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A few years ago a coworker asked what thing is seen as normal now that's going to be looked back on in 100 years as completely barbaric and I was like seriously? We're acute inpatient psych nurses who have to force people to take medications, often by physically holding them down and injecting them. We're doing the best we can, and I actually got into this field because I was that patient (my first restraint incident was my own) and I like to think I'm part of working towards that better future but holy shit does it suck right now.

Even if you skip over the psychiatric emergencies volatile enough to warrant emergency meds there's so much more awful shit that I don't have any good alternatives to. I have to see every person's full skin including removing their pants on admission. I'm as tactful as I can be, I try to make sure the staff members are the same gender (although usually the men don't mind the nurses all being female). I try to provide as much modesty and dignity as I can, but in the end I can't tell just by looking which ones have a knife taped to their leg until their pants are actually off. One person actually had an entire loaded gun that the ED somehow missed. I don't make them squat and cough or put my fingers in any orifices but it still traumatizes the depressed college students who think we're gonna heal them instead of just prevent them from dying for three days while we make sure it's safe for them to take the sedatives they're gonna need for the weeks or even months until they can see an outpatient psych or therapist who will do the actual helping.

Life is horrible. We do the best we can. I've decided my meaning of life is to reduce suffering. I don't work in an environment that's conducive to that but I also don't have a whole lot of better options. There are places that are kinder but they're not designed to handle the really hard cases and a certain amount of those will always exist. At least the more time I spend trying the better idea I have of what actions I can take that will actually reduce suffering (although luck remains a significant factor) and sometimes I even succeed!