I Hate EVERYTHING

.... and everyone right now! I don't know what it is, but I am severely and chronically unhappy. Between financial woes that are going to get way worse before they get better (who am I kidding?! They'll never get better!!!), my job taking a turn for the worse (I'm currently looking for a second job to supplement my no-longer full-time one!!!), and then the complete and utter realization that no one wants to hear about it kind of makes me want to disappear from the face of the Earth. I am in a funk I haven't been in for YEARS. Since the Goob was born.

Every time I hear someone complain about something -anything- I want to grab them by the hair and bounce their face off the wall. It's so bad?! IT'S SO FUCKING BAD?! If anyone even KNEW what we were facing right now they'd be shocked. BUT I can't tell anyone because, well, Lovah is embarrassed and doesn't want anyone to know. So I have to keep it logged up. And I feel like a failure as a person, as a mother, as a fiance, as everything. It's too much to deal with. We have run out of options. I am so angry and frustrated that it got to this point WITHOUT ME KNOWING IT WAS SO FUCKING BAD. I was not informed about anything, everything going about as though it were just fucking peachy. "Oh no it's fine" "Don't worry about it" "I got it covered" Bullshit.

Oh your job is so fucking hard. OH MY GOD IT'S MONDAY AND YOU HAVE TO WORK!!! Boo-fucking-hoo. Shut up. Every night at work is Russian Roulette. I may or may not be sent home. I am already short 2 shifts on my next paycheck. 3 if you count the shift I picked up and they didn't let me come in and work. I may be sent home one more time before the pay period is over. There are no jobs ANYWHERE that I am qualified for or live close enough to make the drive worth it. I've seen tidbits here and there where stay-at-home-moms (the SAHM is more often than not the biggest crybaby on the face of the Earth, FYI) complain about things like weight gain from lack of exercise, fitting in daily errands to fit in with "busy" schedules with kids, financial "problems" (we can't afford our brand new car/house/anything!). This makes me absolutely sick. Shut your stupid fucking ugly face. You know what a real problem is? Worrying about whether or not your child will even have a fucking ROOF over their heads in 6 months, food in their bellies next week, clothes on their backs throughout the rough Wisconsin winter! I have TWO full-time jobs (soon probably a part-time one on top of it!), and I only -barely- get paid for one of them! I am PROUD to be a working mom, to know that my child gets the things she does because I personally worked for them! When she gets a present from me, I am absolutely giddy with excitement, knowing that I made her happy, that I worked my ass off to get her something she really enjoys. Not just that I happened to marry someone with good money who worked hard for them to have something. But maybe that's because I'm also a single parent, and I have never once EVER in my life had so much as five dollars given to me by my parents. When I left home at 18 I had $20 and a tote of clothes. That was IT, and then didn't speak to my family for over 6 months. If my parents ever DO "get" me anything, it's a loan, and it's a loan I pay back as soon as humanly possible. My parents never babysat for free, my parents never bought me a car, my parents never let me move back home for free, nothing. I'm proud to say that when I get pregnant again, I will work full-time until the damn kid drops out of me. That when/if I ever retire, it'll be knowing that I worked hard my entire life for every little thing I have.

And I do mean work hard. Many people under-value my job (CNA in a nursing home). Some go so far as to lump it in with daycare workers/nannies/babysitters (esentially all the same, IMHO). I finally freaked out on a girl the other day about it. That is the most ridiculous thing I have ever heard. I said it is comparable to a mall cop being the same as an NYPD officer. Yes, they both uphold the law, they can arrest you, they wear a uniform, etc. But they are abso-fucking-lutely NOT the same goddamned thing! Case and point:

Similarities
*Take care of individuals who are unable to care for themselves
*Changing diapers/incontinence products

.... okay, that is RIGHT THERE the extent to the similarities.

Differences
*a compliant, if wiggly, baby vs. a violent, non-compliant fully-grown (200+ pounds I'm talking) adult. Most of which used to be farmers/farmers wives. I have had my ass HANDED to me by the elderly, they can be mean
*"Miss Smith, you're a bitch!", child goes to time out, parents get a call/letter, disciplinary action is taken "GET THE FUCK OUT OF HERE YOU STUPID BITCH I'M GOING TO KILL YOU MOTHERFUCKER!!!!!" (yes, your grandma uses these words!) if this resident is unsafe at the moment, or is about to go after another resident...  you just volunteered to be a human shield against a 250 lb. 6' tall ex-Navy farmboy who thinks you're robbing him. You can't TOUCH him (that's abuse!), you can only shield your soft spots. I've known residents to break/fracture/sprain bones on CNAs, leave massive bruises, scratches, bite marks, cuts, etc. The funny thing is.... the women are WAY worse than the men! I get called every name in the book for my entire shift. If I stop and go pee quick, and a resident puts their light on and I don't get it right away because I am peeing or in with another resident, I am called lazy, stupid, awful, threatened with abuse charges, etc. What can I do? Apologize with a smile on my face. Try to do that every day, 8 hours a day, 40 hours a week.
*a child hits you, same scenario as above. I once got suspended because a resident had their hand on my arm and was squeezing so hard the nails were digging in (I ended up bleeding) and I tried to get her fingers off of me.
*The teacher is law, they are always right! vs. CNAs are awful, stupid, know nothing, and they are ALWAYS thinking of ways to abuse residents! I saw a CNA that was about 5' 100 lbs soaking wet get thrown up against the wall by her neck by a 6' 200 lb Alzheimers resident. What did she do? Cleared off his part of the table after lunch. She asked him if she could take the dishes, he said yes. Apparently "yes" didn't apply to his 3 teaspoons of milk left in his glass. She got in trouble for that. Yep, that was her fault. She provoked it.
*A child is sick, they get sent home vs. an old person gets sick, they send them to US. I'm not talking about pneumonia or the flu or any of that piddly crap. I'm talking MRSA, VRSA, C-Diff, Thrush, TB, gastroenteritis, staph, strep, shit like that. Shit that can potentially kill. Most of us have small children at home. Residents don't even get tested for these things until the symptoms have been there quite a while, either. "You know that guy that's been hacking on you all week? Oh, he has MRSA (HIGHLY resistant infection!!!) in his saliva". That kind of shit.
*Dead people. You usually don't deal with them when you deal with kids. Holidays are coming up, so I know that I'll be cleaning up quite a few more dead people, we're due for some and there are a couple (at least) on their way out. BUT with winter here, we'll have more pneumonias and broken hips/arms/legs from falls on the ice!

Do I make my point? Don't get me wrong, I love my job. But when people start talking like it's an EASY one... I get pissed. I have a very very tough job that almost never gives us any breaks. It takes a strong person with an INSANE work-ethic to be able to do my job, that's why many never last more than a month or two. But it can also be incredibly rewarding in a bittersweet way. You get to know these people with different backgrounds who lived a lifetime ago, you share stories, you get to know them, you get to know unexpected things (at my last job I ended up taking care of a lady who was my grandma's neighbor when she was little!), and you get attached. For people, like me, who never really had grandparents (although all 4 of them are STILL alive...), it's nice to get a bunch of extras! But, it makes it sad to have to see them pass away, hoping you made some sort of impact on their lives. The last lady that I had to clean up after she passed I was pretty close to. She was such a sweetheart, she gave me candy every morning, we laughed about things, I was the only one who knew she was Swiss, everyone else thought German. I held her hand for 20 minutes waiting for the ambulance when they sent her out 2 weeks before she passed. I have to stop cuz I'm gonna cry, I miss her.

Well, I think this gets some... SOME of it off my chest, maybe I can sleep now.