Nursing is a contact sport. Don't let anyone fool you..it's not all about holding sweet old lady's hands and swaddling new born babies. And by contact, I mean CONTACT. Blood, sweat and tears are the easy things. Aggression, fear, confusion, medical futility, and personal failure. Oh, and poop. Did I mention the poop? 12 hours of being a nurse, in my experience, is like doing Improv. One room needs a Drill Sargent, the next room would prefer a French Maid. One room can't keep their blood pressure up and the other room has projectile fluids coming out at an every 2 minute interval. There is no way to apologize enough to the 45 year old man, who had to lay in his own liquid feces, because there was no one to answer his call. To say to him, that you were in the other room withdrawing life support on a patient and could not get away does nothing for anyone. Well, that's not true.. it makes him "unsatisfied" with his care. The family of the dying patient next door? In what way could that experience EVER be satisfying. So on a day like this, my corporate sponsorship would say I failed at our mission of customer satisfaction. That is the least of my worries. Maybe you are saying to yourself that there are OTHER nurses that could have helped, or that it can't be possible that there was NO ONE else around. Well, there were. They were taking a lunch break. Some so tired they lay down in a recliner in hopes of getting a little disco nap. Some rush through lunch knowing they can't be gone long because it just isn't fair to those "left behind" and some relish each and every second of their break trying to figure out of all the personalities they have had to use that day which one has left the most residue on them. It boils down to emotions- some days it's weary, or heartbroken. Some days it's angry and annoyed at the completely unrealistic expectations that someone is holding of you. Ironically, on that day it is a double edged sword. A nurse will grind their teeth through their shift and mentally destroy themselves on the way home for not being "better". For me, this year, there were more times than I would like to admit that I drove home just hateful. At who?? The sick and the dying? No. The families? No. The co-workers? No. Big business? Maybe a little or some days a lot.
For me it was a self-destructive hate of my incompetence. Why couldn't I do better? I should have done more. I hate myself for not caring anymore whether my patient lives or dies. Which, for me, turned into, I just can't do it anymore. I no longer cared about leaving the family of a dying patient to go fetch more water for the self-titled royalty in the other room. I was invisible. I felt nothing but apathy. I hated who I had become. I woke up exhausted and went to sleep too tired to rest. Every shift there were little things that needed to be done, things that ten years ago weren't even a blip on the radar. Most of the time I think that I always do what I can, so this time, I'm going to leave it for someone else. Why bother? My apathy about changing a perfectly good central line dressing changed to apathy about what to eat, then about what to do. Why bother? It doesn't make a difference. No one will even notice. I became invisible even to myself.
Suicide is an enigma to me. On one hand, I just want relief from the horrific lifelessness. On the other hand, I don't want my suicide to add trauma to anyone else's life or for heaven's sake hurt anyone else. Believe it or not, I would want my family to think that I died peacefully. I would not leave a note. I would be found listening to Frank Sinatra's "My Way". ...the record shows, I took the blows and did it my way.
The ability to hold on to the very smallest shred of light is a mystery to me. Convincing myself time after time that if I just went to work I would be busy and distracted. I can't cry in a patient's room so just the physical location of work would make it better. Until you're on the bathroom floor in an empty patient's room, in tears hating yourself for being there, again. Hating yourself for being weak. Your inner voice demanding to get it together! Hating myself for letting down my co-workers. Hating myself because I knew what was coming next. But...and here is the enigma, not giving a shit. I don't care has no truer meaning than at that moment. I do not care. That's the waiting room to hell.
This is not job burn out. This is loss of a love you once had for a profession you were proud to be a part of. Loss of the essence of who you have been for the last 20 years, if you count school.
I beg of you to not keep pushing away your signs of burn out. To care more about your health, your family, your happiness than anything your corporate sponsorship can offer you. I can tell you this for sure, the 1% raise ($0.32) was no way close to being worth it. Protect your love of life, family, and passion...it will always serve you better in the end.
May your New Year be Merry and Bright-
Brooke
