Fatigue and Serenity

My parents warned me before graduating that the next few years in my life were among the most difficult to cope with. I would have to agree already. Working forty hours a week was demanding from the first day onward, but a deep fatigue begins to settle after several months.

(This intro is partially to explain away my lack of writing. I thank all those who hassled me over the break about writing more. It worked; here I am).

So the general fatigue is partly due to routine. This job particularly has its routines that are broken up by major crises. The working world is tough; there's definitely an adjustment that needs to take place.

At Kovler, there is a deeper fatigue that sets in: fatigue in facing such tragedy. My new position (we rotate services at Kovler every three months) is to assess eligibility. Any referral that Kovler receives goes through me. I sit down with potential clients to see whether they are eligible for services. To be eligible, the client must have been tortured by the US definition (severe physical or emotional pain, torturer acting under the color of law, not by lawful sanctions, outside US).

The purpose of these meetings is two-fold: we are federally funded so the gov't wants to know whether we are using their money correctly, but more importantly, torture is a very unique trauma. Clients deal with a lot of guilt that others of similar traumas do not. Where government officials can beat up anyone on the streets, it is different when someone is singled out and targeted. Our clients often deal with guilt because they know that if they weren't in the opposition party/Muslim/homosexual/Hutu etc, etc, etc that it wouldn't have happened. We are really best suited to treat torture and torture alone.

So these meetings are really emotional. We meet for about 30 minutes, and it is my job to find out whether they were tortured. I need to ask specific questions to know the severity of the torture and the purpose behind it. These meetings are extremely painful for the client and very stressful for me as well. It's not easy to hear these stories, and fatigue settles in some days.

My dad was really helpful over break by helping me to focus on the positive. He reminded me that I didn't torture them and I didn't create the unjust immigration system that prevents them from progressing both mentally and economically. It's on days like these that I find help in the Serenity prayer.

God grant me the serenity
to accept the things I cannot change;
courage to change the things I can;
and wisdom to know the difference.

I always thought it was limiting to assume that things couldn't be changed. When I was younger, I preferred the Calvin and Hobbes prayer:

God grant me

the strength to change what I can;

the inability to accept what I can’t;

and the incapacity to tell the difference.

While Calvin's prayer has it's appeal, it falls short because there are things I simply cannot change. I cannot make court days come faster or move just a week later; I can't get my client who's dying an appointment with a cardiologist any faster. I do what I can, and take it one day at a time trying to use what skills I have to better those I see. It's all any of us can do in this line of work, and we rejoice in the days our clients are granted asylum or see that doctor. Just the other day, one of our most dire clients walked in and announced that the new year is here and the past is behind us! To see a client with no home, no family and no hope have such a drastic change in a mere 4 months is truly miraculous.