I'm going insane!!!

You need to get some help. See a counselor or a clergy person. You are not coping. Nursing is the most stressful job. Home Care is the least stressful job in Nursing. This is not about your job, necessarily. This is about your anxiety level. Get some help. Pray.

Psych nursing can be extremely stressful, depending on your patients. Not all psych patients are medically stable, and when they're hospitalized, they are sooo far from psychiatrically stable sometimes that it's mind-boggling. You will have to monitor and intervene constantly. Listening is a skill you'll use, but not counseling so much, except in the "therapeutic use of self" sense. Often there's not time to do as much of that as you'd like.

People mess up. We're human. Everyone makes mistakes. I'm glad you're going to see a counselor. It sounds like you're very very overwhelmed. I'm concerned that you don't believe in psych medications, since if you're a psych nurse you'll be dispensing them and educating your patients about them. Your personal belief might come across to your patients. Also, I think you might have an inaccurate attitude toward them. They work for lots of people! Maybe you just haven't had the one that will work for you, or the right dose.

What do you do to relax? What do you do for fun? I'm concerned about you!

Get help before ineffective coping mechanisms really start to hurt you (over eating, anger..........you said its affecting your relationship, drinking, isolation).

Dont be too proud to use the employee assistance offered at most hospitals. Find something in your personal life that will add perspective to your nursing life. A new hobby or reasserting yourself to something worthwhile (family, church.....whatever).

Choose your outside activities wisely. You seem overwhelmed by the variety nursing confronts you with ("there is so much I dont know"). Hence, your home life should be mostly stable. What I mean by that is, your hobbies and activities should have routine to them.

For instance, I watch the same movies over and over (star wars, shawshank redemption, tombstone). For some reason, it has a calming effect one me.

You seriously need some medication - go see your physician, see if that is the missing piece - best of luck

I have been involved in several fields of nursing, and I can promise you that home health is NOT the least stressful job in nursing, as you are out there on your own with nothing but a phone and whatever supplies are in your car, and little, if any, ancillary support. I've worked psych, ER, private duty, and home health, and the latter, by far, is the most stressful. It's easy for nurses in other areas to thumb their noses at home health nurses. That's all nurses do anyway, talk about how nurses in other fields "don't do nothing," and that's the very reason we are treated poorly by the rest of the medical profession-- we can't stop being predacious to our own.

As far as being medicated, I'd like to see the stats on how many RNs are on SSRIs. I think if you have to be medicated to handle your job, then you need to find another one, which is why I'm in between jobs. When 100% of your peers are medicated, perhaps something needs to change in the work environment; however, practically the whole world is snowed by SSRIs.

Nursing is hard. All of it. Had I been aquainted with a non-married RN and seen the struggles of life (which mainly revolve around career, with no balance for the other things) I would have elected to be a dog breeder, or flower arranger.

Just my two cents...

hi everyone,

I cannot handle the stress/anxiety. I'm always worried I'll do the wrong thing, say the wrong thing. I cannot stand not knowing everything. I cannot stand the unpredictable.

So how do people handle the anxiety of not messing up? I feel like there is so much of nursing that I just dont know!!

I do not believe in anti-anxiety, SSRIs, etc quote]

Relax.

Thats it. Just relax some.

I like your thinking about ssri's... Me too. I have seen psychiatric illness, and borderline personality dissorder is one of my favorites when it comes up!

I would not believe otherwise to the fact that I, and WE are all ignorant to ourselves, right? I can see your back, you can see mine, but niether of us can see our own... I am sure you are doing better than you think, but you sound lost?

True psychiatric illness, requiring meds :;: is a realatively new era, & all, but then again, early western civilizations did not have priveledge to such "chemical imbalance", balancer-out-erzs (you need to research it more! They do mess things up.. up there, in the brain.

Especially when they are continually taken for many years, every single day). Although, I do believe that some people whom are just out loose free in this word definitely would/do benefit greatly from just such scientific break-throughsl...

What don't U know?

Of that, what is most important to know for YOUR part of nursing? You will never master OB if you strictly try to run through Trauma after Trauma...

Get all your certs, and make sure you get them for the right reasons (MONEY!!!) - (Just kidding)

What areas are you weeEEeek in? Learn to improve.

I mean, your just as far along as me, and I try to just soak it up as it comes... It never seems to stop coming...