Growing feelings of frustration as a nurse

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This may merely come across as a vague "vent" session, I'm more than willing to give more specific details or examples of events to support the feelings I've expressed if anyone is interested/curious or for clarification reasons. It was written quickly, so excuse any errors please! Feedback, advice, similar experiences are greatly appreciated.....

My course through nursing has been an indescribable journey of the highest highs and lowest lows. Going from a sense of unbreakable happiness to looking at tiny joyful fragments or moments of my career shattered on the floor around me only being able to pick up enough good pieces to get me through the next 12 hours ahead. I've spent half of a day feeling irreplaceable and needed only to be sitting at lunch on that very same day feeling worthless and defeated. My body has literally ached to its core with the realization that I am unappreciated after I have given every ounce of myself to the care of a patient and using a reserve I didn't even know I had to give to their families. I have advocated, I have cared, I have loved, I have healed, I have fought, and I have reassured patients and families to the point they couldn't dream up a complaint, only to get scolded by management for a minuscule error before the high has had a chance to wear off from feeling like you've finally made it through one day without fault. I have been built up enough to think nothing could ever bring me back down only to have my spirit completely broken in the same day. I've gone from thinking I've found my calling and believing it whole heartedly as I'm falling asleep saying "this is where I belong" to staring at a computer screen at 0800 the next morning unable to check the boxes that could ultimately be my saving grace or downfall one day down the road wondering why in the hell am I here? (Because we all know no matter the work we have put in and no matter the blood sweat or tears if we don't chart it.. It didn't happen). Still I find myself wondering in that moment why do I care? Fortunately, I can say I've found what keeps me grounded and sane in all this and that is my coworkers who I now refer to my sisters and mean it without hesitation, and the patients I have fallen in love with that genuinely look me in the eye and say "there is no nurse like you" "you've made a difference" "you've changed our life" and to me the most important, but the most frowned upon "we love you". I have had patients who have changed my life and I have changed theirs taken away from me because caring has somehow reached a level of inappropriate. To be fair, no one yet has shown me a definite line between caring too much and caring too little that makes a damn bit of sense to me. But I'm not allowed to decide that because while I'm busy trying to perfect the line I'm expected to walk between exceptional patient care making certain not to sway to either side accidentally stumbling into caring too much, somewhere there is a chart I forgot to sign off on for the second time during my shift that will ultimately be what gets brought up in an evaluation of my performance over the patient that hugged me tight and whispered "thank you" choking back tears when I walk them out of the hospital to say bye one last time... Instead of aimlessly scribbling my signature again for the ridiculous-teenth time that shift. Don't get me wrong.. Documenting, reviewing orders, memorizing recent labs, knowing every ml of intake and output that day, and charting (and then charting that you've charted) every detail of the day until it makes you feel silly and redundant is a vital part of our jobs. But that is not all we signed up for when we walked out on the floor and assumed responsibility for a team of patients. I can tell you honestly I have left countless shifts missing a chart check, a nursing note, or a documented bed change. I can also honestly tell you have I never once, not one shift in over 2 years, left knowing I did not make every move or decision in the best interest of my patient. I have cared day in and day out, every minute of every shift, and it has been my greatest attribute and yet somehow my fatal flaw. I will never stop caring, I will never give up on my kids, I will never stop being a nurse, and I hope there is a day I will never go home using the very last bit of energy I can muster up before my body gives into exhaustion wondering "why wasn't my best, my all, my everything for these kids good enough"? And if that's too far fetched and distant from reality I hope those days can become few and far between.

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Also, I'd like to add I'm fully aware of compassion fatigue and that I may sound like I get too invested or emotionally attached to my patients, but I don't believe that's the case. It's usually few and far between that I develop a close relationship with them and their families and it's usually one of my chronic patients I've seen frequently and will for years on end. And for me I've always felt like nurses in peds kind of have to form a little stronger relationship with patients and their families just simply due to the fact they are kids? but that could be completely innacurate (all my experience is within pediatrics). I also wanted to clarify I work for a great hospital, one of the best if not the best in my area (just don't want it to seem like I'm trying to convince people I work for an abnormally strict or pleasant hospital).

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