Cry for help: I don't think I can do this.

[-MissTake-]

Let me put this into context. Maybe this belongs in the general student discussion because I am a BSN student approaching my final semester of nursing school, but I'm seeking out perspective from individuals who are already working in the field and have experience.

I don't think I can do this.

I don't know what I am supposed to do.

I alternately feel like the biggest jerk and the biggest failure on the face of the earth - dramatic I know, but really. I'm a great student! I have fabulous grades, I'm always on time at the hospital, I -care- about the people I take care of during my clinical hours and I treat them with compassion and dignity, I'm not -glaringly- incompetent and I usually get along well with the staff.

And I hate, hate, HATE every single minute of it. In fact, I fantasize every day about blowing off my last three months and not even finishing my degree. I already have one 4 year degree in the burn pile - what's one more!? This is the big failure/big jerk part: I know there are so many people who try and fail at even becoming nurses in the first place, or they work and they scrape and they struggle because it doesn't come easily. I'm not having that problem. So what's the big deal?

I cry, almost every single day, at least every week, I cry and I cry. I cry when I come home. I cry when I try to sleep and I can't. I cry when I think about having to go back to the hospital. I cry when I think about the impenetrably disapproving look on my clinical instructor's face as I weigh whether or not I should even ask her the question brewing in my head, or the next time an honest entreaty for help gets shot down with "you ought to know this already." I cry when I think about getting my license, I cry when I think about getting a job. I feel so miserable and I ask myself every day why I did this to myself.

Oh. And my blood pressure? Hello clinical hypertension! It was perfectly fine before nursing school. Yeah, I've done the stressful college dance before: driving all over the darn place, transcribing interview tapes 40 hours a week, 15+ hours of class, finishing my undergrad thesis - I was running ragged, sleeping

I see the cutthroat and hostile unit cultures, burnt out, overwhelmed nurses cutting corners, I've been laughed at for following orders, yelled at by angry unit managers for doing what I was told to do, I feel like I have absolutely no idea what the HECK I am doing and I think to myself, oh my goodness, if my first job is anything like this, I'm going to end up killing someone and losing my license.

I'm amazed at the minimal authority nurses seem to wield over of their own work environment and their status as first sacrificial lamb up for the slaughter from a legal perspective if something goes awry. I don't see how new nurses ever make the cut as most of them appear to lack support. I have heard so many horror stories from experienced nurses who were humble and transparent enough to be honest with me about what they encountered when they first entered into the field. Obviously they went on to overcome the difficulties they faced, but...

... holy crap! Is this field as terrible as I think it is? How does anyone ever manage to do this? Do the chest-rending anxiety and terror eventually go away, do things begin to fall into place one you get out of school, get your license and find a job - you know, when you have to slog through all the things you've come to hate for even more hours every week - or am I going to be Googling "I hate nursing", "non-nursing jobs with BSN degree" and "getting out of nursing" until 3am every night through all of it?

I know that no one can answer these questions for me - they are, in essence, rhetorical. But I wonder - is what I'm experiencing normal? Am I going to pieces for no reason, or am I just not cut out to do this?

I've worked with the disenfranchised, people in crisis; heavy, taxing mental and emotional work. But this is a new kind. I don't really mind how I feel when I am taking care of patients. It's the way I feel when I'm away from all that. I feel such a profound sense of pressure, especially from instructors giving us their "pearls of wisdom" - what I'm hearing is that we're all going to screw up, we're all in immediate danger at all times of losing our licenses, and we all HAVE to work at hospitals on adult med-surg floors if we ever want to have job options or a suitably diverse skill set no matter how ill-suited or opposed we are to so doing. Reality? Myth?

Do I suck it up, shut it down, or just find a way to work with it? I think I'd love to work in community health as I have some experience working with mums utilizing public health initiative services and I served as a an assistant community resource advisor to financially disadvantaged families. I love providing education, I enjoy working with people individually, conducting research and developing solutions, but I feel like the fast-paced and hospital-based acute care model is being crammed down my throat every hour of every day and I'm drowning in it.

... is that all nursing is? That's how I feel right now. And every time I think about how much I don't like where I am right now, I try to tell myself that it will get better, I imagine the faces of everyone who has supported me and made it possible for me to finish this degree, I think about all the time, the effort, the money, the difficulties, and the total lack of realistic job prospects I'll face if I fail to deliver. Fear. Guilt. Faint, faint glimmer of hope.

Short story: it does -not- make me feel better.

The best part is not knowing which to worry about most: finishing my (second) degree and not being able to find a job, or being super successful in finding a soul-crushing job that I hate with every fiber of my being.

Thanks for reading my totally long and whiny (yet much needed and cathartic!) post that is probably posted in the wrong forum,

MissTake

(P.S. "quit complaining", "u should b so greatful (can't you spell?) to even b in nursing school!!!!!", "DIDN'T YOU KNOW NURSING IS HARD WORK??", etc., need not apply; I'm not stupid, I'm just really upset, I feel like there's no one to talk to and I don't need any more negativity - thanks!)

[monkeybug]

I felt a lot like that my last semester. I was over it and done. And when it came time to precept and my advisor told me I should really precept in Med/Surg for that wonderful knowledge base it would give me, I quite frankly told her that if I had to do one more day in Med/Surg, in any capacity, and I would quit nursing school and head to WalMart to apply. My grades were good, so I was allowed to precept in L&D, which led to my job in L&D, which led to many happy years of nursing for me. Last year, my last in a hospital, I had gotten sick and tired of ineffective, passive-aggressive managers, the God of Patient Satisfaction, and the never-ending stream of egotistical-without-justification residents and interns. I would get physically sick driving to work. I actually vomited a couple of times on the drive in. I managed to find an amazing job outside the hospital that seems like heaven, and I'm the happiest professionally I've ever been.

Don't quit. Finish, and take your boards. You'll never know unless you actually try it. If you quit, you'll always wonder if you would have been a good nurse. School bears little resemblance to the real world (sometimes this is good, sometimes it's bad), so don't let it decide your future.

[TheGuestNurse]

It does get better.

Nursing school is enough to make anyone hate nursing but when you are on the floor, or in the office, or in the field things sort of fall into place. No nursing job is perfect but with time you become more competent and confident and your stress will level off.

You might as well finish your degree at this point. You can always use your nursing degree for a nursing career off the beaten path.

I'm an informatics nurse and my stress level is nothing like it was on the floor.

[coconutgirl14]

To the OP: stay strong. I felt a lot of similar emotions in nursing school, which wasn't too long ago for me. I'm also a second-degree nurse, and my other degree is a liberal arts degree, so I had absolutely no prior exposure to anything remotely hospital or health-related. Nursing school was tough for me, both personally and professionally, and I never really felt like I completely fit into my new career as seamlessly as I had hoped. But I never gave up. I realized how vast this profession is. The great thing about it is that if you don't fit into one area in nursing, there's a million other things you can try. There's so much latitude in this profession, and with the economy slowly improving, more opportunities are opening up both outside and inside the hospital. Take advantage of your flexibility as a nurse to do something that fits you best. Keep your head up and you'll be great.

[Lev, MSN, RN, NP]

Hey

It happens to all of us. There are good times and bad times.

If you don't like yourself, don't enjoy what are doing, cry a great deal, have trouble sleeping, and have physical symptoms (HTN), you may be depressed. Take a deep breath, get help, and you will be fine :)

[psullivan95]

You can work in any field and get awful/scary/angry/impatient coworkers or bosses. And you can lose your job or get scolded for offenses in any field. Just sayin'.

I'm being serious here... I read AN to keep me grounded. I see that everyone else goes through the same things and, not only am I comforted, but I find really good advice. As other people have already stated, there is so much more to nursing than med/surg, ER etc. Also, doing something stupid or neglectful PETRIFIED me but I could not let all that hard work and schooling go to waste because of what MIGHT happen. As someone had previously mentioned, you can look up people who have had their licenses suspended or revoked and the reasons are serious offenses.

I do pediatric home care for medically intense children and I love it. I don't really have coworkers (except for shifts that "touch"), I don't have a boss breathing down my neck (sometimes the parents can be overwhelming but over time they have learned to trust me), and it is SO REWARDING. 1:1 time where I admin meds, check VS, CPT and other tx, chart, AND have time left over to care for them socio/psych/spiritually. I get to cuddle them, make them laugh, read to them, and help them participate in family events. I also make sure the family is ok (one family has two working parents and three other teenagers to raise so I do whatever I can to help make their lives easier). Just by us nurses being there, these children are able to live with their family instead of in a facility. I love that I can help make that happen.

I know it's a tangent but I had hoped to paint a picture of what nursing CAN be. I started this job straight out of an LPN program (I just got accepted to an LPN-RN bridge program...yay!) and I learned very quickly what I needed to in order to care for them competently (sp?). It helps that I only have two cases and I know everything I need to in order to care for them. Being alone by myself was frightening as a new nurse but the nurses who trained me to care for these children have a vested interest in me doing a wonderful job. When you spend 1:1 time caring for someone you can't help but become attached. Not once has someone scolded me for asking questions or asking for clarification.

I wish I could have been more articulate but it's late and your plea really touched me. Hang in there and don't let your fears overwhelm you. We all had/have them and most of us made it out intact.

[SENSUALBLISSINFL, BSN, RN]

To the OP, please do not give up... you are so close to the finishing line. Whether you pursue it or not, finish your degree, like a previous poster stated, you may change your mind later.

Good luck.

[Jazzy319]

So I realize this is a very old thread, but I happened to come across this post as I googled something along the same lines, as I am feeling the EXACT SAME WAY as the original poster. I am in my second semester of an accelerated BSN program, also working on my second bachelors degree... I literally can relate SO much; in fact I feel like I could have written this.

I am doing well in school and at clinicals, but hating every minute of it! I guess I'm doing a decent job faking it, but I feel so guilty and terrible because it seems like my classmates are just so excited and eager to become nurses, while I am dreading it. I don't want to be a Debbie-downer or bring negativity/discouragement to my classmates, so I don't feel like I can't even talk to them about how I'm feeling.

I am constantly telling myself that I just need to get through the schooling and then I can try to find a job where I can use my degree but not have to be a bedside nurse. I just dread the hospital setting, I feel like I could never be competent to manage multiple med surg patients and so much more on my own. And yet, 90% of our clinical experience will be in the hospital setting, a constant reinforcement of what I DON'T want to do for the rest of my life. After investing so much time, energy, and money into this career, I just hate to think that at the end of it all I will end up in a position where I dread going to work because every day is overwhelming, and feeling unhappy.

What I am curious about now is, MissTake, so how did everything turn out for you in the long run? Are you currently working as a nurse? Is there any hope, DOES IT EVER GET BETTER?

[Alie3Cat]

Hello Miss Take....you might be a Mrs by now so this may never reach you, but I was compelled enough by your post to create an account. I relate to literally EVERYTHING you have said (except that I am finishing up my first semester of an ABSN program rather than nearing the end).

I appreciate all of the supportive comments from other members but for my own sanity, I have to ask how and where you are now? What would you say to that former self??

Wishing you the best & hope this comment finds you....