"You care too much"

 Have you ever heard this about yourself? "you care too much"

I often say, "they care too little". 

The problem with long-term care is that we are often:

underfunded

understaffed

People do what they can to survive and cope with an endless workload.

In activation, we spend all our time being the supporters, the nurterers, the team members who fill in gaps where the nursing and psw staff can't get to.

We are often overstepped and under appreciated.

We're the morale boosters, the people who get asked to fill in where we're not supposed to. 

Aside from that, people think: "Tova's crazy, she cares too much".

Yeah I'm crazy. Yeah I care A LOT.

Yeah I'm sensitive to other's needs and my own. Yeah I have a thin tolerance for shit.

But take my entire life story into account. Why am I like that? Was I always like that? Maybe, maybe it developed into something more over time.

What I disagree with is when I'm being told this in respect to people's well-fare. People's survival depends on each day, each hour, each moment. When you criticise me for caring too much, just remember who kept tabs on the injustices in the home and catalogued them safely in her memory banks for later use. Just remember who used that fine sensitivity to recall what needed to be done when the moment arose. Just remember who used that "over caring" to make sure her clients were kept in mind, even for the little things.

Don't overlook me. Don't tell me my over caring isn't appropriate. It's ALWAYS appropriate. That doesn't mean I can use it all at once, or use it to fix everything. I know I can't. But it's a power in itself.