Hey y'all. I've been a nurse for almost 9 months now and I'm seriously considering leaving the profession altogether. I graduated in December of 2018 and was ecstatic when I got a position as a new grad RN in a med surg residency program starting July of 2019. Packed up all my things and moved three hours away to a very rural community knowing no one.
From the moment I started, I struggled heavily, mostly due to anxiety which I was clinically diagnosed with two years ago and take meds for. I made a lot of mistakes and was constantly on the radar of my nurse educator and supervisor. Two months later, I got called in to my boss's office and she let me go over lying to my preceptor over charting something which I didn't. They felt as if they couldn't trust me anymore.
My options were get fired or be forced to resign. I was devastated. Moved back home to my parent's house and began looking for a new position.
Luckily, I landed another job in a psychiatric rehabilitation facility. Even before starting nursing school, mental health was my passion. I knew I wanted to work psych in the long term. I started this position late October of 2019 and lasted 3 1/2 months until Valentines day. I worked NOC's and was the only licensed staff for that shift. I was overwhelmed, had virtually no support and had to deal with toxic coworkers.
On February 12th, I made the mistake of covering an AM shift and was responsible for pulling meds from a med cart in sheets the old fashioned way and giving them to 50 patients. The next day my boss found out I made a ton of med errors and I seriously thought I was going to be fired on the spot. He gave me another chance to my surprise, but I had had enough and decided to quit.
My current position is in an acute psych facility which I started per diem in January of 2020. Here I feel like I have tons of support, charge nurses who are constantly checking up on me. I've only been called into my boss's office once in 5 months over messing up charting. I feel as if this is less hectic than my last job but I am very unhappy with it.
Psych nursing is not what I glorified it to be. What I thought psych nursing was vs what it really is is not what I expected it to be. What I feel like I really want to do is more in the line of social work or clinical psychology.
On top of all this I screw up constantly and have this fear of getting fired every time I step into the hospital. Today, I made a med error and sort of freaked out and stormed outside the patient's room after realizing I gave meds to the wrong patient. My coworkers tried to comfort me but now I feel like they feel like I can't be trusted.
I'm starting to think nursing is just not for me.
I'm fed up, burned out and I've come to the point where I just don't care anymore and I feel numb. I've had 3 jobs in 9 months which says a lot.
