Is the idea of having control over something just a facade?

As I have mentioned before, every so often... every week I guess... I get pretty homesick. I've been here two months now. Today I had the worst case of homesickness that I've had so far.

There are many reasons that contributed to this feeling. My reaction (homesickness, sadness, loneliness) to these reasons was completely appropriate, rational, and sane. I'm completely okay with the fact that I broke down crying in my office and teared up whenever I talked about it today. And I am so thankful for the responses of friends here and at home that were supportive and compassionate.

What does bother me about this feeling, this mood swing, is the feeling of being out of control. No matter what I did, how much I talked to friends about how I was feeling, I still felt sad to the point of tearing up. It was hard to hold them back and not start crying many times during the day. I felt so out of control of my emotions no matter what I did.

I also spent a lot of time today visiting a patient who was extremely emotional due to (my assessment) a lot of physical and emotional pain that she's been dealing with for many years. She feels very lonely, very frustrated, and completely out of control of her life. She can't fix the relationships she has with her family members. She can't find any cure to her physical pain that she's had for over 2 years. Her physical pain is so bad that she doesn't get out of her house much. She's a prisoner in her home and a prisoner to her physical pain. From her social and family history she shared with me, others have had control (or she has given them control) over her happiness, her safety, and security for most of her life.

I cannot imagine living like that. I can't imagine losing that much control of my life, or losing my independence like she has.

It was hard to be in that place and listen to her. She doesn't feel like she has much to live for. She feels rejected by her family. She's in a lot of physical pain. She talked and I listened, for over an hour. She told me it was easy to talk to me. She admitted not knowing how to act when I first introduced myself, but that it was easy to share things with me once we got to talking.

I know my demeanor was calm and accepting, but the voices in my head were going crazy during that hour! I was constantly wondering what I could say to help her know that life is worth living, when all I was was hearing was how horrible her life situation is. With every story she shared I felt worse and worse for her and felt that I understood why she would be so miserable. Whether some of her life situations were self-inflicted or not doesn't really matter. She definitely had a victim mentality ("everyone else has done this to me"), but her perspective is still her reality.

She feels completely out of control and she feels like there is absolutely nothing she can do to regain control over her pain, her emotions, her life situation, etc.

These types of situations are when I feel my job is really tough.