I do not care anymore

[JB2007]

Do any of you have trouble caring about what patients, residents, or anybody does anymore?

Today the nurse on 3rd shift was telling me that so and so just will not get out of bed anymore. All I could do is look at her and say I do not care.

If she wants to lay in that bed and rot let her. I have talked until I am blue in the face with this A&O X 3 resident and she chooses to not get out of bed. I am sick and tired of teaching people and they do not do a single thing I ask them to do.

I think that the residents, management, and my co-workers have sucked the passion of nursing out of me to the point that I do not think that I will ever care about a whole lot again. The well of compassion is dry and I do not think that it will ever fill up again. Oh, I will give good nursing care to my residents and their needs will be met one way or another, but that little bit extra will not be there. This breaks my heart in a way, but I can no longer get enough energy to do anything about it.

What do the rest of you do when you can no longer give a care anymore?

[bradleau]

Due to illness, I have been away from hospital nursing for over 1 yr. I miss it. I do not miss the stress, non compliance and other hassles. I do miss my coworkers. They have been a wonderful group to work with. To stay at one location for 20 yrs was a surprise to even me. I was used to changing locations every couple of years. Sometimes being a nurse is not what you truly want to do. I am now having to consider using my RN skills in a less physical area. But I do not know how I will adapt. I am not a telephone nurse, don't care to drive to my patients and cant due to upper arm issues. How God will use me now, I do not know. I am still healing and hope to regain most of my life. If not? Something will work out.

[pfaceliz]

been there.. you don;t have to be a nurse to be burned out by all these energy vampires! and they are vampires cause they kinda live off your positive nergy, you happiness, your optimism and when they leave you... you are all shriveled up! i worked in a hospital setting that had just that and i left after long grueling months. my humor has left me and i knew it was time to get out.

im in a better setting now... and i DO HAVE A STRAND OF GARLIC under my scrubs and wear my positive snarl like a cross... just in case.

[Norwaynurse]

Sounds like burn-out to me. Take a break from nursing for awhile, get that spark back in your life :)

[Norwaynurse]

Sounds like burnout to me. Take a break from nursing and find your spark again :)

[26faster]

I'm just getting into nursing after being a dietitian for 9 years. I know that feeling of frustration and burn out with patients not listening. The diabetic patient who has ulcers and yells at me because he wants extra sweets even though his blood sugars are >200 or the cardiac patient who's had 2 MIs and rolls his eyes when I introduce myself as the dietitian. There are days when I wonder why I bother. I know that feeling isn't going away with a career change into nursing. For me it helps to for me to get a good workout or a long run in before going to work helps me go into the day with a sense of calm (pound all that frustration energy into the pavement). Also, I keep a letter I received from a patient posted on my fridge. I left the interaction with that particular patient not thinking it was signficant or like I had any real impression but somehow I did. The idea of once in a while you have a greater impact than you are aware of makes me think maybe we create more change then we are realize? :)

I think too sometimes we bring each other down and to that place of not caring. Many places where I've worked people bond by ******** and complaining about patients, management or the politics of the organization. Trying not to get caught up in all that helps.

Better to care for people that are mean or non-compliant and rude than to be that person.

[WhatNext?]

I concur with everyone's advice about taking a vacation, time away from nursing. I want to hightlight the other suggestions too: meditation, massage, intense self-care to replenish the well from which we draw caring. I would also add regular exercise and stimulating your sense of humor with frequent causes for laughter, the more ridiculous and outlandish the better. :lol_hitti:

I've been a nurse for 35 years. In my heart, I will always be a nurse. But nursing is not the profession it was when I got into it. I am unemployed, again, and considering a career change away from anything involving any form of customer service.

I never realized that other nurses also withdraw from human contact on their days off. I don't feel so weird anymore.

One last point, if the break and the self-care aren't enough to replenish you and you still don't care, take it as a sign that this is not the job for you and look for one in a different setting. It's always better to leave on your own terms.

[Genie1]

I am unclear if you mean the patient or the resident on call.

At my age, after many years working in health care, I would report a doctor to her attending and to hospital administration. I would not even mess around with this behavior. If the patient, I would consult with social services, PT/OT, and psychiatry, to discover what other interventions can be appropriated. This would be the highest level of professionalism, and the least that should be done.

Also, the lack of feeling or apathy you express may be related to a low level depression and/or anxiety. I would certainly get some support from your colleagues or outside sources very soon to get your groove back. It is unsafe to be in a service profession while experiencing profound apathy.

[FATKAT]

Re: "Do any of you have trouble caring about what patients, residents, or anybody does anymore? Today the nurse on 3rd shift was telling me that so and so just will not get out of bed anymore. All I could do is look at her and say I do not care."

Bottom line: You can't help/change those who don't want to be helped or change. But think of it this way, do your best regardless, at least you can have peace of mind that you are doing all that you can do and doing it well. Take a vacation and perhaps even consider a change of environment, maybe to somewhere that will help you feel that you are making a difference. (such as school health nurse, community health, prenatal teaching etc.) And don't feel bad, I think that we all feel like this sometimes.:redpinkhe

[Elizabeth, RN]

My first thought on reading your post is, "she is depressed". And I read through 2 pages of responses (many disturbing) before I came across one mentioning depression.

I have been depressed so I often recognize it in others. Apathy is a response to your inability to cope and your obvious anger and hostility. You've had enough and don't want to deal with it anymore so you retreat from the situation emotionally, if not physically. I would recommend seeing someone from your employer's EAP (Employee Assistance Program) or a reputable therapist to help you deal with these issues. They are bound to spill over into your family life as well as your career if you don't deal with them.

You might start with an online "Are you depressed?" test. There are lots of them. It may help you see that this could be a serious issue.

You obviously do not give the best of yourself to the residents when you feel like this. I suspect that your uncooperative resident feels like giving up, too. Have her family and physician been asked to intervene? Instead of demanding that she get up, have you sat with her, held her hand, looked her in the eye and asked her WHY she doesn't want to get out of bed? You may learn that she's mourning her loss of independence, feels that negative attention is better than no attention, she hates the way she's "handled" or even that she's praying to die. She probably thinks no one cares how she feels. Is she right?

Try to change your perspective and your approach. Start with "We may not have gotten off to a very good start but this time I'm here to listen". You might be the one who rescues her--and that feels good.

Ask your family how they feel around you lately. Are they walking on eggshells to avoid upsetting you? It's great that we have this forum to vent our feelings but I urge you to do something constructive,too; call your EAP and talk to someone who understands. It's free and confidential and it was enormously beneficial to me.

Take care.

[JB2007, ASN, RN]

Thank you for you kind responses. The day of the origanal post I was not only physically exhausted, but emotionally as well. There has been a lot of issues both at work and personally that I have been having to deal with and it has taken its toll. I recently had a death in my family that while was not unexpected there was a lot of messy family issues that came up. My family is the definition of dysfunctional. I can usually avoid these very toxic people, but death brings us all into contact.

I have started doing something for myself everyday and it is helping. I have started walking/jogging. I really enjoy having this time to myself and nobody making demands of me. I used to run in my younger years, but I am very out of shape now. I walk a little way and then I jog a little. I have to laugh because I have to be a sight to see, this fat woman jogging down the road with everything bouncing around. Oh well, if they do not like it they should not watch.

Once again, thanks for letting me vent and thanks for offering your advice.

[meluhn]

I think it is perfectly ok to feel like this sometimes. You can feel however you want as long as you do right by your patient by giving the best nursing care you know how to give and by always treating them with respect. This is how I feel sometimes when I take steps to keep someone from falling. I am more concerned with the mountain of paperwork that I would have to do if they fell than concern for my patient. I know this sounds terrible but we are human too. We are not saints, we are not our patients mothers either and we do not have to take on the weight of the world all the time, we just have to do our jobs. I find myself emotionally exhausted when I get too caught up in my patients business and I know I need to take a step back and just do my job.

Also--Did it ever occur to you that this patient might be depressed or sick in some way and that is why she will not get out of bed? In which case your job would be to tell the md--not fix her problem singlehandedly. It is about the pt not you--dont take it personally.

[paddlelady, BSN, RN]

You have opened a can of worms . I dont think you dont care. It just that it is hard to deal with each individuals energy and life experiences that they bring to the facility that they are in. As we know some folks are depressed. Some act out by showing that they dont want to do what is asked of them. Some patients dont want to get out of bed as they just want to be left alone cuz they are unable to cope with their feelings. This person may need a psych referral to find out what is going on. This person may be so low as to think "how did I get in this place." If no psych then social service. Or is there family have they not come to visit. Is this person alone.

It is not that you dont care it is overwhelming to have to deal with so many difficult problems of individual patients at one time.

How about a nursing conference. I am sure that your facility has dealt with patients in this condition before . Sure maybe you need a vacation but will that change how you see problems when you return. Is there something going on with you that makes you think you dont care. Lots of human interaction in this situation. Time to call in for re enforcements. Psych evulation, social service or what are you thoughts. Dont care then just time to re evulate what you career choices are.

Patient are people and are not always compliant regarding health care. There is tons of literature on non compliance behaviour

Enough

good luck

Paddlelady