Extreme Exhaustion! 18+ hours days.......

I like living a busy life; I choose to be involved in church, with friends, civilly engaged, all sorts of volunteer work, school, and family. With all that said this last week has been extremely exhausting. I decided to go through a training course that is 40 hours long. When all is said and done I will be a volunteer rape advocate counselor. I have an organization that I will be volunteering for who paid for my training. I will also be volunteering on Sundays in their small domestic violence shelter. I personally think taking 18 credit hours this semester and working 20-30 hours a week is draining all by it self. With the 20 hours of training this week alone and not to mention homework..... I am so so so tired and drained. I hope I am not sounding like I am complaining, not at all. I just realized this training has taken an emotional toll on me. It can be hard at times to know the nitty gritty details and the ins and outs of these awful cases and how the the justice systems are lacking. It was an eye opener too.... and things need to change. Our Justice systems are mainly for the perpetrator and until recently, now the victims have rights in the courtroom, thats a story for another day. I had no idea on the protocol of a reported rape in this area. If any rape is reported then an advocate is called no matter the day or time. A victim has the right to know what help they can receive in the recovery process and they need an advocate to help them. They will no longer be the same and under no condition does anybody deserve to go through that! We are encouraged to have self-help and not allow the training to drain is emotionally, physically, psychologically; this feels like my self-help. Getting everything out that can be out is helpful. The specific things we talk about are strictly confidential and so in no way would I share information about the people we talk about, and no one would want to hear about these horrible acts. I am driven to help people in all types of situations. Many move to a community and search for ways their community can help them; I truly believe that we need to find out how we can help our communities and give back to them. Giving back should not be contingent on whether the community did something for me or not. Give back freely and the time that you need the community most for support, they will be there.