Feeling Overwhelmed in Nursing School

[marykate23]

I've just started my junior year of nursing school and I am feeling completely overwhelmed, terrified, and honestly depressed. I am a 4.0 student and doing great in my classes, but I'm just feeling completely overwhelmed by the responsibilities nurses have. I feel so lost in the material and I have had numerous mental breakdowns over the past month. I cannot imagine feeling this way for the rest of my life. Does it get better? I just feel so overwhelmed by the realities of nursing and I want to know if, emotionally, it is as draining as it is right now. 

[TheDudeWithTheBigDog, ADN, RN]

You give pills, and report changes to the doctor with a focused assessment and vital signs.  If the patient is oriented enough to learn, you explain stuff to them while you're doing it.  Your aides and LPNs know their job and most of them do it and you're not going to be delegating, more of just "this patient needs to be cleaned."  Admissions and discharges are just up to learning your job's process for them.  And anything you don't know, you have computers with the internet, or you have a cell phone, or you have med books, whatever you don't know, you can just look it up, and should.  It only takes 20 seconds, and while you'll be slow at first, you'll gain speed as you learn.

It's a mentally and physically demanding job, you're going to go home some nights too tired to even think about what to eat for dinner, but as long as you're not an idiot, it's easy, there's just a lot of it.

[marykate23]

22 minutes ago, TheDudeWithTheBigDog said:

You give pills, and report changes to the doctor with a focused assessment and vital signs.  If the patient is oriented enough to learn, you explain stuff to them while you're doing it.  Your aides and LPNs know their job and most of them do it and you're not going to be delegating, more of just "this patient needs to be cleaned."  Admissions and discharges are just up to learning your job's process for them.  And anything you don't know, you have computers with the internet, or you have a cell phone, or you have med books, whatever you don't know, you can just look it up, and should.  It only takes 20 seconds, and while you'll be slow at first, you'll gain speed as you learn.

It's a mentally and physically demanding job, you're going to go home some nights too tired to even think about what to eat for dinner, but as long as you're not an idiot, it's easy, there's just a lot of it.

That does make me feel a bit better to know that it's not always so insane. I guess I'm just imagining everything being absolutely crazy and never having any time to actually do my job right. I'm sure that's the reality for some nurses, but it does feel good to know that not all types of nursing are like that.