Sad Days

I work with some wonderful women. We all get along so well considering the level of hormones interacting with one another on a daily basis. We also have very tough jobs. We have fifteen plus women working on topics such as domestic violence fatalities, teen motor vehicle crash victims, child maltreatment, suicide, violent death, rape, teen dating violence, etc. Because of the subject matter that we work with, every month we get out of the office to have a debrief meeting so everyone can come together, bond, debrief, vent, laugh and eat. It can be a barrel of laughs in the Violence and Injury Prevention Program. Really it can be. This week hasn't been so fun though.

I know the Josh Powell case has been hard on everyone. It's so difficult to understand how a father - or anyone - can do what he did to his entire family. Our group is no exception. When you deal with death, child abuse, homicide, domestic violence on a daily basis, you learn to distance yourself and look at it as a case and not real people. Maybe that sounds harsh. We do care. Immensely. Which is why we do what we do and have been doing it for so long. But getting emotionally involved in these cases would be overwhelming and unhealthy.

We mostly do a great job of keeping emotions in check. The problem is, the tragedy is always there just under the surface and when high profile or especially difficult cases like this one happen, all that emotion that we have kept in check, comes gushing out all over the place.

The past few days have been so difficult that one co-worker suggested we do an impromptu debrief meeting. In a way it will be our own private vigil for Susan, Charlie and Braden Powell. May you rest in peace.

Additionally, there will be a public vigil sponsored by Prevent Child Abuse Utah in Ogden on Thursday. If you're able, please plan to attend. We all need to work to make sure these things stop.