Is nursing for me? Taking it's toll on my life..

[invu]

Hey everybody,

I've had a few short comings. Straight out of high school I went to an LVN/LPN school and I dropped out after the first semester! It's not that I neglected my studies, it's just that I was over-whelmed with a sea of information and I felt like my teacher was wasting my time because she was blowing us off in lecture. She just rants off like a robot and everything she was talking about was going in one ear and out the other. Every morning I dreading going to lectures. On the other hand, I did exceptionally well in clincals. I was considered by my clinical instructor to be " very talented when dealing with patients and procedures". I didn't have any distractors. I didn't have a girlfriend at the time or any types of drama in my life. My parents did everything they could to help me pass my course, but I couldn't. How I failed was at the end of the semester I got a score of 72% when passing was 75%.

Soon after failing out of LVN/LPN school I went to a community college. I thought maybe try nursing here instead of a private school? I did pretty well with my GE's getting A's and B's. I even got A's in chemistry and anatomy. But when I got to physiology, things changed. For our first exam I studied about an hour everyday like I normally do and I got an F. I stepped up my game and thought I'll study harder for the second test. When I got the result back, I ended up getting a D+. The only way to catch up was to get A's on all the following test which I find to be unrealistic because I tried my best but still got a D+. So to save my GPA of 3.2 I dropped physiology and hoping to re-take it with a different teacher.

I'm starting to have doubts about the profession I'm going into and my self-esteem has taken a blow. I feel like I'm wasting my time and I'm not sure if I want to do this anymore. School stresses me out and I've fallen into a mild depression since I started college. I lose sleep at night and I've thought about suicide a few times since graduating high school. I don't really have friends anymore because they have moved away or just lost touch. I now just have a loving girlfriend who supports me emotionally more then my parents. I failed LVN school and now physiology. Everything I'm doing is for my parents and the money. I told my parents how I feel and what's going on, but they pound me about doing nursing and it's THE ONLY WAY. Both my parents are CLS (clinical lab scientist) and have very, very high expectations of me.

I turned 21 last February and it's May now. Next semester starts mid September so I have nearly 5 months of downtime. I signed up for a Phlebotomy program on June 6 which lasts 1 month then I'll get my certificate. Sometimes I wonder if I can make Phlebotomy a career if all else fails? Please, give me some input on what I should do or some thoughts you have.

[mustlovepoodles, RN]

You have my sympathy. Nursing school is hard any way you slice it. I had a friend in my RN program that was great in clinicals and just couldn't pass the state boards. She took it several times and couldn't pass. She ended up working as a dialysis tech, very happy, I might add.

Maybe phlebotomy would be a good way to go. I would expect you could do it in a short amount of time and get to work quickly. then if you decide to revisit nursing in the future, you'll have a job that can support you.

If nursing is your dream, then you'll acheive it eventually. If nursing is *their* dream you need to think very hard about your career choice. My sister was in pre-med, brilliant girl. But she worked 2 weeks as a unit clerk in the Lab--that did it. She couldn't deal with all the body fluids and she hated sick patients. Went back to college, withdrew from the pre-med program(accompanied by the wailing and gnashing of teeth: her professors and my dad), and declared her REAL major, the love of her life. Music. She's done it for over 24 years. Although she'll never be rich, she loves what she's doing and she gets to do creative stuff every day. That's worth way more than having the big salary she would have had as a doctor.