Dont you just love them

tencat · Sep 29, 2007

Just a little related question because it has come up at work... do you feel sorry for others who get sick because of what they have done to themselves? Like the lung cancer or COPD patient who smoked 2 packs a day for 40 years (and still smokes)? Or the dialysis patient who has been a non-compliant diabetic for years? Or even the AMI patient who didn't watch their diet or exercise?
Tough.

Yes it is tough. But people make thier choices. I don't particularly feel sorry for these patients. I don't see these circumstances as tragic (like the mother of four who had brain cancer that another poster told about). If it's a true tragedy, then I feel sorry for them. But if they've brought it on themselves, as so many patients have, I will give them the best care I can and empathize, but I won't feel sorry for them.

Toquay · Sep 29, 2007

I get frustrated with the "poor pitiful me" types too. I have been in the ER for 10 plus years but before the ER I did ICU a couple years. One evening in the ICU I had a 40ish yr old Drug OD that was crying when I entered his room. I asked why was he upset and he whined how his wife had not come to see him today (weekday). I asked him if they had children and he said 2 boys under age 10. I proceeded to explain to him that just perhaps his wife was trying to be both mother and father to her children by helping them with schoolwork, baths, dinner, etc after having had to work a full day herself. I further told him that when we marry we expect a "partner" in life to help through the daily responsibilities (a 50/50 deal) not someone that cops out and forces all the responsibility onto one person. I told him I did not feel sorry for him but for his wife and I hoped he would get the help he needed to become a good partner to his wife.

I guess it was wrong to blast the dude but geesh I just get tired of the demands that these "poor pitiful" types put on everyone but themselves.

Toq

Jo Dirt · Sep 30, 2007

I get frustrated with the "poor pitiful me" types too. I have been in the ER for 10 plus years but before the ER I did ICU a couple years. One evening in the ICU I had a 40ish yr old Drug OD that was crying when I entered his room. I asked why was he upset and he whined how his wife had not come to see him today (weekday).
Toq

This is typical for narcissistic personality disorder.

As for the junkies and alcoholics, I'm guilty of looking at them and thinking things that are not very nice, sometimes. But then I realize how depression and other forms of mental illness

can affect some people and when I learn about their situations I realize these people are trying to numb the incredible (often emotional, which is worse than physical) pain they are in and I might be worse than they are in the same situation.

I was watching COPS and saw them stop this filthy middle-aged man who was living out of his car. When they started searching it they found marijuana, booze, needles, pipes...etc.. I looked at him and thought he was just some old sot. He just sat there and looked indifferent as they tore his car apart. Then they started finding family pictures and asking who the people were and the sot explained they were his wife and children who were killed in a car wreck several years ago.

So that's still not an excuse to become a junkie? Please get off that high horse.

andhow5, BSN, RN · Oct 4, 2007

I agree, I don't feel sorry for them either. It's a choice they make, and all too frequently it's blamed on "mental illness". It's a choice they made, and they need to deal with the consequences and attempt to grow up.

bigsyis · Oct 4, 2007

I still refuse to feel sorry for them

Absolutely. The choice(s) that got them to your ER are theirs, and theirs alone. You have the job of taking care of the illness they perpetrated upon their body, and that is it.

twinmommy+2, ADN, BSN, MSN · Oct 5, 2007

The only drug and alcohol addicts I feel bad for are the ones that are actually trying to break their addiction....not the ones that continue on destroying their lives through their own free will.
To break that cycle is very hard and a life-long struggle...you are never free from the bonds of addiction...that's why I feel sympathy for the ones fighting the good fight trying to get better. Other than them...no...not one ounce of sympathy for the ones who don't care.

Thank you, I completly agree

elthia · Oct 5, 2007

This is typical for narcissistic personality disorder.
As for the junkies and alcoholics, I'm guilty of looking at them and thinking things that are not very nice, sometimes. But then I realize how depression and other forms of mental illness
can affect some people and when I learn about their situations I realize these people are trying to numb the incredible (often emotional, which is worse than physical) pain they are in and I might be worse than they are in the same situation.
I was watching COPS and saw them stop this filthy middle-aged man who was living out of his car. When they started searching it they found marijuana, booze, needles, pipes...etc.. I looked at him and thought he was just some old sot. He just sat there and looked indifferent as they tore his car apart. Then they started finding family pictures and asking who the people were and the sot explained they were his wife and children who were killed in a car wreck several years ago.
So that's still not an excuse to become a junkie? Please get off that high horse.

The nurse part of me sees:

Ineffective coping R/t situational crisis, i.e. death of family, AEB illicit drug use and lack of hygiene. He needs bereavement counseling and to be taught better coping skills.

As somebody who in the past year has personally nursed a loved one through chemo, sepsis, numerous ICU admissions, hospice, and held his hand while he died, while simultaneously holding down a job, raising stepkids whose mothers hate me; finding out I'm infertile; having a supposed "friend" blatantly try to seduce my husband while said love one was dying in the ICU; having my dearest true friend diagnosed with early kidney failure; my mother diagnosed with an autoimmune disorder; and suffering myself from migraines so severe that I've been hospitalized twice in the past month wants to say:

quit using your grief as an excuse and take some responsibility for yourself. But then again, I'm still at the stage where I still have some anger issues.

I think we all need to remember that sometimes it's easy on these boards to post a response that is closer to our own personal values than to how we would react as a nurse on duty. Just so long as when we are on duty we remember to react as a nurse on duty, with empathy and nonjudgementally. Leave the venting for Allnurses.com.

nursenpnk, RN · Oct 5, 2007

"I think we all need to remember that sometimes it's easy on these boards to post a response that is closer to our own personal values than to how we would react as a nurse on duty. Just so long as when we are on duty we remember to react as a nurse on duty, with empathy and nonjudgementally. Leave the venting for Allnurses.com.;)"

couldn't have said it any better;)

teeituptom, BSN, RN · Oct 8, 2007

At work I take good care of them, but the issue of whether I should feel sorry or not for them is also the same. You tell me to feel sorry for you because of meth or coc, guess what I will look at you and say no

teeituptom, BSN, RN · Nov 5, 2007

yeaaaaahhhhhhhhhhhh

UM Review RN, ASN, RN · Nov 5, 2007

This is typical for narcissistic personality disorder.
As for the junkies and alcoholics, I'm guilty of looking at them and thinking things that are not very nice, sometimes. But then I realize how depression and other forms of mental illness
can affect some people and when I learn about their situations I realize these people are trying to numb the incredible (often emotional, which is worse than physical) pain they are in and I might be worse than they are in the same situation.
I was watching COPS and saw them stop this filthy middle-aged man who was living out of his car. When they started searching it they found marijuana, booze, needles, pipes...etc.. I looked at him and thought he was just some old sot. He just sat there and looked indifferent as they tore his car apart. Then they started finding family pictures and asking who the people were and the sot explained they were his wife and children who were killed in a car wreck several years ago.
So that's still not an excuse to become a junkie? Please get off that high horse.

Even when genuine tragedy hits, we still have choices, MM.

I will never figure out why it is so much more culturally acceptable for a man to pick up a drink than it is for him to get into counseling.

bigsyis · Nov 5, 2007

Even when genuine tragedy hits, we still have choices, MM.
I will never figure out why it is so much more culturally acceptable for a man to pick up a drink than it is for him to get into counseling.

Excellent!