Leaving work at work.

pandora44 · Nov 11, 2009

My heart breaks for you after reading your original post. I don't have any great answers for you, but I wanted you to know that someone "out there" has heard you. I hate to see a post, especially one asking for help or advice, that doesn't have any responses.

Everyone is deserving of our compassion. Even a murderer, a rapist, a child molester. I don't think that everyone would agree with that but I believe it to be true. I can hate what a person has done but still show them compassion. You do not have to share your thoughts about your patients with your co-workers. Indeed, it sounds like they don't want to hear it. But remember that it is not what you do when everyone is watching but what you do when no one is watching that is important. You can show as much compassion as your role will allow without anyone else every knowing except the patients in your care. A kind work, a few extra minutes spent with a patient, a friendly touch, all these things remind your patients that you, and they, are human and are in an inexplicable way, connected.

If I might gently suggest, the job of corrections nurse may not be the best fit for you. People suffer and hurt everyday, everywhere. You must be able to separate yourself from their pain, and if you are not able to do that it will make you miserable. Indeed, it sounds like it already is. If you have access to an EAP, I would suggest contacting them about some therapy sessions. They would be able to either work though some of these issues and/or support you if you decided to find a new job. Many people also find strength to deal with these issues from their religion. If you belong to a church, talking with you pastor or priest might be helpful.

For myself, I seem constitutionally made for psych nursing but I don't think I could handle corrections. I feel that one of my main roles as a psych nurse is to bear witness to the pain and suffering of other people. These are the people that society has forgotten and would like never to think about again. But I don't have to solve their problems. I just have to listen and make sure that they understand that someone hears them.

I acknowledge that the world is a difficult place. That bad things happen to good people. That life is not fair. I wish it were otherwise but its not. But somehow, at the end of the shift, I am able to walk off the floor and it all slides off me like water off a duck's, um, back. I think about my patients when I'm not at work but I'm also able to let them go.

Sorry, that got a bit long. Bottom line - I don't have a magic answer for you but you've got to learn to step back a little. Some professional counciling might help with that and I urge you to reach out for some more support. For your own mental health, you might want to consider switching from corrections to another type of nursing. It sounds like you really like the medical aspect of nursing. Maybe you could try something with a medical focus instead.

Please let me know how it goes.

Eirene, ASN, RN · Nov 11, 2009

Pandora-

Thank you so much for your response. I absolutely love psych nurses- I always said I couldn't do your job- but it looks like I'm doing it.

I've thought about my corrections career as a whole for the past few days. The pro's and con's, the good and bad. I have to admit that the pro's and the good's definitely outweigh the bad. 90% of the time I go home and know that I made a difference; even if the difference was made in a criminals life. I'm going to give it a good year and re-evaluate it then.

I feel so inept when it comes to the psych portion. I've never been professionally trained. The most experience I have is when we would get the occasional drug overdose at the hospital. I think I'm going to look at different classes offered at the college that specifically relates to psychiatric nursing so I can understand it a bit more. It can't hurt.

Anyway- thank you for your response. It really helped.

Smitty08 · Nov 19, 2009

It must be a very difficult environment to work in. From what I have seen in my work SO many mentally ill clients make very bad choices when they are manic or dysregulated due to substances or psychotic and -voila! - they end up in jail. The jails seem to be another type of psych. hospital in our fractured health care system. How tragic for the one's imprisoned for psychiatric reasons. GRANTED there are many there for all the RIGHT reasons and society needs to be protected from them. I'm talking about the others, the ones who were not scooped up by the mental health system, they may have had bad lawyers, bad historys, no family - whatever. That group needs treatment not incarceration. That is the part that would probably haunt me the most. I wonder if that is a part that is troubling you, dear "original poster!"