Dealing with Difficult

well, my training came from being raised by a mother who was the incarnation of judge judy and dr. laura with a belt in one hand and a wooden spoon in the other. both her parents were alcoholics and she learned all the dysfunctional behaviors from them including unfairness in discipline. if she was wailing on one kid she would look at another and yell, "what are you looking at?" and proceed to start wailing on him because, "i'm sure you deserve it".

what i learned from being treated like that [and you are going to have patients who just pop off suddenly, without warning, or accuse you of something you know you didn't do] is to just stand there with a blank look. you never respond in protest face to face with the complainer because that only fans the fire [and we got an even worse spanking from our mom]. if complaints rise to the level of the manager, then you present your defense and hope the manager is smart enough to realize that there are passive-aggressive nincompoops in the world who use strangers [you and i] to take their frustrations out on. you try your best to assuage them. you try to meet their needs, as stupid or demanding as they might be, before they voice them, if you can, since some of these people are testing you to see how fast you are going to respond to their beck and call. sometimes prompt service [yes, i did say "service"] shuts them down and gets them out of your hair which is all i wanted in the first place.

i treat everyone with respect. i've worked in places where we had drug addicts, prisoners, homeless people, wealth beyond your dreams, movie stars, gypsies and people you might call scum. bottom line is that they are all people and if you treat them nicely, they, in general, do the same right back at you. those that don't--well, they've got their own thing going and i refuse to be sucked into their personal dramas.

i took a seminar years ago where i asked about people who were always on their call light with one little request after another. your instructors from school will tell you that these patients are in need of something and it is up to you to figure it out. that's what the seminar leader said too, but he did tell us how to go about figuring it out. you have to spend time with these people, talk to them and be very observant. they may not tell you right away because that little issue of trust and bonding has to happen. but i have generally found that when i have paid attention to many of these squeaky wheels there was a hidden bombshell that was eventually revealed. some of these people ended up being our code blues! don't get me wrong, a few are just nasty sobs. i'd rather be nice to all in order to catch the ones that are coding instead of turning a deaf ear and losing someone because i missed the s/s of an impending code. i just am respectful to everyone. i can badmouth them when i get home and safely out of their earshot.

i learned how to do transcendental meditation in my 20's and practiced it pretty regularly. i also was a student of metaphysics and studied a number of different religions. i think that my spiritual beliefs play a big role in how i see other people's behavior. i believe that everyone is traveling their own path of discovery. we cross paths with others along the way and [now here is where the meditation and metaphysics helps] rather than see the encounter as something negative, i try to figure out what i can learn from my interaction with that person. if you look at things that way then there is something positive to learn from encounters not only with patients--even the sobs--but with everyone. as nurses we are also in the unique position to role model the correct behavior with patients. some nurses forget that. what meditation, metaphysics and spiritualism has taught me is that nursing gave me many more opportunities to grow spiritually than i would have had in any other profession.