how to serve patients when you’re feeling fragile yourself

This post was written by Alison Green and published on Ask a Manager.

It’s the Thursday “ask the readers” question. A reader writes:

I’d appreciate your and other workers’ advice on how to cope providing service when you are feeling fragile yourself.

I work in a somewhat frazzled, frantic healthcare environment seeing around 30 patients a day in an inner city, low income area. It’s … a lot — with very demanding patients. But I mostly enjoy it. It’s not amazingly well paid, but it pays the bills.

My family is going through our own problems at the moment due to our teen’s mental health issues. There are some days before I even get to work where I’ve had to cope with an emotional tidal wave from my lovely but ground-down teen daughter who has school avoidance, anxiety, and an eating disorder. It’s pretty awful but we are holding on as a family.

I’ve had days off and been erratic with sudden cancellations over the past year and work has been kind. I can’t afford an extended period off, so please don’t suggest that as it would break our family finances due to all the additional support we have to pay for our teen.

There are some days where I feel like my skin is a cell thick. The usual patient problems about running late or having to coax a patient through a nerve-wracking procedure, etc. leaves me feeling wrung out. I’m normally smiley and reassuring but right now I want to switch to “low battery mode” and not give so much to them right now. I don’t really know how to do that.

As for self care? I’m doing all the things I should (yoga, breathing, healthy diet, talking to friends), but work is a different issue. How to create a firewall around my emotions so I can cope with being shouted at by patients because we are running late or help them inch-by-inch through their anxieties when I feel as though my own anxiety is going to have me sobbing on the floor in the middle of the appointment? Is that possible?

Readers, please weigh in via the comment section.