How many of you find it difficult to not get personally involved somehow in your work, mentally or with your heart?

Seeing that I am the admission coordinator for a nursing and rehabilitation center, I meet quite the variety of people during my day, and I keep finding myself becoming emotionally involved with some of the sad and frustrating cases that I encounter. I have always been a person who loves people, is pretty emotional, and feels a great deal of empathy from my heart. I have had a couple of instances where I've almost been close to tears hearing about the total turn-around in personality from a stroke, to helping a 58 year old woman live out her last days in comfort care. It just really varies day to day. To me I seem to really enjoy the company of our elderly residents since my grandparents have lived 500 miles away, and it's almost like having a surrogate grandparent at times. I try my best to keep in touch with these residents, see how their stay is going, and so on. It's beyond "customer service" to me, it's more like a deeper level of caring.

I was wondering if anyone out there had tips on learning to overcome some of this without giving up this level of closeness and having to totally shuck my "I care" attitude. I have had a few nights where I come home feeling totally depressed and have tried to give myself several talking-to's about not getting too involved.

Any and all advice is great appreciated.

BCG

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Though dreams can be deceiving, like faces are to hearts; they serve for sweet relieving when fantasy and reality lie too far apart.-Fiona Apple