Catapulted Into the Emotional Deep-End
This is not the story and reflection I had in mind when I envisioned for my first journal log, but I'm finding myself grateful for the thoughts that came through my mind this mild September afternoon. Sometimes, the most fascinating reflections and connections show up in the most mundane-feeling moments of our lives.
One year into my Master Social Work studies and after eight hours of emotional-CPR training, I spent some time processing how I am learning to navigate and share space with those experiencing difficult circumstances, experiences, and significant feelings. My mind took me back to spring of 2016, to my first veterinary school interview (side note: I tried for MANY years to enter into DVM education; today's version of me is thankful that was not my path). Part of the interview and evaluation process was a set of mini interviews or scenarios. The most memorable scenario still lives with and occasionally shows back up in my thoughts - it was unexpected, a true sensory overload, and I felt like a sinking ship the entire time.
As the scenario goes, it was a role play where I was being adjudicated by an observing panel of veterinary professionals. The scenario was explained to me when I entered the interview room and I was introduced to a "client". My memory of the event feels a bit blurred at this point, but I can still experience the tension in my body, the racing thoughts, and the sinking feelings. When the panel said "go", the client went. The person sitting across from me was angry - angry at me, angry at the veterinary practice I was managing, angry at the way they assumed their own clients would perceive the event. Now, you're probably wanting to know the details - why was the client angry, what are the details of the related event, etc. Interestingly, those are not important here. What I am trying to convey is the heaviness of being in the presence of another person when their energy is directed at you, you might not fully understand why, and it's your job to navigate the interaction. It can be an out-of-body experience.
Where my thoughts landed this afternoon in the present September 2025, is how all those years ago, this was my first interaction with intense anger directed at me or who I represented in a space that was intended to be a professional setting, and I had received no prior training to help direct this interaction - this scenario was purely assessing how I MIGHT responded to a very distressed, very upset human being in a professional setting, using only the skills I had received through lived experience.
This thought hit me today: it felt incredibly unfair to be injected into a situation that involved deep hurt, deep roots, and unknown traumas with no tools for navigation. Now double that up to understand that our veterinary teams supporting companion pet guardians are faced with events of similar calibre weekly, and what tools have they been offered through academically or professionally required trainings about safely navigating interpersonal relations? Maybe some, but likely none.
So, today, in this moment, I had a big moment of feeling for the veterinary communities surrounding me. I acknowledge that I am deep into my mental health support trainings, developing crucial tools, learning how to unintuitively show up as I need to in deeply emotional situations, and know my spirit is uniquely equipped to handle difficult emotional circumstances. Veterinary professionals, you are faced with very difficult, deeply rooted, and highly emotional contexts of client interactions and animal care situations without equivalent supports.
In this, I see you. I feel you. And I acknowledge how unequipped you might feel.
Brenn Clark, MSc (she/her)
Founder & Support Practitioner, Compassionate Creatures
