It's funny the thigns a job can force you to experience

So far in my job I've beaten on 4 people, cut down 3 people hanging from sheets, and done chest compressions on 1 dead man. He was already cold when we found him, and we all knew it was useless. But we couldn't stop until EMTs arrived. It made me grow to hate the people in charge, forcing us to do this job when it was clearly a waste of effort and only served to further offend our minds. It may sound callous, or evil, but it is what it is. Before you judge imagine working for 12 hours straight, 4 days in a row, the entire time being yelled at and cursed at and forced to interact with these people. Imagine knowing that the people around you are rapists, drug dealers, users, abusers, attempted murderers, and everything in between. Imagine the stress associated with the job, and imagine trying to make it through the day without breaking down and crying. I will admit that it was hard to bottle it up when the man was cold, blue, and staring into my eyes with his un-seeing eyes when we opened the cell block door. Anyone who says the first dead body is nothing is lying to you to make you feel better. We have the highest rate of alcoholism, divorce, and suicide of any proffession. Would knowing this have changed my mind about my career? No, I've wanted to do this since I was 11 years old. I've grown up around these men and women and never once heard about the downsides. But I don't hold it against them. My friend asked me about the situations I've been in and I found myself pissed off that this outsider who I've known for years was trying to worm his way into the experiences I've had. The questions were soaked in distaste and condescension, and he asked again and again if this is what I really thought I wanted to do for a living. This experience and others similar to it showed me why we don't tell outsiders about the hardships. They can't understand and when they try they try to "fix us" or "help us". We don't want help, we want peace. That means shut up and drink your beer quietly, talking about work when we're off duty is not high on our list of things to do.

But we force ourselves to, if only to work through it. We form a tight-knit group who we know we can talk to with zero judgement, because they've been there. And if they haven't, they are still a brother or sister who knows that one day they will have to deal with the situation like the one we did. There's a level of understanding that civilians, outsiders, just cannot grasp. They find a dead body and they freak, call 911 and then answer questions for the investigators. We are forced to handle the body and the family, if it is soon enough we are forced to try and save someone who doesn't want to be on this Earth anymore.

Stress is a killer, and that is a great way to ratchet it up a few cranks.

I am 24 at the time of this writing, and proud to have achieved my dream of becoming a Deputy Sheriff.