By Christine Pangan, featuring Agustin Peña and Michelle Ryle.
When working with clients/victims in traumatic situations, how do you prevent yourself from experiencing secondary trauma? Michelle Ryle works in the City Attorney’s Domestic Violence and Sex Crimes unit in central San Diego. Agustin Peña from the District Attorney’s Office in East County has worked on felony robberies and assaults. Here they share their experiences and strategies in maintaining balance.
What cases keep you up at night?
Agustin (AP): I think what keeps me up at night are cases that involve suspects and defendants that are just a genuine, true risk to the community. If I make a mistake or something happens, I don’t want the community to suffer for that. Those kinds of circumstances where the community is at risk [when they are] going about their lives — that’s what weighs me down, my biggest fear.
Michelle (MR): One case in particular kept me up after the verdict. It was a long history of domestic violence spanning [multiple counties]. Every single time in those prior cases, she had recanted. And when she came here [to San Diego], he finally got her bad enough with a VCR across the face splitting her lip, knocking one of her teeth out. She wanted to cooperate, sever the relationship, and she tried to get custody of her son because she didn’t want their son to be like him. The jury acquitted. They thought she hit herself in the face to try to get custody. They didn’t believe him, but they didn’t believe her. It’s one of those domestic violence cases where the victim is finally breaking the relationship, I’m worried that the jury is going to give somebody a pass.
Do you experience vicarious/secondary trauma as a result of the cases you handle?
MR: I did when I first came back from maternity leave. It was a neglect case, and seeing the baby [footage] really affected me. Before it would have been upsetting, but it got to the point where when I was done issuing the case, I had to go take a walk and I went home for lunch that day just to go see my son. Seeing the video of the child in just an awful state of neglect and only 6 months old shook me really hard.
AP: I’m always appalled and horrified by the things that people do especially in minors’ cases and juveniles, that they start so young with committing these really, really heinous crimes. Given that I’ve been exposed to a lot growing up and I’ve seen a lot of this stuff firsthand, there isn’t too much that’s going to shock me. But on the flip side, I really feel for the victims because I’ve seen this or I’ve been through this myself. I understand completely what they’re going through and I’m able to empathize.
What strategies do you employ to keep balance?
MR: Definitely talking to co-workers. Lunch is a decompress time. Finding humor in things. Making time for myself. When I can, I go to yoga at lunch or I go for a walk. Making a point that work stays at work; I don’t take it home anymore.
AP: I echo that. I think having some professional support system where you can exchange thoughts, impressions and perspectives on individual cases; talking it out can be therapeutic but also helps professional development. There really has to be some kind of physical component to this — Michelle mentioned yoga. I work out. I run, hike, whatever you can do to acquire the physical component. I think the physical, the emotional, the intellectual — it’s all interrelated and you have to address each one of them.
I’ve started to get better at understanding that the work is going to be there tomorrow. A lot of us, especially in the first few years, will work 10, 12, 14 hours or so just grinding away, and it’s hard to pull away from the desk when you see that your inbox is full. If it’s not pressing, if it’s not urgent, there’s got to be a cutoff time.
MR: Even if you take a break at 5:30 and you go get dinner, you go to the gym, and you come back to the office. Walking away from the desk was huge. It’s cleansing just to step away.
What advice have you received from coworkers in how to deal with emotionally difficult cases?
MR: The biggest piece of advice I got was to stop taking things home. Because home is not where work is. Home is not where things go bump in the night. It’s important to our family as well to be wholly present there so when you walk through the door at home, that is a safe place. Everybody has gone through that period where they have work-life imbalance. You can’t do it, it’s not healthy, it’s not right — life is short.
AP: I have received very similar advice basically saying, “Look, take time off.” Even if you don’t go anywhere, just the fact that you can address your own needs within your life, family and so forth, where you don’t think about work and the cases so much. That’s going to free you up a little bit, and allow you to see those graphic pictures, see those graphic videos and work on those serious cases… so you don’t compromise your own mental health.
Your advice?
MR: If [a] particular case is affecting you, or it’s wearing on you, talk to somebody else. We’ve all been there, we know what you’re going through, somebody’s been in that exact same position. And exercise — do something to get your heart rate up, to get your endorphin flow. Go for a walk. You have to take care of you and make time for yourself every day. Even if it’s just 10 minutes, go do something for yourself.
AP: The key is balance and it isn’t so much understanding the fact that you need balance, it’s understanding when you as an individual need balance, when you need to step away, knowing what your limitations are, knowing at what point your body is telling you [that] you need to step away for a little bit. Because we’re in this for the long haul. You want to pace yourself. You have to take this opportunity to not compromise your own mental health or your body —take care of it because ultimately it’s going to affect your professional performance.
MR: Yeah and the way I think of it, it’s not just our job. Life is riddled with bad news. You turn on the news, you see what’s happening with Syria. If you get worn down with every single bad thing you come across, you’re just going to go through life depressed. It’s finding the joys, the little things in life, treasured moments, balance, time for yourself, time for your family and your friends.
Christine Pangan is co-editor of San Diego Lawyer and an attorney at law.
This article was originally published in the July/August 2017 issue of San Diego Lawyer.