I am a semester away from graduating a 2 yr nursing program. I can usually accept my shortcomings and pick myself up and move on. The last two semesters I have spent the day crying each and every time I have not lived up to my own expectations.. Have sworn off nursing school each time saying "I don't care", "I don't want to do it anymore" etc. the next day I will wake up and go full force to correct what I did wrong..
The first time this happened was my first test last semester- I failed by a point and cried and cried to my mom who is also a nurse.. Saying I was going to drop out and I don't care what anyone has to say.. I realized I needed to change my study habits, and so I did- and winded up surpassing every other student's grades in my clinical group for the remainder of the semester.
The second incidence was last week in clinical when I was given a patient that was in really bad condition- an 88 yr old woman with an extensive list of diseases who was admitted from a nursing home for aspiration pneumonia. I tried to give her a bed bath and do an assessment but the woman would scratch and bite me- so I held off. The nurse administered Xanax and at that point, the pt was calmer and my instructor decided to make it a team effort to clean this women involving my peers. I felt so incompetent and embarrassed that I couldn't care for this woman the way I should have that I started balling my eyes out in post conference and came up with a lie about how my grandfather just died because I was embarrassed that I FELT embarrassed and incompetent.
The weird thing is- I'm not a crier. I'm very good at brushing things off and saying "oh well".. But lately when it comes to school I just can't stomach the thought of me not doing my best.
Is this normal? Because its emotionally draining me and I don't know how to change this! Any help would be so appreciated.
