How do you deal with attachment?

After several years of this job, I still get attached to my residents. Not the rehabbers, but the long-term ones. The ones you work with 40 hours a week for months or years. Despite what management tells us, I think it's a positive attribute. If I wasn't attached to my residents, there's no way I would ever be able to push myself to go to work.

It's great to be attached to the long-term ones, but if you get attached to all of the rehabbers, you will be upset pretty often because of their frequent discharges. And in regards to your "long-timers," being upset for a day or two is one thing, but being upset (or in your words, "devastated") for weeks is quite another.

There seems to be 2 types of "attachments." There are some residents where everyone is sad that they passed, but an hour or 2 later everything is back to "business as usual." Then there are the ones where EVERYBODY in the facility is saying goodbye to them, crying, and the mood is pretty somber for a few days. Most residents are the former, but you usually have a special few who are the latter.

I had one of my "special" residents pass about 2 months ago. Took care of him for a LONG time. I was the only staff member whose name he could remember. He was just like my grandpa, or even a friend. I was so attached that after my shift I seriously considered quitting because I didn't think that I could possibly work there anymore. Of course, I didn't, I have moved on since then, but I still remember him often. Whether these sorts of attachments are healthy or not is debatable. I go through this about once a year, where someone I'm really attached to dies and it feels like a family member dying, and I consider leaving the field for good. But then I remind myself I feel this way every time and keep going on. This job would NOT be worth it if we just took care of people like robots and checked all of our emotions at the door.

I'm not usually as attached to the rehabbers. I may "miss" them for a few days, but most of the time I'm glad to see them well enough to go home (as opposed to deteriorating to the point that they have to stay indefinitely).

Getting attached has it's good parts and bad. Some of the residents I am super attached to are the ones that make my day bright. The cute, sweet or funny things they say, when they call you sweetheart and ask for a hug, etc....

But when something happens to a resident who is so special to you, it can be very, very tough. I remember one that I was extremely attached to who was taken away to the ER several hours before my shift, and when the nurse told me, I was so panicked that I stumbled back and one of my coworkers who (luckily) was behind me grabbed onto me and gave me a hug. I had to walk outside for a couple minutes and then come back in to work.

It's easier not to get attached after the first time you get burned. I still have residents that I love, but I feel like I don't have the emotional energy anymore, so I always try to keep my attachments in check.