I've been a nurse for about 4.5 years. During the past year or so, I've started to dread waking up in the morning and going to work, so much so that I can barely sleep the night before without taking Xanax. The anxiety even creeps into my days off, as I subconsciously count down the hours until I have to go back and start to get depressed about it. During stretches of a couple days off, I'm generally pretty productive and happy.
I've seen a lot of people post about dreading going to work when they are new nurses and overwhelmed with the learning curve. I did not have that as a new nurse. Even when I felt overwhelmed, I felt OK about going to work, even excited. Now, even though I'm more experienced, I have developed anxiety about what types of patients and families I will have to deal with, whether I'll be humiliated by any doctors that day, whether I'm going to be able to get everything done, whether I can physically and mentally make it 12 hours, and whether I'll be able to remember to document everything, etc. All the stresses of the job, I pre-worry and obsess over. When I'm at work, my anxiety isn't even that bad.
Has this happened to anyone else? I suspect it's burnout. Has anyone been able to get through this? I take vacations and plenty of days off, I only work 3 shifts a week, never overtime, we have a great staffing ratio and pretty consistent breaks at my hospital. I'm feeling like my only option, for my sanity, is to get off the floor. I could try another hospital, another unit, another type of nursing, but honestly, I've worked in 3 different hospitals and multiple different units, and I find it to be all about the same.
