Please don’t ring me!
I’m on call this weekend for the sexual assault crisis line run by Family Services here in Winston – I haven’t really talked about this on here, so I figured I’d let y’all know what’s going on. I’ve been trained as a volunteer to deal with crisis calls/situations, mostly those involving domestic violence or sexual assault/abuse – I did something similar for a hotline in college, but it’s been a while since then, so now that a good friend is actually heading up the program here in town, I figured it was a good time to get back into it. These crisis situations always pull on my heartstrings so much, and this at least makes it seem that I’m helping out in some way. Especially as a women, and one who has had several friends affected by sexual/domestic violence in some way, the apathy towards victims of these kinds of crimes is infuriating, so this at least feels like a step in the right direction.
So I’ve been ‘on call’ a couple weekends now, and been a back-up person a couple times – normally, since I’m working the sexual assualt line, it’s the hospital alerting us that we need to come in to be with a victim through an exam. However, the line does sometimes get calls from people who have suffered some kind of sexual/domestic assault/abuse at some point in their lives, as it did tonight, when I had to handle my first call. It went fairly well, and I think I was able to answer most of her concerns and give her some resources to help her deal with her situation. But it’s got me all on-edge now, especially since I have the phone the rest of the weekend…
So if think of it, please say a prayer for me this weekend, that I’ll have the right words at the right time, that I’ll know when to stay silent, that I’ll be able to communicate compassion and support for any victims that I encounter if I have to go to the hospital, that I’ll have peace about the whole thing. Thanks!