As far as I know, I don't have an addiction.

[Collimator]

6. Please forgive me if I'm pushing too hard,

or beating a dead horse.

My last job was at a company that helped people sign up for health insurance. I took a call from a woman who needed to get coverage so she could get therapy after suffering the loss of her grown daughter. She started out reasonably calm, but as the call progressed, she began to fall apart. I fully sympathized with her loss but what really broke my heart in that moment was the way she kept apologizing for crying and being emotional when she was "supposed to be strong."

I admonished her by asking her what she would do if she accidentally got a deep gash in her leg. "Would you slap at your thigh and scold it for bleeding?" Bodily wounds bleed blood and souls bleed tears. I couldn't solve her immediate problem in that moment, (other than helping her fill out an application), but I was determined to give her back the dignity that she felt she had surrendered by being "weak" before a stranger.

By my employer's metrics, I probably spent too much time on that call; but in my heart I knew that was one of the better things that I have ever done in my life. And believe me, there were calls where I was instructed to just repeat a certain phrase in order to get a distressed client off the phone.

The kicker to this story? I guarantee that the last time I fell apart in front of another person, I layered shame on top of my pain.