Just have to come here and share/vent/whatever.
I’m so tired of all this shit.
I am a nurse. I am a Christian. I care deeply about people. I am also someone who reads and studies voraciously. I’ve been like that my whole life. I LOVE to learn. I was blessed with a mind that grasps new concepts easily and I did well in school. Everyone who knows me knows this about me. So it’s really hard for me to deal with people who accept ridiculous information as fact. It’s really really hard for me to not take it personally when people who know me reject information that is based in objective science and cling to propaganda or rumors.
That’s a me problem. I know. But dadgum! People reject the vaccine but they are taking Ivermectin formulated for COWS and HORSES! WTAF???? What is wrong with people?
My pastor’s wife declined to allow me to post on our ladies group FB page about masks, vaccines and faith. Her father passed away last year from liver cancer. She drove him 8 hours to some “natural practitioner” who prescribed 80 pills a day of some “natural vitamins and plant derivatives”. Oh, and this natural stuff is incompatible with opioids so she asked me if I knew any non opioid pain medicines he could take while she was cramming these vitamins in him to keep him alive because they weren’t ready for him to die yet.
I just can’t with this. You’ll go to some quack you found on the internet and pump your dying father full of some “plant derivatives” that you have no clue about, but vaccines and masks are where you draw the line??
Then I was called a commie fucking bastard last week. Not by the preacher’s wife. Some rando on Facebook. Because I didn’t agree that it was a horrific abuse of a child and worth suing an urgent care that tested a 6 year old for COVID against the mother’s will.
Some of y’all know me IRL/Facebook. I tend to mostly just post the hospital numbers, articles from the 3 epidemiologists that I follow and occasionally add a personal appeal. Something like “If you are hesitant and have questions, please feel free to ask me.” So today I got a lovely missive by messenger. Someone else from my church. Let me just say it was not kind. It was not at all a request for information.
And I’m so, so tired. All I care about is people. Every single life matters to me. A dear, lifelong friend of mine posted something last week in support of health care workers and encouraging people to get vaccinated. Another mutual friend popped in with a snarky comment about “flattening the curve that was supposed to take 2 weeks 18 months ago”. And I replied with some of this same feeling that I’m talking about here. I’ve been doing everything in my power to protect my patients, my family, my community and yes, myself. I’ve watched too many people die agonizing and lonely deaths. I’ve suffered physically and spiritually and emotionally. And Meanwhile I’ve been marginalized, ignored and disrespected. I’m accused of living in fear. Sat alone as the only person I wearing a mask while people chattered about “faith over fear” across the aisle. I hear Christians speaking in defiance. Contempt. Sarcasm.
PLEASE NOTE: this is not to provoke or invite any sort of religious debate. I’m sharing my personal frame of reference and my feelings. If you don’t believe, that’s cool. I am in no way proselytizing and I’m not denigrating any other faith or lack thereof.
That being said, in Matthew 22, Jesus was asked which was the greatest commandment. And He said to love the Lord God with all your heart and soul mind and strength. And the second is to love your neighbor as yourself. In 1st Corinthians, the Apostle Paul wrote about love: “Love is patient, love is kind. It does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud. It does not dishonor others, it is not self-seeking, it is not easily angered, it keeps no record of wrongs. Love does not delight in evil but rejoices with the truth. It always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres.”
It just seems to me that most of what I’m hearing from a lot of people is exactly the opposite of those qualities. And it makes me sadder than anything has in a very long time.
[This message edited by HFSSC at 8:15 PM, August 29th (Sunday)]