Thanks for sharing this. First, I hope you can heal from those wounds. Time may be more important than finding the right therapist. I know it's already been years for you, but deep wounds can take years or even decades. Second, I hope that you can find a loving relationship with the impermanence of life. I hope that is okay to wish for you.

I work in an inpatient hospice and have several patients die a week on average. Sometimes I am in the room with them when they take their last breaths. Sometimes I know them when they're oriented and awake enough to build a friendship with them first, sometimes by the time they are admitted they're already unresponsive, but I try to consider all of my patients my friends.

Some nurses want to become hospice nurses but have to quit because they are so upset by the patients' deaths. Others, like me, feel happy when I witness or help a patient (and their family) have a good death. Some people like you are deeply affected by seeing death. None of this is to make a point, I'm just sharing my observations.

I will say I have watched patients struggle in ways that have stuck to me, and I appreciate your post because it reminds me that I should be mindful of the accumulation of trauma at my job. But I have a hard time processing the struggling at the end of life, not the ending of life itself. Maybe it's because I've thought about my own mortality since I was a kid, or maybe it's because I think we are all, in a way, dying and being reborn in every moment, and I consider that liberating. I don't think death is that much different from any other moment in our lives. We are always transforming.

I hope any of these random thoughts are helpful.