jobs

I've done a little bit of a lot of things, and a lot of a few other things. I have bipolar 1 and struggle with anxiety as well, and I've found that low-stress jobs don't really exist in nursing. The closest to low-stress job I've had is my current PRN job doing weekend admissions in a skilled nursing facility, but I'm leaving nursing entirely to take a position as a state surveyor. I just can't do it anymore. Part of it has to do with my illness, but I'm also nearing 55 and physically can't take the pounding anymore either.

I think your goals are laudable and possible; but you need to be aware that you are more than likely going to do some time in the trenches before you can go into QA. (After all, how can you know what constitutes quality of care if you've never performed it?) In the meantime, you MUST stick with your treatment regimen and see your psychiatrist regularly---RN school and nursing itself are hard enough under the best of circumstances; with a mental illness it's vastly more difficult. But it's not impossible, so go for it!

I'm an ADN who has somehow been incredibly lucky enough to do everything I wanted to do in nursing (and then some). I would recommend going the BSN route, if you can, because it's the entry point for many jobs that are no longer available to nurses with my level of education. I've been an actual RN for almost 17 years, but I was a CNA and nursing student before that. So I have about 20 years all tolled.

I have had a great deal of difficulty with short-term memory and distractibility over the past couple of years. Part of it may be related to aging, but the lion's share belongs to my BP and the meds I take to treat it. This is the main reason why I had to give up active nursing. I do better with memory when my illness is well controlled, but I'll never be sharp enough to work the floor again---I can't deal with rapidly-shifting priorities, e.g. emergencies/phone calls/staff or family questions/meds/falls etc. Because I feel I am unsafe at any speed, I took myself off the floor a few months ago, and all I've done since then are med passes, admissions, and some quality-assurance work.

This does NOT mean that the career of a nurse with MI will follow the same course. Many, many nurses have a mental health condition and are successful; in fact, I have had a pretty good career myself even though I've fought this thing for a long time (certainly long before I was ever diagnosed with it). Don't let your illness define you---yes, it is a part of you, but it doesn't have to run your life or make you feel like a loser. It took me quite a while after my diagnosis to learn that. Good luck to you!