It still baffles me how many of my coworkers both hate, and simultaneously love their jobs at FDC. There are many who can’t see themselves doing anything outside of corrections, but they couldn’t smile if you painted it directly on their face, and I get it. This place is no luxury resort. The work is demanding, the environment is brutally uncomfortable, and things can go from sugar to shit in no time flat. Stress can build up very quickly, and burnout? Yeah, we invented that. Spend enough time in corrections and you could grow up to be just as cynical as me.
But if you plan to stay and make a career out of this place — or if you intend to stay for a couple years and move on to something better, then you need to find a way to cope with the things you’ll experience inside a prison. You gotta find a way to stay positive, even among all the negativity. I’m not talking about wearing a fake smile and pretending to be a happy sunshine hippy everyday. I’m talking about guarding your own mind against the things you guard others from.
Here are a few examples of how you can be the keeper of your own mental health while working in the corrections environment:
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Not my circus, not my monkeys. My girlfriend and I have a very cool saying when things are going sideways in our family or friends’ lives. “Not my circus, not my monkeys.” It doesn’t mean we don’t care about the people bad things are happening to, we are simply setting and enforcing healthy boundaries, so we don’t allow situations that don’t directly apply to us drag us into the suck of other people’s lives.
This also applies at work. You’ll hear a lot of gossip, and you may run into some very angry or depressing people. Empathy can make you a good listener, but it can also pull you into a secondhand spiral if left unchecked.
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Complain once, then move on. There are going to be a lot of decisions made at the administrative level that can negatively affect your day-to-day job. It sucks, I’m not gonna lie. But what can you do about it? Complain once — you get a freebie. And then let it go. Suck it up and get through it. It is what it is.
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Separate boxes. Work is one box, and home life is another. Learn to separate the two. Bringing your home life problems to work is a quick way to get yourself into trouble, and taking the stress of work home to your family can have even longer lasting consequences. Compartmentalization is a skill that takes practice, but it’s essential to your mental health as well as your family’s.
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Find ways to decompress. A coworker once asked me what my “crutch” is — some officers play video games, some have hobbies, and some pursue less healthy ways of coping. You should find some activity that takes you away from the compound and gets your mind off the stress you’ll endure there. Me? I write shitty blogs and sell t-shirts online. What can I say — I’m a nerd LOL.
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Call for backup before you need a rescue. Talk to a therapist, confide in a close friend or someone you can trust. Some of the older generation of officers have decided that getting help makes us look weak. But there’s nothing weak about admitting that life can be hard. People aren’t designed to endure stress for long periods of time. And yet, here we are, carrying each others’ trauma like we’re responsible for the world being what it is. Let go of those old, stubborn ways and seek help before you make it someone else’s problem. And if suicidal thoughts start creeping in, be sure to call 988 Suicide and Crisis Lifeline.
The institution already gets a lot of your time; don’t give it permanent residence in your head. Guard your mind, protect your peace, and don’t let the hard days win.
In the meantime, stay safe, stay caffeinated, and try not to become tomorrow’s Daily Cluster.
– D. Mathena
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