how long after orientation until you felt comfortable in the ICU?

I've been in the ICU for almost a year, and I completed a successful ICU orientation last November.

Task-wise, I feel okay, especially with time management, charting, getting priorities taken care of before anything else, etc.

However, there are times where I still feel uncomfortable putting all the concepts and critical thinking together so I feel like I'm still one of the people who needs to ask for help from one of the seasoned nurses. I love going to rapid responses and code blues with seasoned nurses, but still somewhere in the back of my mind, I'm also scared to death.

How can I learn to be more comfortable without asking so much help from the other nurses? I wish I can stop feeling like such a novice nurse, as I'll have been a nurse for 3 years this coming January. The reason why I transitioned to ICU was because I didn't want to be uncomfortable anymore when a patient was deteriorating rapidly; I wanted to feel more confident about what to do in case a code blue happened. I wanted to take on more challenging patients so I could apply my critical thinking skills. I do feel more comfortable now, but there are just times when I don't.

When/how did you start feeling comfortable in the ICU? Do you ever study critical care books/journals on your days off from work?