I'm in my fourth semester of nursing school going for my BSN. I'm a 22 yr old male. I've been working in the hospital as a CNA night shift for 6 months now. I can honestly say I hate my job. I get sad on the days that I have to go to work. I feel like a part of me as a person is being taken away whenever I go to work. I hate the way the hospital looks, and when i'm inside a patient's room getting vitals; I get depressed when i look out the windows at the mountains seeing the sun set and my day is basically gone. The other day i was sitting for a patient who was elderly and confused post surgery. I decided to take him to a big window outside his room on the unit and look at the clouds and mountains. He said Wow! And did'nt want to go back to his room, luckily his medicine wasn't ready and I didn't want to go back in there either. We stayed starring out the window for and hour. I felt connected with him more than a simple "can i get your vital signs" type employee. I felt like i could get away mentally, but the days when i'm at the nursing station or running from room to room just completing tasks, I think about the world outside the hospital and the laughter, people walking through the malls, parks, friends sitting at the dinner tables catching up, or even a slow paced office job sitting by a window answering phone calls looking a glittering lights in the distance. With most patients im too focused and busy to get to know them and I lose touch or maybe never grasp it in the first place. Some patients like the elderly guy above i'm able to talk to and feel some type of empathy for their current state of being despite all their years of hard work and relationships lost. I also fear if I will too end up in their condition or similar once I am old. Sick, lonely, weak, tired, unheard, dependent. When i'm working my twelve hour shifts I find myself lost and functioning as a robot by midshift and sometimes I turn on music to bring me together. Then i look at the nurses and see them running around sweating like me, constantly worried about everything and I worry about my health and stress level in the future. I get tired of feeling this way.
My hate for my job has began to spill over into my enthusiasm for nursing and nursing school. I am still passing, but I just do not have an interest and the mere fact of just finishing nursing school has become a "task" to complete because i've invested so much time thus far. I wonder about other occupations like accounting, teaching, singing, etc. BUT when im spending a little "me time" i like to read about diseases, medications and their mechanisms of actions. When i am being taught to tell a patient to avoid grapefruit juice or green leafy veggies i'm usually sitting in classed bored and feel like it's a joke. I hate how i'm being taught more about nursing implications than the disease itself IT DRIVES ME INSANE because the implications aren't thought provoking enough. At least most of them. I feel like I just don't know enough about diseases and illnesses themself and to be honest thats all I truely like. I'm in debt with stafford loans so I have to finish my degree because I do not like to owe anyone. I'm so lost now and sometimes I feel like I may have made a mistake going for nursing but i like learning about diseases and treatments. My mom and friends say its normal to be depressed when you are almost done with NS. But i view it as false assurance because nobody feels my emotions. I get tired of feeling this way.
