How do I deal with the emotions?

NurseOnAMotorcycle, ASN, RN · Feb 23, 2015

One of the things that I hate the most about emergency services is the pressure to just brush it off and suck it up. We're supposed to be too tough to be bothered by every anything. Reality is that they're just really good at faking it.

I can guarantee that you have access to an EAP (employee assistance program) service through your work for free. They can talk to you over the phone and also schedule appointments to just talk it out confidentially.

Right now, go get a shower and get out of your house and do something active. Go clubbing, go bowling or work out at the gym. I don't like going to the movie theater because I'm not burning any energy and end up just sitting there thinking too much. Burn off some of that extra stress? It won't take it all away, but it helps to take the sharper edges off of ithe feelings so you can deal with it easier.

LJ85, ADN, BSN, CNA, LPN · Feb 24, 2015

I am a new RN (6 months). I worked as an LPN in home health with pediatrics and adults for 7 years before I went back for RN. My first RN job was in the ER that I currently work in. I struggle every time a code happens with my emotions. I dont care if its an 89 year old person, its a life. Somebody loves that person. I am an emotional person to begin with and this always gets me, I always tear up and have to compose myself to carry on with the day...It seems like most of the other nurses just get over it without an issue...maybe it will get easier in time but I dont want to become calloused, but I feel it looks unprofessional to lose composure... :bored:

Lâ™¡vER · Feb 24, 2015

This is hard for me as well. I am not a sympathetic person, unfortunately I am empathetic. I feel the shock, the loss, the grief. It does get easier with time. You don't care less, you just don't carry it on the surface as much. It goes in little bottles to be expressed later.

foragreatergood · Feb 24, 2015

I think that being able to associate the death of a family member to the patient lying in front of you makes you a better nurse. I cant explain why or how - but these situations seem to be easier to cope with over time. Don't fight your sensitivity- embrace it and process it.

After losing a family member to cancer, I took care of a patient that was similar in so many ways - and for a second it was my family member - her face looking up at me. Freaked me out. But it made me take care of her like she was my family. It was a good thing, because it also brought some healing to my own heart.

rnkatie85 · Mar 19, 2015

I think, in my experience anyway, you have to have some type of barrier with your emotions, at least when all of it is actually going on. After its done, take a break, stop and breath. I had a very wise nurse tell me "I don't care if you smoke or not, go outside and "smoke"." Just go out side to get fresh air, cry if you need to, and try to pull yourself back together. I am not a very emotional person, in general, but there are many times I have stood next to a pt's family member, held their hand, and cried with them. That's ok! It lets them know that you did everything you could, and in some small measure you felt with and for them.

Talk to your coworkers after the event, some times it just helps to verbalize it to someone else.

I'm sorry you had a crappy day, but just try to remember that is why we do what we do. In the ER we see people at their worst, and try like hell to fix it, but the biggest problem is sometimes we don't "win", sometimes we can't beat the light.

Dragonnurse1, ASN, RN · Apr 9, 2015

I had an 11 year old child rushed into our ER in the wee hours of one morning. He had been discharged from a children's hospital just north of us after having had heart surgery for a shunt placement. The shunt tore on his way home. The child was from India, beautiful black hair and warm brown skin. At first I thought I was looking at my then 7 year old son. The hair was the same color, my son spent every waking moment in the pool so he had the same coloring and both of them were about the same size. We went full bore but everything that could go wrong did including the x-ray tech mislabeling the x-ray film reversing left and right. We cracked his chest while pouring emergency blood supplies into him while manually massaging his heart. Every time I looked down I saw my son but I kept going. We did not win, we called the thoracic surgeon in but he got there only in time to close the chest, we made arrangements for the family in order to provide for their needs as members of the Hindu faith. When we, night shift, left that morning we all went to leave but gathered first at one car to debrief, discuss, cry and hug each other over the loss of this beautiful child. I went home and kept my 7 year old home from school so that I could hold onto him for most of the day. The other nurses and I spoke on the phone several times over the next week, and at work, about the experience. We thought we got past it then I hear from my mother that the family was good friends with one of her friends and the family was saying that we did not do everything we could because they were Hindu, I flipped my lid. It brought back all the emotions of that night but I did what we all do - pigeon hole it.

We, for the most part, do not get callous we just get better at stuffing the emotions into a little box until the shift is over. Our shift found that debriefing was the best thing for all of us. Sometimes it just takes talking about it with other nurses in order to put the emotions in order. I had several times where I cried with family when they lost someone in my ER, I cried when I helped them sign off on the DNR that released their loved one from the agony of life but none of them hit me the way that young Indian boy's death did. But you will get past it, learn from it but you do not need to get hard hearted. When something like that happens take the "smoke break" you will be surprised how much easier your life will be and your emotions can stay intact for your patients and yourself.

To quote part of one of my favorite poems;

And whether or not it is clear to you, no doubt the universe is unfolding as it should. Therefore be at peace with God, whatever you conceive Him to be.

And whatever your labors and aspirations, in the noisy confusion of life, keep peace in your soul. With all its sham, drudgery and broken dreams, it is still a beautiful world. Be cheerful. Strive to be happy.

[Desiderata, Max Erhmann]

annabanana2 · May 28, 2015

To the poster above (I forgot to click "quote"): oh, that's so hard. You work and work and work and you stress and agonize and cry and in the end you find out that the patient's family doesn't believe you tried your hardest. That's such an awful feeling. I'm sorry that happened.