Any other INFJ Nurses?

I am! I haven't historically had too much trouble separating work from home, but my current job is pretty rough in that our patent population tends to be very confrontational and angry. It drains me and makes me so unhappy. Once I'm done with my work commitment, I'm probably going to move on. I also am working on a public health degree, so hopefully that will feel a little better.

I mostly find that as long as I regularly take time off and make sure to enjoy creative/expressive hobbies during my days off, I am okay. I realized that I have over 100 hours of vacation time to use, which means I could be taking much better care of myself than I am. Also, therapy is great, lol, for those really unforgettable experiences at work.

I am. I do need to maintain work-life balance, and do my best when I can take one full day a week off from any particular commitments and just do whatever I feel like when I wake up that day (which is sometimes being social and running errands, sometimes indulging in a hobby or going for a hike, and sometimes napping on the couch with a cat) that will help me recharge.

I actually do a lot better in nursing than I did when I had an office job.

Yes I am as well! I get burnt out easily too. I'm a school nurse. I just give and give all day long to needy kids so I am drained when I go home. By the end of the week I don't want to go anywhere or do anything unless we happen to get a three day weekend. I'm just "peopled" out. It's hard for some of my friends to understand. My daughter is the same way. She's a special ed teacher. I miss working 12's and having more days off so I'm trying to decide what to do. It's so nice having my summers and holidays off. It's a lower stress job than most but it's still draining. I haven't found a great balance yet.

I am! I feel you on the compassion fatigue. I have also worked Med/Surg and primary care and now ICU Stepdown. It was initially terrified but now feel the more critical patients is a good fit for me as the ratios are lower and sometimes the patients are altered/sedated so not as high a volume of people to interact with in one day. Hope you find what works for you!

I am an ENFP and a Myers Briggs nerd. I think most of what you are describing is common to the NF personality types. And you are introverted which means you are more likely to feel drained when stressed. I tend to feel overwhelmed or agitated.

It's a good thing you are doing work that matches your values, don't change that. We need that. We can't get all our satisfaction from money. And we can't be satisfied when something is too easy.

We NFs need to have a self care regimen. It helps to make a list of things that refresh you. If you don't know, try some out like yoga, reading, music, massage, walk outside, pets and decide which ones work the best.

Then insert some easy ones into your after work routine. Listen to relaxing or energizing music on the way home for example. If you are feeling drained do the bigger ones, like a 1 hour yoga video.

It took me a long time to understand myself well, and I didnt even have a clue on how to take care of myself until I was 30.

I think if you are young and just starting to figure this stuff out, you are doing really well. In time, you will develop endurance. Our culture teaches us that aging is bad, but we really do get better with age and wisdom. We grow as people way past our 20s, and just keep getting smarter and better into our 30s, 40s, 50s, and onward.

Infj ccu nurse here and feeling this thread in my soul. Im finally learning I need self care, that it's tough to get in, and that the worlds overall increased negativity is really getting to me. It's trickling down and that's not good. One or two of my nurse friends understand but sometimes I still feel alone in it. You know? I strive to work hard, learn hard, and continue forward in good care. I think my self care week needs to be every 3 months vs every 6 months.

We feel. We care. We truly empathize. It gets to us. We have to be happy and continue to do the work we love. This post should be continuous just because it's helpful to know there's others❤

I am! I was getting physically, emotionally, and spiritually drained working in ICU especially when working in a very large Neuro ICU with an extremely sick patient population. Patients and their family members were very scared and emotional. Every day there would be family members bawling crying. It was a very emotionally heavy environment. I was getting burned out quickly. I started working weekends so that I could work Friday-Sunday and have Monday-Thursday off each week. Having a consistent schedule and 4 consecutive days off each week helped me to recharge.

I really felt this in my soul. I am an INFJ personality type and I started working in healthcare only a little after I turned 18. I experienced something really similar to you; I am great at prioritizing patient feelings and safety above all else, but when that is unsuccessful due to kinks in the healthcare system and such, I feel defeated and drained. The nice thing about our personality type though, I noticed, is that regardless of say working a ton of overtime and being tired or even just feeling defeated and wanting to give up and not care like some of my coworkers, I am always able to push through and give good care regardless of my feelings out of my empathy for the patient. I would say this personality type makes for a good nurse, you just have to learn how to expel the negative emotions you can absorb in the workplace and maintain balance mentally, and physically. 

On 3/3/2019 at 1:19 PM, citynurse25 said:

I'm curious if there are any other INFJ nurses out there, and what you do in nursing?

A year or two ago, I was trying to understand myself better so that I could figure out what the heck I want to do with my life. (Still working on figuring it out). I ended up reading about the Myers-Briggs personality types and discovered that I am an INFJ to the core. I think my personality has been both good and bad for my nursing career. The good part is that I am super empathetic, typically have a great rapport with patients when I'm in a one on one setting, and feel very passionate about truly helping people and bringing about change. However, this is a double-edged sword because the empathy and passion are also the bad part. I can't turn off the empathy. I feel like I just absorb emotions from all around me. I can just look at someone who is clearly having a bad day, and I feel their feelings. I often come home feeling drained and exhausted. I have this "change the world" mentality. I get frustrated with "the system" and things that prevent the betterment of peoples' health or with providing patient care. Understanding all of this has actually helped me in figuring out how to make myself a better nurse. For example, I now know I am too empathetic which drains me and makes me burn out....so I have been trying to work on separating some of those emotions and having better work/life balance.

I burned out of my first nursing job in Med Surg after 10 months. Looking back, I think this was due to compassion fatigue.

I worked at a family practice for several years, which was way better for me to develop a work/life balance and keep my empathetic feelings from getting too deep and draining me (if that makes sense).

I most recently got into public health. I fell in love with the idea that the concepts of public health can create such a large health impact on communities and entire populations. However, I am finding myself feeling burnt out of my public health nurse job after a year. (I am in grad school for an MPH too, which is probably contributing to the feeling of burn out).

Anyways, I know my rambling post has made it clear that im having a bit of a quarter life crisis going on...Im working on it and not really asking for advice on that.

I'm just curious if there are many other INFJs out there in nursing? Nursing sounds like an ideal INFJ career... but then the realities of nursing make me think that there are not many INFJs in this field. I would love to hear what you do if you are one! ?

No, but I know a couple! I am an infp and am very knowledgeable inmyers briggs and enneagram. They appear to be better in environments where they can think deeply about patient conditions and develop strong relationships with their patients. In my experience, med surg is an awful fit for INFJs. One did well with wound care, and another is in a fast paced environment but overthinks and works really slow. She is extremely knowledgable with pathophysiology. I think maybe community hospital ICU could work if you like acute care enough, hospice, anything where you can do a lot of in depth patient teaching (diabetes educator for instance) , research nurse, to name a few. Obviously, this is a wide variety but there are different aspects of those an infj may like.