Darren R. Hawkins

When I first read this book, I had been working in mental health/social work settings on night shift for several years. Hawkins captured the "typical" night shift worker very well. I related to so much of what Ray said and thought, and it was the way I was trained too. I'm just thankful I never reached the point of being as jaded as Ray was. He's doing the job well, but he's losing compassion. And apparently that's a good thing? I know that so many people do this type of work out of compassion, but it's basically a defense mechanism to train the compassion right out of them and train "professional distance." As Ray figured out with the suicide boy, sometimes the counterfeit caring you're supposed to offer to people who are struggling isn't. They need more, and they push to try to get it. It breaks my heart to think that it's not okay to show humanity to people who are in need of genuine compassion from someone who understands boundaries.
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