What have I become?

So the other morning, I was drinking some beers after a long terrible shift with some of my work buddies, and we're talking about this guy that comes in all the time acting like a total jackass. That night he had immediately started cussing at the staff and had to be hauled off by the cops after telling one of the nicest doctors we have that he was going to kick his ass. I made some comment to the effect of "Dude, it would have been totally awesome if the cops had tazed his ass." I listened to myself and kind of had this epiphany like, wow. That was actually pretty effed up. Especially because at times, I mean it. I say shit like this sometimes, and I look back and try to think about what the nursing school me would have thought about some of the things I say and do.

I was never prepared for some of the feelings I have towards these people. Not even a little bit. I was never prepared for the kind of power these people would have on my emotions. I knew patients and their families could break my heart. They still do sometimes. But I never thought that they could make me feel disappointed, or enraged, or guilty, or completely disillusioned with life in general.

I never in a million years thought that I would be in a situation with a patients family member where they were literally pissing me off so bad that I would be looking her thinking, "I totally want to punch this bitch in the face right now."

I never could have imagined people could be cruel and abusive enough about wanting drugs that I could look at another human being and think "I really wish that I could just send your horrible ass home with a trash bag full of Dilaudid and syringes so you could go ahead and OD and end your miserable existence."

And when I rationalize this crap, this isn't actually how I feel about these people. I don't hate anybody. But I hate the shit that they do. So much. And I hate the things it does to me. I was thinking just the other day about how much time I spend on a daily basis dealing with people trying to get something out of me. People playing games. People trying to hustle me out of food and cab vouchers and other shit they can buy for themselves but just don't want to. People trying to trick me into giving them drugs. People trying to get out of work or sue somebody. People trying to play games with their families by being intentionally obtuse or dramatic. People trying to demand to be seen sooner by yelling and literally throwing cell phones or cups of their own piss at the staff here. I feel like every day is a con.

Thinking about that shit makes me so angry. But what makes me angrier is how many people I doubt and don't treat with the kindness I should because of the cynicism that has become my existence. How awful I feel when I see someone come in and I think to myself that they're full of it, and then find out later that no, they're actually really sick.

But really, who can I be angry with about this? It's my fault that I let this get to me. It's my own shortcomings as a person that lets this place change me. I don't know why I can't just walk away from it. Why I have to respond to all the bullshit. Like last night. I was in triage. The fast track bullshit patients were all waiting, and the first look medic and I were talking. A lady walks in the door literally about to keel over dead- unable to talk because she couldn't breathe, white as a sheet and sweaty- we had run out of wheelchairs and rushed her back to a trauma room in my wheely triage chair. I start her IV and we get her on BIPAP, we run back up to triage to make sure no one else has checked in.
This asshole walks up to the nurses station and tears into us about how we were liars because we got a room for that lady and not for him, and he was just here for something simple. He threatened to report us to our HR director. Instead, I stupidly tried to explain to him the ER process. Dude. If you aren't dying, you get to wait. Probably in a sassier tone, I'd say. And he mocked me. Like a 5 year old. And he told me to shut my mouth, that he wasn't even talking to me. And it got ugly from there. I yelled at the asshole. We ended up calling the cops. I could feel my face flushing and my heart racing. He shut up. He stayed and waited until the day shift got there.
This shit still upsets me. Partly because I feel like I was really disrespected with no consequences at all. But mostly because I let him get the best of me. I should have smiled and written my managers number down on a piece of paper for him. I should have kept my cool. But I didn't. I let him make me angry, and I showed my weakness.

Sometimes I think that if I went somewhere else- somewhere where people acted right, where management gave a shit, that I'd be happier. But the more I look in on the problems I have at this place, the more I see myself. My patients can't make me feel this way. They don't make me sluggish and cranky at home. They don't put the thoughts in my head when I think sometimes that I'd like to kick their asses of the clock. That's me. That's my own issues and shortcomings. And there's not a hospital in this world that I can go to escape that.