Job
For the past year, I’ve been working at a job that I don’t love, to say it nicely, as a live-in manager of a care home for adults with…
For the past year, I’ve been working at a job that I don’t love, to say it nicely, as a live-in manager of a care home for adults with complex needs and disabilities. However, I stuck with it for the planned duration for reasons that will soon emerge. And while the next couple paragraphs sound overly negative, stay with it, it’s going somewhere positive.
This job presented itself on my horizon right after losing my nursing job over the Nazi mandates for experimental gene therapy last October. I had moved to Medford, Oregon, for one year to learn hospice nursing (which I loved), but my job only lasted 5 months before the mandate came in to upset the apple cart. Some of you might remember, I wrote the CEO of the hospital a letter with real scientific reasoning about why the mandate was non-sensical (“hey let’s bring in a bunch of minimally experienced foreign nurses or untrained military personnel to replace the seasoned, amazing nurses and other staff who had served the hospital faithfully and skillfully for years — what a genius idea!”), and how the gene therapy is not “safe and effective” like the hospital billboard propaganda campaign touted, and why no one should be forced to take it for ethical, rational, medical, and scientific reasons.
I’m no dummy. I knew a hospital CEO of a large hospital system, especially one in line with the whim and wishes of the Big Pharma advisory puppets (WHO, CDC, Fauci, MSM, and whatever ruling elites are overseeing compliance of a hospital CEO) wouldn’t read or acknowledge my letter. BUT it gave me an opportunity to support the many local nurses who needed articulation and evidence for why they were defying the mandate in favor of their health and vitality. In the end, Asante Hospital System was rumored to have lost almost 1/3 of its staff over the mandate, and I felt proud to be part of helping some of those staff feel clarity and validation about their decision as my letter was passed around (note that many of the original high level research links were shadow-banned and censored by Google so you won’t be able to access them unfortunately).
Back to my job, and why I feel like I’m in purgatory. For starters, it’s mundane. As mentioned, I am a live-in resident manager and caregiver for mostly elderly people with complex disabilities where it’s like “Groundhog Day.” Every day, I have the same replays of cooking, shopping, cleaning, med passes, bathing, dressing, pottying, transporting, lifting, entertaining, answering the same questions, and defusing conflicts and “behaviors.” It’s like being a mom of five large, heavy, overly nitpicky, sometimes defiant children…only, they are not my children.
It’s confining. Despite being a free spirit, I am very tethered to this job 24/7. I don’t have privacy — conversations can be heard throughout the house, I don’t have my own kitchen to cook in, or living area to sprawl out by myself (other than my bedroom), or the flexibility to leave for the weekend, or the option to totally unplug.
So the next obvious problem, it’s exhausting. Caregiving is like this realm where you can never really be paid enough to take care of someone else’s grandma because that grandma is too much for the rest of the family. The physical cares are too demanding, the medical cares are too involved, and the mental and emotional cares are too taxing. Nobody wants to do this much work. This is why we have care homes. We are taking care of the people that society would rather relegate to the dark recesses where nobody else has to see or deal with the hardest of the hard. It’s much more difficult than working in a hospital because, at least in a hospital, you only have to take care of that agitated, combative Alzheimer’s grandpa, or that incessantly altered, yelling grandma who keeps the whole house awake and annoyed despite your desperate pleas to the unresponsive doctor for help, or that 400 pound OCD bed bound patient…for a week or two until you find placement — in one of our homes. In addition to my work for the past decade in healthcare and now as a live-in caregiver, I know first-hand how hard this is. My husband and I (along with his sister) took care of his aged dad with severe dementia in our home for two years before he passed away. If we had had the funds or options, I would have been in favor of a care home or facility in a hot minute. I really get why people don’t want to do this.
I have a real problem with our current inhumane, horrible model of sick care and how we deal with the aging. First of all, we have a groomed lifestyle leading us toward chronic disease due to preventable toxic overload via many sources: Prolific, unnecessary neurotoxic vaccines starting on the first day of life, chemical-riddled packaged and fast foods, toxic municipal and contaminated ground water, deadly dental products and procedures, skin, beauty, and personal care products slathered on our skin and into our bodies daily, cleaning products, toxic air in our homes and environments — I mean, our bodies are freaking miraculous with how well they deal with what we’ve suddenly imposed on them in the past four decades. I believe this massive toxic environmental attack is intentional, but we won’t go down that rabbit hole. In short, Big Pharma seemingly owns our lifespan and bodies (if we let them) and controls the information we have access to, leading us to a state of barely alive with chronic dependence on as many pharmaceuticals as possible, while keeping the nursing homes in lucrative business. One interesting realization I had in hospital work is the injustice of the upside-down income model: the admin at the top who do the least heavy, hands on work make the most money, while those who perform the heaviest work of patient care and cleanup at the bottom of the organization make the least.
Another problem I have is how we are hypnotized and brainwashed from birth to fear death at all costs here in Western society. Milk every last drop out of life (even if you are a Christian with supposed utmost hope in the next life). Fix a death grip on your life here for months and years past when you enjoyed your life, past when you were a blessing and enjoyment to others, beyond when you enjoyed any sense of purpose and contribution to this world — because it’s good for business. Never mind that death is part of life and it once was considered normal and healthy to let go to make room for the next generation, allowing oneself to transition into the next part of the journey with grace and peace. Death is only a transition. The cultures of the East still revere this process as welcome and beautiful, while we push it away, fear it, and shame anyone for accepting it.
Now I know this is going to step on some toes. But before you judge my perspective, check yourself on whether you would really want to do this yourself? I have worked and lived with people who have no sense of enjoyment or purpose, and who don’t even have relatives who want to see them because they are too much. Something is wrong with this model. I am not trying to suggest there is a solution. It’s tricky. We’re in too deep. There is no way out but through as we all experience and figure this out together. This is a new, modern conundrum.
Resurrecting My Experience
Lately, I’ve been trying to focus on gratitude and gaining perspective on this past year — what I have learned, and why (or if) I’m glad I did this. And now that time is running down with four weeks to go, I am able to breathe a bit and find some silver linings in the storm clouds.
First of all, I know I was supposed to be here. The door opened wide in a time of need and financially, it could not have been a better opportunity. I’m making decent money, and almost all of my living expenses are paid for. The owners are amazing to work for and have not been micromanagers at all. The residents have complex needs and I have been able to relieve a lot of suffering while improving quality of life with my varied nursing background. In fact, three residents died since I started here and it worked out that my brief but meaningful hospice experience provided invaluable knowledge toward their end of life comfort. Some of my residents have been receptive to the message of my book Raising Hell, experiencing relief from their false, spiritually abusive Christian beliefs that cause needless fear and suffering in the late stage of life. I feel I have made a difference for them all, and have provided for a greater quality of life, both now as well as setting them up for their immediate future.
I can do anything short term for long term greater good. If there’s anything I’ve learned in life, it’s not to sell myself — my passions, gifts, goals — out for something so banal as money. However, the income from this job has provided some momentum for many of our goals in Puerto Rico toward our collective dream of a spiritual retreat. Therein, it has been worth it. It was a relatively short duration of doing something I don’t like, while learning some important things about myself and providing for longer term goals and dreams that serve my/our passions.
This job has been a very important test of my character. I had one resident who was extremely challenging to love because she had extremely demanding emotional/psych needs, which taxed all the caregivers and residents (and often kept me up throughout the nights even when I had to work the days following). Even more challenging was that her personality resembled a difficult person in my past. She forced me to face feelings and traumas that were unresolved within myself. I asked the Universe why she was sent to me, and I discovered it was to help me accept parts of myself that I found unlovable. How ironic. Ultimately, I overcame my inner battles, treating her with respect and compassion until the day she died.
To consistently demonstrate loving, gracious, and compassionate care when you really don’t like your job or someone you are taking care of could very well be a litmus test of how Love has transformed your life. I do now have a new sense of my connectedness to others, and the absolute divine spark in all people — even the unlovely and somewhat unlovable ones! This job has shown me how I have grown since the days and limiting perspectives of my younger self, and how my love has become more expansive, and hopefully, more unconditional.
I have found certain practices and people to help me maintain my grounding in love and gratitude. At the top of that list are the other caregivers who work for me. These women are incredibly loving, kind, hard-working, selfless, and have taught me at least as much as I have taught them. We are all in the trenches together, day after day. No amount of pay would be too much for these women who give their lives away to help “the least of these.”
Also at the top of this list are my relentlessly patient partners — especially Marita living here with me letting me cry and fuss it out without judging me or pressuring me to have a better attitude. My partners see and understand that this job is the opposite of what my personality thrives upon, and so they have been nothing short of gracious and encouraging. I feel like I was able to get through this as well as I did because of their support.
On a positive note, my residents can be sweet and adorable at times. One lady who doesn’t have much muscle control accidentally spits food all over me almost daily when I make her laugh when she’s eating. We always joke that I need a hazmat suit to feed her. Another one loves how I tease her about the imaginary man across the street peeping at her through the window when we are changing her brief. It makes her laugh hysterically and every night she starts the silly interaction. Another one always slaps my back side when she rolls past me in her wheelchair exclaiming, “I couldn’t resist that target!” She’s also the same lady who tells me every single night when I tuck her into bed, “I appreciate you! The Lord bless you!” I say back, “The Lord bless you too…and don’t let the bedbugs bite!” She retorts, “I’ll bite them back!” Moments are beautiful. We have many moments of genuine family-like love, tenderness, silliness, and laughter. I do think you learn to love those you serve, if you can allow it in yourself.
I do think it’s always good to have short seasons in life where we learn how to do hard things. It builds character, and brawn, and endurance for the hard times in life. If we can get through this, we can get through the next thing that is hard. We show up for ourselves. We learn what we are made of. We know that we have what it takes come rain or rainbows.