Mental health and night shifts

Nurses Disabilities

Published

Hi, I've been qualified for 2 years and I work on an acute medical ward. I suffered a second breaknown this year after suffering from severe anxiety and depression for several years. An incident at work exacerbated this and delayed myou return meaning I had 3 months of sick this year in march-june. I got back to work and I love my job. I've haven't had a single day of sick since June which is great for me and I've managed to come off most of my medication.

The problem is I've been rostered on days since this and any nights I have had other staff have taken swapped with me so I have avoided them. Nights have made me so I'll in the past and I have often not been able to make it onto shift due to beingredients physically sick. My anxiety goes through the roof, I'm out of my routine and I get so sick! I'm on a night shift tonight and then I have at least 1 a week until Christmas with 3 in a row the week before Christmas as well! I just feel like I can't do this and I'm scared to approach my manager as I know doing the off duty is difficult and I don't want to make things difficult. I'm worried they will think I'm just trying to get out of doing nights because I don't like them but I know they affect my mental health. I'm just really worried about this whole thing. I don't want all my hard work to go to waste because I know I've made massive steps to improve my health in the last 6 months and Im so scared it's all going to get worse again:down:

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Specializes in LTC, assisted living, med-surg, psych.

You have my sympathies. Rotating shifts are hell on most people, and much more so for those of us with mental health issues. You may want to consider looking for another position which doesn't require you to work nights and offers a relatively stable schedule. You may also want to think about therapy to help get to the root causes of your anxiety; medication is good and often necessary, but it really only masks the symptoms.

On the other hand, it sounds like you have an understanding employer, which (in my experience) is unusual. Perhaps you can work with them on getting off rotating shifts due to your condition. They can't know what your problem with nights is unless you tell them. Ordinarily I wouldn't recommend sharing a psychiatric illness with the powers that be, but it seems you've already done this and not been penalized. Lucky you!

Wishing you the best of luck. Please keep us posted on how things are going. And welcome to Allnurses!

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Rotating shifts are horrible for people with mental illness. I think they are hard on anyone, but I did straight nights so that I didn't have to rotate. That was hard to

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