times more likely to take their own lives than workers in any other profession should tell you I’m not alone in the suffering.
One of the points I’m reaching in my life is absolute intolerance of disrespect or betrayal. In my experience, small instances of it are harbingers of a deeper instability that will eventually erode whatever relationship they appear in. I can be forgiving, but I don’t believe forgiveness is a life sentence of having to absorb hurt after hurt without saying a word or seeking escape. This is affecting every single aspect of my universe, from friendships to business associations to family. It’s sad to realize that the only way to not be alone in this world is to accept a certain degree of abuse from people who are supposed to care about you. And I just don’t think I can survive any more abuse of my trust.
What does this have to do with the animal rescuer who passed away today? Maybe it’s the fact that just because she’s dead, I’m expected to shut up, be “considerate,” and go along with everyone who says what a wonderful person she was. Well she wasn’t. Not to me. I feel no need to paint her with a rose-colored brush just because I outlived her.
So many times, over and over, I have been required to swallow my own feelings, as if I’m not entitled to be hurt, angry, or downright devastated by another person’s actions. This is a pattern in my life, something I see repeated on both large scales and small. So I suppose there’s a lesson here. For years I didn’t respond to these things when they happened. I ignored them. Glossed over them. Made excuses for other people’s behavior until my tongue bled. Well, clearly that wasn’t the right answer to the lesson. I’ve been so worn down by the repetition of this vicious cycle that now I have a hair-trigger response to it. One sign that someone is going to take a swing at me and I’m looking for the door. I have no use for that person any more.
Extreme? Oh, for sure. But PTSD is real. And so have been my experiences. You stick your hand in fire, you get burned. You learn fast that burning is what fire does. That knowledge comes with experience. You let a person insult or demean you, you set a precedent for their future behavior and your future acceptance of it. That knowledge comes with experience, too. I honestly don’t think--regardless of how much forgiveness I can muster--that this is a lesson I can unlearn.
So rest in peace, fellow dog rescuer. You did save a few. I won’t dispute that. I just hate that the ones I tried to save had to suffer as a consequence of your actions.