I feel for you, for what it's worth. Working on the geriatric psychiatry unit is pretty much exactly what you're describing, but with about fifteen patients. God that sucked. Wheeling around a woman in a chair made out of PVC pipe and watching her ram her rubber helmet into walls, shaking with anxiety and demented rage, is pretty fucking depressing. Especially when the person is only like 59 years old.

Then again, working on kid psych is equally depressing for a polar reason. Knowing that somebody nine years old is so fucked up that they won't ever come close to knowing the kind of life that you and I take for granted. . . that sucks, too. They're totally ruined for life and you can see it plain as day. Institutionalized, then demented, then dead.

I watched my grandpa dying a few years ago and it prompted some pretty strong feelings, though i wasn't particularly close to him. We will join them all in death some day though, and that's about as much consolation as I'm able to consciously muster. I guess we should just reproduce, raise better people, and put our faith in that whole process. Or something.