Help! I'm burnt out!

[Mysteriousdarkness]

I've been an aged care/ acute care nurse for 5 years. When I started, I loved my job. I was immensely proud to say "I'm a nurse". I spent hours researching ways to connect to my dementia patients so they could feel some human care and compassion. I would talk passionately to anyone who would listen about how much I cared for those poor, sick people and how much I wanted to promote their rights, and find ways for them to express their personalities even while stuck in institutionalised care.

I didn't notice until recently just how much I'd changed. At first I just felt stressed and overworked, with dozens of patients and so very little staff, so very short amounts of time. I dearly wanted give the care I felt should be given, but there was never enough time or staff. I tried changing from aged care to acute (hospital care) and then back into nursing homes, I even tried community care- looking after people in their own homes.

The stress got to me more and more- if there was a code blue or someone fell over and hurt themselves, my stress went through the roof- I'd handle the situation but feel shaky and sick for hours afterward. The possibility of making a medication error scared me so much that I took double the time checking medications on charts, triple checking, stressing over and over. Once I gave a Panadol by mistake and had a full on meltdown that resulted in sick leave! Over a Panadol! I gave up giving medications and just did personal care, but even that stressed me out to extremes.

Its not not just that the work is heavy and endless. It's not just that the patients are extremely confused, scared, demented, and physically in need of complex care that requires lots of skill and patience.

what really got to me was seeing human people suffering and being unable to take it away. If I could have I would have healed every single one of them, or at least eased their suffering. I felt so terrible for them, suffering their physical, mental, emotional, spiritual pain. I felt their pain almost as if it was my own. I cried to see them suffer, to see them cope with the changes their illness or injury made to their lives- especially serious permanent injuries.

I kept going to work because I needed the paycheck desperately and didn't realise just how mentally unwell I was becoming. I started sleeping really badly or too much, i was beyond exhausted, sometimes it seemed too much effort to even crawl out of bed or brush my teeth. I dreaded work with every part of me- I'd spend my days off counting the hours til I had to go back. I'd cry on my days off just because I knew work was the next day. I just couldn't cope anymore, and yet I needed the paycheck and wasn't in a position mentally or financially to get a new job.

and then one day it just flared- I started to burst into tears at work- I'd find a corner to cry in or hide in the bathroom to cry, I just couldn't face another sick person, I could see them suffer anymore. I kept going in to work because I so badly needed the money- I was living paycheck to paycheck. This went on for a few weeks until I almost collapsed at work- I burst into tears during patient care and had to have a nurse take over from me, I went home sick and never went back.

i went to a doctor who diagnosed depression and burn out and signed me off on sick benefits so I could seek psychological help and recover for a few weeks with the intention that I'd leave health and nursing entirely- go work in a supermarket.

i never ever want to be a nurse again- it's over. I actually feel traumatised, like I need time to heal from the psychological damage it did. I feel weak for that because I loved being a nurse and wish I could be stronger mentally so I could care for all those sick people, but I just can't.

I guess I just wanted to see if anyone else had ever felt this way, and left the profession because of it. Will I recover? Will a career change allow me to heal? How do I forgive myself for giving up on caring for those poor people?

[CrunchRN, ADN, RN]

You need to realize that your job is to give the best care you can and not to save anybody. Nobody can maintain that level of intensity. It is great to care, but you have cared too much at the expense of your mental health. Take a giant step back.

Then look for a job at a blood bank, MD office, short stay, anywhere that deals with mostly non-demented patients and non LTC or acute care acuity levels.

[imintrouble, BSN, RN]

You can't save the world.

If you're lucky you might "touch" one patient out of a hundred.

Nursing is a job. It's not a religion, or a calling. I know there are those who will argue that point, but if you want to maintain your health, you've got to distance yourself from the illness of your patient.

As one who has sought out and received counseling, I strongly suggest you do the same. Your response to your job is totally out of line with even the most stressfull situation.