Heal the Healer

"Who heals the healer?" That's the rhetorical question I asked my principal today. Our social worker missed a couple of days this week and these days no one questions if you're really sick. If in doubt, stay home-that's the philosophy in the H1N1 era. Well, I assumed she was sick. When she walked into my office, I asked her how she was feeling. She told me she felt better and told me about feeling under the weather, which I suspected. But then she surprised me when she told me that her mother-in-law died yesterday. She started to weep and it was a bit disorienting. She and I are supposed to be the ones that console others when they are sad. Now I'm sitting across from my social worker, and she is understandably sad and I'm at a lost for words. She's supposed to be the strong one. She's the one that has the right words. What was I supposed to say? I tried to offer words of comfort to a colleague. But I wasn't prepared for my own reaction to her distress.

Who heals the healer? I think this question is relevant given the shooting incident in Ft. Hood. When you remove the suspicions of Islamic fundamentalism, the issues of military service, fraternity, and allegiance to this country, you are left with a man that was in distress. Worse still, a psychiatrist. People are focused on the motives behind such a tragedy, but I wonder what was in place to help this psychiatrist keep his sanity. It's pretty clear he had some kind of mental lapse, to put it mildly. Who was available to help him? Did he seek help? Hopefully, we'll get some answers soon. Time will tell if the military will look at the mental health of their mental health staff.

BBC