Major depression and anxiety disorder

[ssangel]

I am a nurse with major depression and anxiety disorder. I have been a nurse for 30 years and I am a very good nurse. I was terminated from my last job on a mental health unit for sleeping on the job. I was sleeping but I was on my break and in the break room. I have since been diagnosed with sleep apnea. I was unemployed for 6 months but I did collect unemployment because unemployment determined the termination was wrongful but I have not been able to find another job. Since then I have been awarded disability for my condition but I still want to return to work parttime. I never kept my mental heallth illness a secret and was open to c0-workers and management so I feel they have been after me for a while. I have have 4 hospitalizations and receive ECT monthly to stay in remission. I live in a small town with few RN jobs and the one hospital in this area controls the community as far as nursing is concerned. There are several LTC facility but they all want LPN's. I would even work for LPN wages in order to have a nursing job as I can only make a centain amount per month. I am considering getting a job in another field as I need to be with people and stay busy but would love to find a nursing job. Need advise.

[NurseGirl525, ASN, RN]

I completely understand what you are saying, but why not take some time and take care of you? I suffer from major depression and it took me a little while to get better. It was about finding the right meds and realizing as long as you keep fighting it, the depression will over take you. I was also on disability, not for depression, but other issues. And I fought it and eventually I did not want to get out of bed and I wouldn't even take care of myself. I realized that I was important and I took small, baby, steps to get there. It took awhile but I did and I am doing much better than I ever expected.

[VivaLasViejas, ASN, RN]

The above poster is right. It sounds like you need to get your illness under much better control before you start thinking about jobs. As I'm sure you're aware, ECT can cause problems with short-term memory, and you would do well to be done with those treatments before even considering a return to nursing.

I'm also pretty sure you know that the stresses inherent in nursing work can exacerbate mental and emotional instability. FWIW, I had to retire from clinical nursing last year because of memory problems, anxiety, and distractibility associated with my bipolar 1 disorder, which is now under good control, but the memory issues remain. (I take some fairly heavy-duty medications which help regulate my moods, but play hell with my ability to remember details or multi-task.)

My suggestion to you would be for you to see how you feel after all your ECT treatments end and your illness is well-managed on medications and therapy alone. If you really want to work, you may want to consider doing something relatively simple like being the admissions nurse, or the quality-assurance or infection control nurse for an LTC. I did that for awhile just before I left nursing, and it was amazingly low-stress. (I went from there to a job as a state surveyor, but that was like jumping from the frying pan into the fire and I washed out of the training program.)

Bottom line: Take care of YOU before you try taking care of anyone else. Once your illness has been in remission for a while, you may very well be able to go back to nursing. But please, be discreet about who you talk to about it; MI still carries quite a stigma, and personally I've never found it useful to be openly mentally ill in my professional life. Just saying.

Wishing you the best. :)

[ssangel]

Thank you. I will wait about going back to nursing, maybe never. But I do want a simple job because I need to be out with other people. Maybe retail sales. I can only earn a small amount on disability.

[MrChicagoRN, RN]

I have little specific advice except perhaps adding NAMMI to your resource pool.

Also, since you do require maintenance ECT, if that's going to interfere with your functioning perhaps you could consider TMS therapy. Trans Magnetic Stimulation does not require anesthesia or sedation, or have the ST side effects of ECT. It does require more frequent treatments but clients often drive themselves to and from the treatment. I don't know if that would work for you, or if your insurance would cover it (it's a relatively new therapy), but it may be something to consider.

Good Luck to you.

[lub dub]

I have little specific advice except perhaps adding NAMMI to your resource pool.

Also, since you do require maintenance ECT, if that's going to interfere with your functioning perhaps you could consider TMS therapy. Trans Magnetic Stimulation does not require anesthesia or sedation, or have the ST side effects of ECT. It does require more frequent treatments but clients often drive themselves to and from the treatment. I don't know if that would work for you, or if your insurance would cover it (it's a relatively new therapy), but it may be something to consider.

Good Luck to you.

Wow, Johns Hopkins does this... Transcranial Magnetic Stimulation (TMS) at The Johns Hopkins Hospital in Baltimore, Maryland

[VivaLasViejas, ASN, RN]

My psychiatrist does TMS too. He's involved with the mood-disorders clinic in my area and is an integrative practitioner who also does acupuncture and specializes in psychosomatic medicine. The trouble with TMS is that it's expensive (~$8000 in my neck of the woods) and most insurance doesn't cover it.