I Am Absolutely Miserable Because I Hate Being A Nurse
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What Members Are Saying (AI-Generated Summary)
Members are sharing personal experiences and frustrations related to working as a nurse, particularly highlighting issues with management, stress, and burnout. Some members express gratitude and admiration for nurses, while others discuss the challenges of finding less stressful nursing positions. Overall, the conversation emphasizes the need for better support and recognition for nurses in the healthcare industry.
I HATE being a nurse. I’ve hated it since the first day I stepped onto the floor. I’ve never been so stressed out and so unhappy in my entire life. Even before COVID my floor was understaffed, verbal abuse from patients, pulled in 10k different directions and not having time to eat or pee. Then COVID hit and everything got 10x worse. I resent healthcare, I hate it.
I’m a newer nurse, I’m a young person, I should not be this miserable. On my days, off I don’t get out of bed, I’m never hungry, lost weight, cry all the time, have panic attacks over literally nothing, and had to go on anxiety meds. When I asked others if they felt the same way they casually responded with “yeah this is nursing so suck it up, you signed up for this, I’ve been on antidepressants for years and my back will never be the same, but it’s a calling” WHAT?!?
I sure as heck didn’t sign up for unhealthy weight loss, an anxiety disorder and depression. Every time I question something like unsafe ratios, lack of supplies, or management’s unrealistic expectations of us I get told the same thing, “this is nursing”. I have never worked in such a toxic field.
Then I go outpatient--thinking it will be better. Man was I wrong. Patients still abuse you, management still sucks, and I’m still running around like a chicken with my head cut off, except now I get to do it 5 days a week instead of 3.
Life is too short to be this miserable.
I never want to work in healthcare again. I never want to work as a nurse again. I’m currently on a road trip across the country going to the national parks and researching a new career path. Goodbye Nursing ??
I've always bounced from private duty nursing back to the hospital. When the hospital gets too stressful, such as with covid, back to private duty I go. It's the exact opposite - most days it's boring. And I make just as much as I did working ER.
Have you tried nursing homes? They hire RNs as supervisors/unit managers/DONs .. and they're desperately looking to hire more nurses at the moment . Working in a nursing home is not easy by any means, but it is a lot easier to your mental health, than acute. I've done both, and I don't think I'll go back to acute care unless I pick up a travel assignment.
I had similar as a young nurse, found out I had Graves disease, got that fixed and found my chill. Been a nurse for 37 years, but if that is not the case for you, you have time, and your education can still be useful, even in an entirely different career. Check your thyroid first.
I never want to work in healthcare again. I never want to work as a nurse again. I’m currently on a road trip across the country going to the national parks and researching a new career path. Goodbye Nursing ??
Assuming you have your bachelors degree, there are some lucrative and rewarding things you can do with that foundation.
One option that is still in healthcare would be to pursue your Pharm.D., this would allow a relatively quick ROI, and put you in a different capacity within healthcare… and your first job will make more than most topped out NP’s. Due to a different mindset as revenue generating Pharmacists are in good standing compared to nurses at any level.
Perhaps military is something you might appreciate, contact a local recruiter about becoming commissioned as an officer. Excellent way to develop leadership skills, serve your country, and have a great foundation for a successful career post service should you choose to separate prior to retirement.
Another option, no degree required, assuming you are as young as you say and truly wanting out of healthcare, is to contact your local IBEW or trade apprenticeships and learn a trade…paid internships and a lot of high paying work, with great retirement options.
Most people on here will concur that if you absolutely despise what you do as a nurse, it will not get better regardless of where you go. The old “it’s a calling“ was simply a scapegoat for being underpaid and hating what you do. It was also mainly looked at as a supplemental income for someone who was not the head of household. While the pay has improved over the years, the whole nursing mechanism has not, so if you have the opportunity to pivot now you will not regret it. And you will always have the degree and ability to get licensed in the future should you decide to pick up a retirement gig giving shots during the next pandemic ?
What you feel, is what every nurse has felt at one time or another or is feeling now. If things weren’t bad before, covid took what little was left and made it worse. No one truly knows what it’s like but other nurses. This is a personal choice and there is no judgment. I knew when I came into nursing how it would be. This is my second/third career in health care. I have spent 21 years, 17 as a firefighter paramedic, flight medic, paramedic educator, private ambulance and tech/pct in many hospitals. I’m am ED nurse and every day after after having my life threatened multiple times, pushed with unsafe ratios, no food, can’t pee, yelled at by the charge or a doc who needed something done while I’m doing 12 other things … I clock out an hour or two after my reg time to leave and do it all over again. They say “misery loves company” well, if it wasn’t for the nurse and techs I work with, my badge would’ve flown across the charge desk with a finger in the air and some choice words for each person who doesn’t pull their weight every shift. We are … get ready for it “the few” we are “the proud” we are the ones that will never really be appreciated other than a bag or cup, maybe a shirt. The one thing we truly are is “together” and no mater what you decide you are always part of “us”.
I felt exactly the same on the floor. The trick is to stick it out for 3 years, or at least a year. That will make it a launchpad for other fields. In the meantime start working towards an advanced degree. But 3 years on the floor will qualify you for Nurse Educator, Case Manager, Insurance jobs, Nursing Documentation Specialist and even Nurse Manager.
don't quit till you try Home Health or Hospice. You will make the same amount of money as the floor with one patient at a time.
You can also work for state agencies in regulatory and other roles.
Specializes in Dr of vet med, ER/ICU/Vet Anesthesia/Practice.
Over the years, many of us have tried and tried to show our deepest respects and concerns for the inhuman conditions, pressures, unreal caseloads, record nightmares, murphy stalking the floors, juggling doctors and admin and exhuasting schedules and trying to acknowledge both the techical and the emotional aspects...no matter how one shields.....nurses live with suffering and pain.....and losses and it eventaully gets in.......
more times than not ....I get eaten alive by nurses and others who are suspicious of our motives...........(we don't **** want anything) ....Nursing is brutal job..........people don't not understand what nurses go through and what they have sacrificed for those of us who survived v vv v bad ortho surgeries held together by nurses...............doctors and even nurses mock us for our respects of nursing but we know they live in a horrendous sometimes rewarding but largely self sacrificing job....
the other day I read where one nurse wrote about years and years of tears.... she failed to mention she works with the worst cases in pedicatrics............she and others fail to realize the reason she cries is because she cares...............I could be run over by a bus and believe me......non of my family and esp my mother would never shed a tear........
nurses cry...........because they care deeply about their patients and suffer with their patients suffering...........even delayed it still gets in.....that no fault.....anymore than faulting someone for bleeding havig a deep arm wound...............why wouldnt they unless they were made of stone....
nurses who cry is not abby normal..............its because they are the heros who break their backs caring and taking care of people and children and the elderly who cant................no one
but nurses can endure the pain and suffering that nurses go through.....
I defy anyone to try nursing for a day.....marathons and nighbmare of conflicting dut and watching every detail as anting can and will go wrong.....mrs henry if not positioned correctly can choke ......etc. al lcommone knowleldge to nurses...............
stress??? ungodly levels of stress...........airport radar specialsist levels........
responsible for everytinng and the most vulneralbe people, the toughest discisoons ..........on and on.......
cry? most of us wouldnt last twenty seconds in nursing and go screaming into the good night............
don't kick my rear end for acknowledging nursing....its a brutal job
we see what nurses go through............pass me twelve bottles of aspirin plese..............
nurses cry because they feel for their patients and hearts of caring and the protectiveness of lioneeses.....
they cry.....because they care.................no one seems to mention that...........
Nursing has been degraded to a waitress with CPR role thanks to hospitals marketing themselves as hotels with chandeliers and player pianos in the lobbies. Patients then visualize nurses as their personal concierge. There are many DECENT fields for women these days. Explore them. They offer sanity and respect much beyond this putrid field. Nursing needs an overhaul...has for the last 50 years. This field seems to keep the darkest side of the female gender (miserable, nasty, petty, mentally disturbed)...especially in management.
Have you tried nursing homes? They hire RNs as supervisors/unit managers/DONs .. and they're desperately looking to hire more nurses at the moment . Working in a nursing home is not easy by any means, but it is a lot easier to your mental health, than acute. I've done both, and I don't think I'll go back to acute care unless I pick up a travel assignment.
Nursing homes are even more putrid than hospitals. The LVNs act like they are royalty and won't lift a finger. It is all on the back of CNAs.
The staffing situation is so bad it is a meri-go- round. I tried it out as supervisor pre-COVID. Half the time you had to pass meds because the LVN called in. Will never work at a NH for a million dollars.
nursel56
7,122 Posts
A road trip through the national parks sounds like the perfect way to clear your head. All the best in your future endeavors!