Verbally Abused

[Bubbles72]

This is the situation, I work at a place where you look after residents, I was put down to do this one resident who was very verbally abusive towards me. She called me all names under the sun and started shouting verbal abuse at me the whole time I was there for no reason. At one point she even got in my face, I tried to stay calm by telling her if she could lead the way to the bathroom I will help her to get ready if that's okay, I helped her to sit on the toilet. I told her I will be right back as I need to tidy up her room. I tried to tidy it, thinking me sorting her bed out would give her some time on the toilet and a chance to do a bowel movement. But before I had even had the chance she suddenly start's shouting for me to hurry up, repeatedly saying, " come on, f***ing come on" over and over and over again. At this point, I am stressed out beyond belief and I forget to check the bed probably. I give it a quick glance (thinking it looks okay) and go to her as quickly as possible as she starts to get angrier by the second. So I go to the bathroom where she is, shower her, dry her and dress her. I make her a drink and breakfast before dashing out as I start to feel my anxiety going through the roof.

I got so anxious I had even forgotten to write down anything for the daily logs and now I am under investigation because it turns out the bed I hadn't checked probably was wet and I would have known that If I hadn't been so verbally abused for half an hour. I got told after that I should have gotten the manager but she had just completely overwhelmed me with anxiety. I couldn't think straight. All I was thinking about is if I quicken up she won't hit me. What was I meant to do?

[suzil]

Thank you for all of your advice, I suffer from anxiety anyway which doesn't help, probably need to look at going on medication to ease my nerves.

Hopefully discussing this with your doctor may help. I don't know if you also have a therapist? But that would help with the anxiety also. Good luck. It does get easier.

[drv8928, CNA, EMT-B]

I worked in an assisted living residence for awhile and we had residents like you described. One resident was extremely OCD and shouted everything. If you did anything out of order she would be in hysterics. You will eventually learn their routine and it will become easier. but in the mean time...

During that situation you can try to hurry, but in the end always think about quality of care. There is a reason why they are there. It is because their family can no longer care for them and they cannot care for themselves because they are mentally ill. You have to be professional and work on not taking it personal. Next time something like that happens, take a deep breath to calm your nerves. Go to the resident and "say ms, mrs. or mr. so and so, I am here to help you. I understand that you want me to hurry, but I want to make sure your room is clean." sometimes this calms them sometimes it doesn't. But I've learned that by talking to your resident and getting to know them and letting them know you helps a lot.

They will still complain, but they will prefer you rather than someone else. Just keep working at it.